This Week's Sneak Peek

This is going to be another one of those cartoons which reminds me of "Our Boarding House with Major Hoople."

"Our Boarding House..." by Bill Freyse & Tom McCormick, March 11, 1969

No action, but plenty of dialogue.

Shoot for the Moon

It's the fiftieth anniversary of humankind's first steps on the moon, so Spaceback Saturday takes a look at editorial cartoonists' reaction to this amazing scientific achievement.

"Across the Threshold of Dreams..." by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, July 21, 1969

Seen against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, urban and campus unrest, and assassinations, Americans, and people the world over, latched onto the safe landing and return of the Apollo 11 astronauts as a sign that there was still cause for optimism for humankind.

"Start a Whole New Chapter" by Karl Hubenthal in Los Angeles Herald Examiner, July 20/21, 1969

Sci Fi movies and TV have made the idea of galactic space travel almost routine, but consider what a feat traveling to the moon truly was. Only fifty years earlier, man had just flown across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. The distance to the moon is almost 70 times farther. There is enough space between the Earth and our moon that all of the other planets in our solar system would fit between them with room to spare. (You'd have to angle the rings out of the way, but still...) And, as demonstrated by Apollo 13, if something goes wrong, you can't just do a U-turn and come back. Or wait for the next shuttle.

"First Time in Eternity" by Reginald Manning in Arizona Republic, July 20/21, 1969

"One small step for man, a giant leap for mankind" was the theme of a great many of the first response cartoons. Reg Manning put astronaut Neil Armstrong's name on that footstep, while John Fischetti acknowledged the second half of the quotation.

"Imprint" by John Fischetti in Chicago Daily News, July 20/21, 1969

I have to admit that my own memories of the moon landing are somewhat hazy. We watched live coverage of all the Gemini and Apollo blast-offs, usually on NBC with Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Frank McGee, on a 21" black and white TV. Where we lived, it was a sunny Sunday afternoon when the Eagle landed. The first moon walk was past my bedtime, but this was an event not to be missed, and I'm positive Dad — born in the same year as all three astronauts — let us kids stay up for it.

"Unbound" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, July 21, 1969

TV coverage showed us handheld models in the studio and fuzzy footage from the lander's camera; the better resolution film would wait until the astronauts had safely returned, and we didn't see color photos until the newsmagazines came a week later. Unfortunately, since the coverage of the moon walk was repeated several times after the live broadcast, and again and again when these anniversaries come along, I have difficulty separating the original experience from all the others.

"Yankee Tourist" by Gene Basset for Scripps-Howard Newspapers, ca. July 21, 1969

Speaking of handheld models, I do remember piecing together plastic models of the orbital craft and the lunar lander. I think they came "free inside" cereal boxes, but I'm not positive about that.

Well, since nine-year-old me has so little to say to me fifty years later, let's get back to what the adults were up to.

"Moon, June, Croon ... Armstrong?" by Thomas Darcy in New York Newsday, July, 1969

As the guy creating the first footprint on the moon, Neil Armstrong was name-checked in more cartoons than his fellow Apollo 11 crew members were.

"New Craters on the Moon" by John Collins in Montreal Gazette, July 22, 1969

This Canadian cartoonist makes me think of the Onion's Stan Kelly with his "Our Watching Nail-Biting World" in the upper corner, but it's nice that he includes Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin's lunar footprint. (That nail-biting world is kind of superfluous for this cartoon; nevertheless, you do have to appreciate that, given that nobody had ever landed on the moon before, nobody had ever lifted off from it, either.)

Illustration by Chuck Livolsi in Pittsburgh Press, July 23, 1969

This front page cartoon by the Pittsburgh Press's Chuck Livolsi is unusual for singling out astronaut Michael Collins, who was tasked with piloting the Apollo 11 spacecraft in orbit round and around the moon and never got to set foot on it. Ever.

Uncaptioned, by Wayne Stayskal in Chicago American-Today, July 21, 1969

Wayne Stayskal used the occasion to pay tribute to the three astronauts who died aboard Apollo 1.

"And a Boomerang" by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier Journal, ca. July 20, 1969

Leading up to the Apollo 11 moon landing, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were in a "space race" in which the Russians had a head start, having launched the first space satellite and the first man into space. They were, moreover, the first to land hardware on the moon and to fly another craft around the far side of the moon, both in 1959 as part of their unmanned Luna program.

"Upstager" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Press, ca. July 19, 1969

A day after the Apollo 11 moon landing, the U.S.S.R. announced that its Luna 15 had touched down in the Mare Crisium, about 500 miles from where the Eagle landed. Launched three days before Apollo 11, it was supposed to return samples of lunar soil to Russia; but since it didn't so much "touch down" as "crash" — a detail overlooked by official Soviet news reports — it failed in its mission.

"Eclipsed" by Bill Crawford for Newspaper Enterprise Association, ca. July 22, 1969

The Russians did have plans for manned missions to the moon, but unlike the Americans, the Soviets tended to announce their space missions only after they were successfully completed. (The U.S. and Soviet space programs did, however, share their flight plans to avoid any collision between Apollo 11 and Luna 15.) After failed attempts in 1971 and '72 to launch rockets equipped with lunar landing craft, the Russians quietly abandoned their manned landing program.

Shortly thereafter, the U.S. abandoned ours.

"I Used to Dream About Going to the Moon" by J. Stockett in Afro-American, July 26, 1969

The marvel of the moon landing didn't stop people from wondering what practical use we had on Earth for a bunch of moon rocks, considering the problems of racial discrimination, poverty, pollution, war, disease, etc., etc.

