Unique New York

Since New York Governor Andrew Cuomo abruptly announced his resignation this week, I decided I would dig up some of my old cartoons about New York politics for today. 

They say if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. But try telling that to Thomas E. Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller, or this lady from one of Gotham's outer boroughs:

February, 1999

Or, for that matter, this gal from Flatbush:

Q Syndicate, May, 1999

New York politics can be pretty colorful, being so close under the bright lights of the national media as they are. Politicians from Brooklyn to Corning to Hyannisport to Little Rock are all drawn there, like moths to a flame.

in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, Nov. 23, 2003

Somehow, I never drew any cartoons about Eliot Spitzer while he was governor of New York, in spite of his failed 2007 proposal to legalize same-sex marriage in the Empire State, or the sex scandal the following year which linked him to a high-priced prostitution organization and brought about his downfall.

The Business Journal, however, enlisted me to illustrate an editorial critical of him when he was New York Attorney General. The Beej had no love for the Democrat investigating Wall Street securities fraud cases that had been dropped by the federal Securities Exchange Commission.

Q Syndicate, April, 2009

This is an example of a cartoon that misfired badly.

Spitzer's successor, David Paterson, also took up the cause of marriage equality; but his proposal to legalize same-sex marriage caught marriage equality advocates unprepared. My cartoon to illustrate that could have used a second panel showing those advocates "scrambling to get into their tuxedoes"; as drawn, however, some readers understandably read it as a knock on the legally blind Paterson.

Marriage equality failed in the New York State Senate that year, eight Democrats joining all 30 Republicans to vote nay.

Q Syndicate, March, 2010

This cartoon came to mind last week when Steve Brodner noted on Facebook that Andrew Cuomo still has a $5.1 million book deal pending; Brodner invited his followers to submit possible book titles, saying that he would illustrate the best one. If I hadn't already drawn this cartoon about New York Congressman Eric Massa, forced to resign over allegations that he sexually harassed male staffers, I might be waiting to see if it would get the Brodner treatment.

Q Syndicate, June, 2011

You may have forgotten Eric Massa, but I'll bet most of you remember fellow Congresscritter Anthony "What's In A Name" Weiner. You might also sense a theme on what it takes to bring a New York politician down.

Q Syndicate, June, 2011

Before my cartoon in last Saturday's post, this was the only cartoon I had ever drawn of Governor Andrew Cuomo. Soon after taking office as Governor, Cuomo was able to succeed where Spitzer and Paterson had failed, signing the Marriage Equality Act into law on June 24, 2011. A certain President of the United States at the time was still reluctant to come that far.

Which would bring us to another recent President of the United States... you know... the one who expected to be reinaugurated yesterday...

But he was never actually a New York politician.

And the less said about him, the better.

Q Toon: Republican Group Endorses Mitt Romney!

The Log Cabin Republicans endorsed Mitt Romney for President this month after a brief meeting with the candidate. I guess his staunch opposition to marriage equality as a candidate and as Governor of Massachusetts never came up.

Highlights of their endorsement announcement:

"If LGBT issues are a voter's highest or only priority, then Governor Romney may not be that voter's choice. However, Log Cabin Republicans is an organization representing multifaceted individuals with diverse priorities. Having closely reviewed the candidate’s history and observed the campaign, we believe Governor Romney will make cutting spending and job creation his priorities, and, as his record as Governor of Massachusetts suggests, will not waste his precious time in office with legislative attacks on LGBT Americans. ...

"And for those people who point fearfully to potential vacancies on the United States Supreme Court, we offer a reminder: five of the eight federal court rulings against DOMA were written by Republican-appointed judges. Mitt Romney is not Rick Santorum, and Paul Ryan is not Michele Bachmann."

They then go on to argue that Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter, and Joe Biden is Anthony Weiner.

Q Toon: That Wascally Weiner

Well, after all that talk last week about not jumping on the Weiner cartoon bandwagon, here I go anyway.

My syndicate editor responded in a strongly worded e-mail to my cartoon proposal by saying that it is the attacks on Anthony Weiner that are shameful. Perhaps this cartoon's protagonist (who is supposed to be another patient at the Picklethorp Institute, in case that isn't clear) isn't far off the mark for most gays' response to l'Affaire Weiner. Gay people nowadays tend to be more open about their sexuality than the purveyors of straight mores, which is, after all, what National Coming Out Day (October 11) and Gay Pride Month (you're soaking in it!) are all about.

