Q Toon: Moving Right Along

With our self-styled Secretary of War ordering war crimes in the Caribbean, and the President of the United States falling asleep at a meeting called for the express purpose of finding out how deep his cabinet of ass-kissers can give him tongue, it may seem a mere distraction to focus on the Secretary of the Treasury dismissing complaints about inflation by suggesting that people in "blue" states should just move to "red" ones.

But my bailiwick is the LGBTQ+ press, and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent is gay. That was my excuse for paying so much attention to the previous Secretary of Transportation, and I'm sticking to it. If the next president's Secretary of Energy is a lesbian, I'll probably have to come up with a bunch of cartoons about her, too.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bessent's advice ain't gonna do ya a heckofalotta good if you already live in a red state. And if you're a New Yorker who's fond of Ethiopian-Peruvian fusion cuisine, the most au courant Broadway extravaganzas, or having an international airport within Uber distance, you might want to reconsider relocating to Shelby, Montana.

And you might want to check out what the pay grade for your line of work is out there, too.

By the way, if inflation is making life difficult for you, I really wouldn't recommend moving to Argentina.

Q Toon: It's About Time

Say what you will about Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA). Republicans came to Congress with a majority pledging openness and transparency, and Johnson has been very open and transparent about not having taken the time to find out what's going on in the country.

You can ask him about the Trump regime's graft and corruption, Trump's granting pardons to people the President has never heard of, Trump posting scatological videos on Ministry of Truth Social, Trump bombing boats off the coast of Venezuela seemingly at random, Trump bailing out the Milei regime in Argentina and taking in shiploads of Argentinian beef while our own government is shut down and our farmers are losing markets to China thanks to Trump's misguided tariff policies. 

Johnson's answer is pretty much the same.

“I’m not trying to dodge the question,” the top lawmaker said. “I haven’t had time to get the details, OK? That’s still on my list, things-to-do list.”

We know that whatever is keeping Speaker Johnson so busy he can't get around to his things-to-do list, it isn't running the House of Representatives. When Congress failed to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open, he sent the members home. When Arizona voters sent Adelita Grijalva to succeed her late father in Congress, Johnson told them, "All representatives are currently out of the office, but your call is very important to us. Please hang up and your vote will be ignored in the order you get redistricted."

Why, then, is Speaker Johnson unable to find the time to get anything done, to catch up on the news, to notice that a 34-time-convicted felon is running roughshod over the U.S. Constitution?

You may be holding it in your hands right now.

Every app on your phone is designed to be a bigger timesuck than the others.

I don't know much about that app Mr. Johnson and Mr. Johnsonson use to keep tabs on each other's sexual activity, but you have to know that it sucks its users in and keeps them engaged with the promise that if they just keep reading on, pushing its buttons, racking up higher scores, clicking on those video reels of attractive people abstaining from sex, something really worthwhile is bound to come up on the screen any minute.

By the way, if you liked this cartoon about Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, here are some others you might enjoy.

Too Jejune for Junes

Last Saturday, I asked what was so rare as a J.N. "Ding" Darling cartoon in June. The answer, for now, would be mine. 40 years ago, my June cartoons were rare indeed, whereas "Ding" drew nearly three dozen of them 100 Junes ago.

"South Atlantic," June, 1982

Starting out as a cartoonist for college newspapers, I didn't have anyone to publish anything I drew in June at first. But if I had an idea I really liked, I'd draw it anyway. Clearly, I had expended a considerable amount of thought coming up with this parody of "South Pacific" about the Falkland War between Great Britain and Argentina in May and June of 1982.

"Contingencywise," June, 1982

Drawing cartoons like this one about the resignation of Reagan's first Secretary of State, Al Haig, was useful in terms of keeping in practice and honing the craft. And in this particular case, beefing up the portfolio of work I would send out to newspapers who might be looking to hire a cartoonist.

"Isn't It a Shame..." in Quayle Quarterly, Winter, 1992?

Skipping ahead one decade, here's a cartoon I drew in June of 1992 that wasn't published for months later. It happens to be the only cartoon I drew in June of 1992 in spite of freelancing for the Racine Journal Times. Perhaps there were no local issues of interest that month.