"Here Man First Set Foot..." by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, ca. July 22, 1969

But the space program gave us Tang and dust busters, so there.

"Next They'll Bring Us a Polluted Atmosphere" by Bill Mauldin in Chicago Sun-Times, ca. July 22, 1969

Why, yes, there is a list of all the crap we have left up there.

Stonewall Semicentennialback Satureve

Given that my blog features my editorial cartoons for the LGBTQ+ press, plus a regular Saturday feature of old cartoons marking this or that anniversary, you might expect that tomorrow's post will feature a bunch of 50-year-old cartoons about the Stonewall Riots.

Well, it won't.

The fact is, the nation's editorial cartoonists hardly took note of Stonewall (and most probably would have drawn cartoons demeaning the rioters if they had). Outside of New York, few newspapers even reported the uprising. As riots go, Stonewall was overshadowed by racial riots in several U.S. cities, including Omaha, Nebraska; Kokomo and Marion, Indiana; Des Moines, Iowa; Middleton, Ohio; and Waterbury, Connecticut that same week.

"The President Says He'll Cover That..." by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, ca. June 28, 1969

But since it is the 50th anniversary of Stonewall today, here are a few modest examples of what editorial cartoonists were drawing about at the time. The Nixon administration, and, for some reason, former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford, announced plans to withdraw some of the American troops from the war in Vietnam. The Nixon administration also withdrew the nomination of Dr. John Knowles to be Assistant Secretary for Health and Science Affairs in what was then the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

"Tell Them We Did Everything We Could" by Gene Basset for Scripps-Howard Newspapers, ca. July 1, 1969 

One of the issues that sunk the Knowles nomination was his support of all-inclusive health insurance so that poor people could afford health care, by the way, just in case you thought that was a new-fangled concept.

"Aren't We Suppose to Get Some Foreign Aid First" by Wayne Stayskal in Chicago Today American. ca. June 30, 1969

And let's see... We were about to send our first manned mission to the moon — which is pretty fricking amazing when you consider that the moon landing was 50 years ago now, and 50 years before that, we had only just succeeded in flying across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.

"His Critics Never Broke Through...," unsigned (Ted Shearer?) in Washington (D.C.) Afro-American, July 1, 1969

And Chief Justice Earl Warren stepped down from the Supreme Court. I've already discussed how Republicans Merrick-Garlanded President Lyndon Johnson's nominees to succeed Warren, so it's hardly worthwhile to repeat myself today.

"That Cat's on Crab Grass" by Bill Mauldin in Chicago Sun-Times, ca. June 29, 1969

Oh, there was plenty of other stuff, but most of it just doesn't inspire a whole lot of nostalgia (I'm not quite old enough to wax nostalgic about 1969 anyway...although I have sometimes wished I still had the drug awareness workbook we had in elementary school, just to see how well I remember it) or insightful commentary.

"To Soothe the Savage Breast" by Bill Crawford for Newspaper Enterprise Association, ca. July 1, 1969

So tune back here tomorrow morning for a slew of cartoons half a century older than these.

Q Toon: June 28, 1969

This June marks the 50-year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, generally regarded as one of the key turning points in the gay liberation movement (as it was called before we became an unpronounceable acronym).

For anyone needing to catch up, New York police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, at 1:20 a.m. on June 28, 1969. Typically, these raids netted a dozen or so humiliated gays, lesbians, transsexuals or transvestites ("transgender" not yet being in common parlance) hoping against hope to keep their names and photos out of the newspaper.

But whether it was the weather, or the death of Judy Garland, or Canada having just decriminalized homosexuality, or Freddy Mercury in retrograde, the customers of the Stonewall decided not to go quietly. They refused to cooperate with the police, who then announced that they would arrest everyone in the bar. A crowd gathered as the police waited for additional paddy wagons to arrive; police escalated their use of force, and the riot began. And lasted through the weekend, flaring up anew on Wednesday in response to insulting reportage in The Village Voice.

Today's cartoon would have taken place in a relatively quiet moment.

So, then, how far have we come in the half century thence?

LGBTQ actors are much freer to be out and open about their sexuality than their counterparts fifty years ago; and films about us do not consistently portray us as doomed social misfits who die unloved and unmourned by the final reel.

Marriage equality was hardly on anybody's radar in 1969. Keeping one's job and staying out of jail were more pressing issues. The burden is now on the religious right as they fight to restore for themselves the privilege of being able to discriminate against us in employment, housing, and health and public services.

With the war in Vietnam becoming increasingly unpopular, military service wasn't a hot issue for the gay liberation movement, either. But there were nevertheless those at the time whose career calling was in the military; and in spite of failed half-measures such as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," sexual orientation is no longer an automatic bar to military service and advancement. Whether the Corrupt Trump Administration's current regressive policies prove to be a temporary setback or not remains to be seen.

I'd still rate Pete Buttigieg as a long shot to be inaugurated president on January 20, 2020, but taking his candidacy seriously at all would have been inconceivable in 1969. Still, our prescient perp overlooks the fact that other countries have or have had openly LGBTQ heads of state in the 21st Century. And none of them have been consumed by fire or brimstone.

The tendency toward finding community in urban centers has concentrated our political power there and in the one political party left with concern for urban issues. It has, unfortunately, contributed to the acreage advantage the other political party has to diminish our influence on a state and national scale by the gerrymander, and to disregard the Log Cabineers, GOProudsters, and Caitlyn Jenners along its fringe.

Flexing its legislative, financial and current executive muscle, that political party has spent the past fifty years stacking the courts with reactionary activists, so this is no time to trust that progress made will be progress kept.