I was a little surprised by the force of my editor's response, however, since she is a lesbian, and presumably even less impressed by photos of Weiner tenting his boxer shorts than the straight gals to whom the Congressman was tweeting them. By the way, I thought Kristen Schaal's Daily Show observation that women do not share men's fascination with what penises look like was spot on. Could it be that homophobia is a by-product of straight men's realization that what they always thought to be their best come-on approaches probably appeal more to gay men than to straight women?

So, this week's cartoon carries that thought a little further.

Now that I've drawn it, I'm glad I've got that Weiner business out of my system. It wasn't so bad after all. I only regret that I didn't populate the background with Schwarzenegger, Edwards, Vitter, Ensign, Woods, and the rest of the lot.

Weiners in Cartoons

Yesterday, I discussed how a story like Anthony Weiner's boxer tweet spawns many very similar cartoons. It also inspires cartoon ideas that no responsible newspaper will ever print.

I guarantee you will not see this cartoon by Sandy Huffaker in your local newspaper:

American editors are ever so careful these days not to offend. They're not so worried about the blue-haired ladies who might cancel their subscriptions in a huff as they are about advertisers who will cancel their advertising for fear of the wrath of Blue-Haired Americans for Decency Dot Org.
Editors in Europe are less prudish than their American counterparts. Here's a cartoon by Giorgio Forattini. The subject of the cartoon is Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini, who was about to succeed himself as head of a second coalition government:

Editors, advertisers, and cable TV newspersonalities would be shocked, shocked, I tell you, to see that cartoon on the editorial page of an American newspaper. Would you believe that the cartoon ran on the front page of a prominent newspaper?
(front page of La Stampa, Turin, August 17, 1982.)

The Denver Post killed a 2000 cartoon by Mike Keefe depicting the state of Florida dangling from Uncle Sam's groin ("Electile Dysfunction"). The St. Petersburg Times spiked a Clay Bennett cartoon in 1994 showing Bill Clinton wearing an "I'm With Stupid" t-shirt with the arrow pointing down at his crotch -- and the cartoon didn't even show any portrayal of anything penile. These, and other classics, found the light of day in David Wallis' Killed Cartoons: Casualties from the War on Free Expression (2007, W. W. Norton & Company). It's a wonderful read, and I thoroughly recommend it.

Where's My Weiner?

A friend of mine asked me why I drew this week's cartoon about Roger Ailes's bomb-proof glass office instead about Congressman Anthony and his famous Weiner. After all, everybody is doing Wiener jokes this week.

To a significant extent, I thought that the Roger Ailes story, from an article in Rolling Stone, deserved more exposure than it has gotten.

The Weiner story, on the other hand, has gotten so much exposure that it's hard to find some angle that hasn't already been bludgeoned to death by cartoonists for daily papers. This is one of those stories where the cartoon practically draws itself -- which means that several cartoonists let it do just that. I've seen seven or eight cartoons of the congressman singing some parody of the Oscar Mayer Wiener song, for starters. "I can't say with certitude" is the punch line of a handful of others, and, of course, In more cartoons than one can legally shake a stick at, Weiner appears in his undershorts, flashing passers-by, and in the company of the crowded field of other male politicians who have been caught in sexual shenanigans.

Daryl Cagle calls this phenomenon a "Yahtzee" whenever it happens, and it happens a lot. Take the recent World Health Organization report that cell phones might contribute to cancer risk. That spawned several cartoons in showing Death (that hooded figure with a scythe) on a cell phone saying "Can you hear me now?" The other common approach was to draw someone talking or texting on a cell phone about the WHO report while driving, immediately prior to a car accident. As Editorial Explanations noticed, these cartoons were alike right down to the color of the car. (I have to wonder if the driver in the John Cole cartoon is receiving the text message sent by the driver in the Gary Markstein cartoon.)

We cartoonists also have to compete with the Daily Show, Colbert Report, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and all the other late-night hosts, whose teams of writers can snap up all the easy jokes and have them broadcast before our ink is dry. I've rejected several cartoon ideas because one sounds like something Saturday Night Live would do, or another is bound to be on a graphic over John Stewart's shoulder.

Those graphics over John Stewart's shoulder really get me, sometimes. Why oh why can't they just settle on one over-the-shoulder joke? Why do they persist on some of the best stories in showing one joke after another there? At least David Letterman has the decency to pace himself, even telling the same joke night after night for months on end.

So, anyway, my apologies for disappointing all those readers who were relishing the prospect of another Weiner cartoon. I'll catch up on the Weiner jokes later.

This Week's Sneak Peek

I guess this week's cartoon has nothing to do with New York Congressman Anthony Weiner.

But if it did, it would probably be captioned "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dick."