Instead, I offered this to a national magazine, The Quayle Quarterly, devoted to the wet-behind-the-ears Vice President of the United States, J. Danforth Quayle. Quayle had spoken out strongly against Candice Bergen's TV sitcom "Murphy Brown" for a plot arc about the title newscaster choosing to become a single mother.

Given the Republican Party's committed opposition to abortion, those of you too young to remember 1992 might have expected Mr. Quayle to have applauded Ms. Brown's decision to carry a pregnancy to term. But those of us with a few more birthdays under the bridge remember that the abortion issue to the religious right was never about when a fertilized egg becomes a human. 

It was always about sex. Sex outside of marriage = always bad. Shame, shame, shame on you, Murphy Brown. And your little bastard, too.

With no other cartoons from June, 1992 to show here, let's now leap ahead another decade.

"Mixed Marriage," for Q Syndicate, June, 2002

To balance the drawing vs. publication discrepancy of my Dan Quayle cartoon, this next cartoon was actually drawn in December (hence the 2001 copyright tag) for release in June.

As helpful as it may be to have some ready-drawn cartoons on hand for those occasions when I wouldn't be sending a fresh new one for syndication, it is nearly impossible to predict what topics and issues will be a propos in the future. Routine events such as Pride Month, Thanksgiving, and Christmas only go so far, and might not coincide with a vacation, health crisis, or everyday writer's block.

Continuing the topic of trying to stay in the closet:

"Out to the Ballgame," June, 2002

Now, I don't remember whether there was some ballpark that observed Pride Month with a Cross-Dressers Get In Free Day in 2002. But this cartoon does remind me of the time a guy pretended to be Front Row Amy at a Milwaukee Brewers game some years back. 

Front Row Amy is a Milwaukee institution of sorts. For years, this young lady has had season tickets in a front row seat behind home plate. She always pays rapt attention to the game, keeps score, and applauds every pitch that goes the Brewers' way. You never, ever see her having refreshments of any kind.

She favors — exclusively — very low-cut tops that highlight her impressive cleavage. In tight TV shots of left-handed batters, you can't miss that cleavage in the background. These days, she always wears a facemask, but Brewers fans would recognize her anywhere.

She doesn't attend each and every home game; her seat may be empty, but there's usually somebody else more than happy to fill such a prime spot. And for one game, it was some dude who showed up in a long-haired black wig and a top that was as low-cut as any of hers.

Until a later inning when he switched to a Batman costume.

Finally, I could have drawn this Pride Month cartoon six months early, but I didn't.

President Obama had rescinded the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy back in December, 2010; and yes, military recruiters did start showing up at Pride events to enlist new recruits. 

The homophobic Right has since dropped the word "recruiting" in favor of the apparently more ominous sounding "grooming," so this cartoon doesn't work as well as it did ten years ago. I mean, this guy could be telling Darlene that he spied a hair stylist's booth or a dog show, but do you even find that sort of thing at Pride events? 

So, no, it doesn't make sense as an editorial cartoon with groomers instead of recruiters. But fear not: there are still opportunities for parody.

Some enchanted evening
You may see a groomer
With a sense of humor
across a crowded room.
You'd better decide
to hang up the phone
And leave any briders or groomers alone!  

South of the Border

Trump's racist ranting against Latinos occasioned last Saturday's post about the U.S. crackdown on Germans during World War I; today, let's catch up on the news south of the Rio Grande at this point in 1918.

When last we checked in on U.S.-Latin American relations, it was coming to light that reports of Pancho Villa's death were greatly exaggerated, but U.S. expeditionary forces were being withdrawn from Mexico in exchange for promises by Mexican President Venustiano Carranza to do more to stop Villa's border raids.

"Gulliver en la Tierra de los Liliputienses" in El Momo, Mexico City, before February, 1918

The above cartoon depicts Carranza tied down by members of his own political party, the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista. I regret that that I cannot credit the Latin-American cartoonists in this blog post by name; they were not credited in Cartoons magazine and each of the cartoons appear to have been unsigned. (Given the autocratic tendencies and instability of many Latin American governments, signing one's name to a political cartoon could be hazardous to one's health.)

Pancho Villa was not the only issue dividing Mexico and the U.S. The American occupation of Veracruz in the Tampico Oil Fields affair of 1914 had led to the downfall of Carranza's predecessor and was a continued irritant to the Mexican government. By 1917, the Tampico oil fields were under the control of Manuel Pelaez, whose sympathies toward the Allies did not come without a cost. Cartoons magazine's Latin America correspondent, Harry H. Dunn, described Pelaez's modus operandi:

"These fields, in which are more than 50 wells which flow an average of 100,000 barrels a day, are policed and protected by Manuel Pelaez, better known in the 200 square miles which he controls as "King Pelaez." For this protection, which is real and thoroughly carried out against Mexicans and foreign intruders impartially, Pelaez receives $20,000 a month from the owners of the wells. ... Britishers, Americans and Frenchmen come and go freely in the territory Pelaez controls, but anyone of Teutonic tendencies or anyone against whom the oil well owners have the slightest suspicion is held for examination, or unceremoniously hustled out of that region."

"Moses" in El Momo, Mexico City, before January, 1918

The Mexican government collected its taxes on oil exports on top of the protection payments charged by King Pelaez, but in a move to more effectively control Mexico's most important natural resource,  Carranza ordered Pelaez and his soldiers driven out of the district in November, 1917. This did not result in any savings to Mexico's petroleum customers; Carranza simply raised the petroleum export tax.

"Von Rin Rin y Su Mundo" in El Momo, Mexico City, before January, 1918

Rafael Martinez, the editor of Mexico City's El Demócrata newspaper, was a German sympathizer described by Mr. Dunn, as "right-hand man" to Mexico's Ambassador to Germany, Rafael Zubaran. In 1917, Martinez also acquired rival newspaper El Mundo (which, of course, translates to "The World"). El Momo, a Mexico City satirical magazine, skewered the two, referring to Martinez by the nickname Von Rin Rin ("Von Laugh Laugh") and portraying the ambassador as a bloviating academic.

"Dr. Zubaran" in El Momo, Mexico City, before January, 1918

By now, you may have detected that El Momo (The Mimic) had Yanquí sympathies. Here is a fairly flattering caricature of the American Ambassador to Mexico at this time, Henry P. Fletcher.

There's a lot to unpack in this next cartoon, in which the central characters are El Demócrata's Rafael Martinez and Jose Pavalicini, the pro-American editor of El Universal. The caped figure in black on the far right is germanófilo General Obregón, who despite his German sympathies was on a U.S. tour in early 1918 to promote "friendship between the two nations." Appearing as his nemesis on the far left is aliadófilo General Gonzales.

"En el Signo del Laurel" in El Momo, Mexico City, before February, 1918

For the most part, Latin American countries tried to steer a neutral course in the war, but after three Brazilian ships were torpedoed by the Germans, Brazil declared war on Germany in October, 1917. Brazilian troops would not be significantly involved in the fighting, however; perhaps they would have been if the war had lasted longer. Instead, Brazil's primary contribution to the Allies was its naval patrols of the southern Atlantic, and its exports of beef, beans and sugar.

"Come Over Here, Kid" (possibly by J. Carlos?) in A Careta, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February, 1918 or earlier

The Allies' interception of a note from German chargé d'affaires at Buenos Aires Karl von Luxburg via the Swedish legation to German Foreign Minister Alfred Zimmerman after the sinking of two Argentine ships sparked protests in Argentina, but Argentine President Hipólyto Yrigoyen still refused to be drawn into the conflict.

It was poor psychology, Luxburg wrote, to allow news of such maritime losses to be circulated, therefore Argentine ships should either be left alone altogether or else sunk without a trace, which involved gunning the survivors in lifeboats. Luxburg went on to sneer at the Indianism of South America, make disparaging remarks about Yrigoyen and Foreign Minister Honorio Puerrydon whom he characterized as "a notorious ass and Anglophile." These coldblooded remarks as well as the insults aroused public feeling and German-owned businesses and clubs were wrecked by angry mobs. Luxburg was expelled and in September, 1917 the Argentine Congress voted 76-19 to sever relations with Germany. Yrigoyen, however, was amazingly patient and ignored the clamor of the "best people," continuing diplomatic relations.

"Now Get Out," (possibly by J. Carlos?) in A Careta, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, probably September, 1917.
Contemporary American sources spell the president's name with an "I" instead of a "Y."

Immediately following the U.S. declaration of war, Yrigoyen proposed a conference to be attended by only the Spanish-American states. His plan was to isolate the United States and possibly Brazil from the other American republics and to assert a dominant influence over Latin American affairs. Although most of the invited governments at first accepted the invitation, their enthusiasm soon cooled when they realized how unwise it was to exclude the United States. In the end only Mexico sent delegates, who arrived in Buenos Aires to find that the congress had been postponed indefinitely.

Luxburg's "bundle" in the above cartoon is wrapped in the Swedish flag. Incidentally, instead of Berlin, Luxburg went to Uruguay to represent the German government in Montevideo.

Cartoons magazine thought that his cover illustration from the Argentine magazine Sucesos is complimentary to the American President, but it doesn't appear so to me. Perhaps it was more flattering in color. You decide.

From Sucesos, Buenos Aires, February, 1918 or before.

Raemaekers in America

In the summer of 1917, the famed Dutch cartoonist Louis Raemaekers took up temporary residence on Long Island, New York. As part of his tour of America, he granted an interview to Harold M. Harvey, who wrote a feature article in the September issue of Cartoons Magazine.

"Three years ago, Louis Raemaekers was practically unknown, a painter of portraits and landscapes like his illustrious forefathers and a contributor of an occasional cartoon to an Amsterdam newspaper. Today he is hailed as the greatest cartoonist of the world war. Millions of women have wept over his vivid pictures of devastated Belgium's sufferings; millions of men, fired by his graphic tirades against German cruelty, have sprung to arms with vengeance in their hearts."

"How I Deal with the Small Fry" by Louis Raemaekers, distributed by Land and Water, London, 1917.

There is nothing subtle about Raemaekers's work. Kaiser Wilhelm was typically depicted as the murderer of children in their beds, strangler of Belgian girls, and slaughterer of martyrs. At first, these shocking images were too much for his editors in the officially neutral Netherlands, but they proved immensely popular, and were republished in international newspapers and sold on post cards. "I would not be held in check by an editor," Raemaekers told Harvey. "I will not now. I draw what appeals to me. I will not draw what another man tells me I must draw if I do not believe the idea will bring results."

Because of his inflammatory cartoons, the German government is said to have put a price on his head, prompting him to leave Amsterdam for Paris, and thence to New York.

"This Is For the Hospitals" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, August 24, 1917

Raemaekers resorted again and again to cartoons of skeletons representing Germany, as with the above cartoon drawn to amplify reports that German planes over Verdun had bombed a hospital, then strafed doctors, nurses, and patients as they fled the burning building.

"The German Tango" by Raemaekers, in the Chicago Examiner September 5, 1917

Religious imagery and derisive references to German "Kultur" were two more leitmotifs, coming together in this example.

"Kultur at Wittenburg," by Louis Raemaekers, distributed by Land and Water, London

America favorably impressed Raemaekers, who marveled at the powerful lines of New York City architecture. He found Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt eager to meet with him, and shared this observation of the incumbent president with Mr. Harvey:

"Mr. Wilson, your president, is a remarkable man. A year and a half ago, I did not admire him. I could not understand his delay in entering the war. Today, I admire him all the more for his hesitancy. He was studying his people. He was acting for their best interests. When the psychological moment came, when he knew that the people would support him, he seized the sword and the nation followed. Only the greatest of men could do a thing like that in the face of world-wide criticism."

"Wait and See" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner,  August 13, 1917

The promotional cut line below Raemaekers's cartoon of Kaiser Wilhelm and Woodrow Wilson may give the false impression that the Dutch cartoonist came to work in Chicago; he had contracted with William Randolph Hearst's International News Service out of New York — in spite of, or even because of Hearst's reputation as having pro-German sympathies. But as Raemaekers told it, he considered Hearst's subscribers to be "the most important target group because the readers are poisoned daily by tendentious articles."

Whatever Hearst's leanings, his Chicago newspaper proudly displayed Raemaekers's cartoons on its front page, while its own cartoonist, Harry Murphy, remained on his customary spot on the editorial — that is, the back — page.

"A Fair Return" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, August 15, 1917

One issue Raemaekers took on in September came right to Chicago. There were still Americans against the war, even though they risked arrest for taking what had become a very unpopular stand. The International Workers of the World trade union, which reached a peak of 150,000 members in August of 1917, declared that it would fight against, not for, American capitalism. In response, the Department of Justice raided their headquarters in several cities, and a Chicago federal Grand Jury indicted 166 I.W.W. members for conspiring to hinder the draft and encourage desertion.

Another officially suspect organization was the "People's Council of America for Democracy and Terms of Peace."

"As Thou Sowest" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, September 16, 1917

When Chicago Mayor William "Big Bill" Thompson allowed the People's Council to hold a convention in the Windy City, the Examiner's headlines joined Raemaekers in condemnation. The People's Council  had been denied permission to hold its convention in several other cities, states, and the District of Columbia. Milwaukee's Socialist Mayor Daniel Hoan had put out the welcome mat only to have it revoked by Republican Wisconsin Governor Emanuel Philipp.

Illinois Governor Frank Lowden similarly ordered Chicago Police to prevent the convention; and when that failed, he sent in the state militia and troops at Fort Sheridan. But by then, the People's Council had wrapped up its meeting and departed.

"How Can They Think Anything Wrong of You, William?" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, September 14, 1917

In the aftermath, members of the city council demanded that Mayor Thompson resign or that the courts move toward his impeachment. Alderman Albert J. Fisher told the Chicago Examiner, "It is the duty of all those in authority — from the Governor down and from the Mayor up — to see that no aid or comfort is given to the common enemy. It was treasonable to allow the pacifist meeting to be held."

"There's no law against free speech here," said Mayor Thompson. "Thank the Lord some folks haven't the power to change the Constitution every half hour or so."

The Examiner blared triumphant banner headlines of a subsequent pro-war rally at the Coliseum, at which an estimated 18,000-20,000 heard Elihu Root brand peaceniks as "traitors," and American Federation of Labor president Samuel Gompers swore that "there can be no peace" while a single "Teuton" remained in France or Belgium. According to reports in the Examiner and Chicago Tribune, people in the crowd derided Thompson as "Yellow Bill."

And although Thompson would be reelected Mayor two years later, the incident undoubtedly doomed his planned run for the U.S. Senate in 1918 and thus his dreams of the Presidency.

Incidentally, while the Dutch Raemaekers saw fit to draw the above cartoon about the Chicago Mayor's role in this controversy, the Examiner's Murphy, who otherwise drew plenty of cartoons about state and local politics, left the topic alone.

"The Helping Hand" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, September 15, 1917

Also in the headlines in September, 1917 was the accusation that despite being officially neutral, Sweden was allowing Germany and its embassies in Latin America to communicate using Swedish code systems. Sweden had promised in 1915 to end the practice, but in September, Britain revealed that facilities of the Swedish foreign ministry had been used to send a telegram from the German embassy in Buenos Aires to Berlin proposing that certain Argentine ships be "sunk without trace."

I bring this story up because it allows me to close this post with one of the very, very few exercises in levity in Raemaekers's wartime cartoons:

"That Conference" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, September 17, 1917

Maggie Thatcher

In memory of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, here's a bit of my juvenalia that I've dug out of my files. When the Falklands War broke out in the spring of 1982, many of my fellow cartoonists went for "Evita" references. I reached for a much older musical:

If I were to draw this cartoon today, I would probably have drawn Thatcher in one of Mitzi Gaynor's outfits or some such. Whether there would be any comedic point in drawing General Galtieri and Al Haig as Ray Walston and John Kerr is debatable.

I didn't draw a whole lot of cartoons about Thatcher; she appeared as a supporting cast member in a few cartoons about America's allies, such as this one when Ronald Reagan was attacking Muamar Qaddafi in 1986:

Toon: Francis I

In honor of the first Argentinian Pope, my first cartoon of Francis I:

I was monitoring the announcement of the new Pope on the Daily Telegraph's web site yesterday afternoon; the ladies' Bible study was meeting across the hall and they wanted to be told who the new Pope was as soon as it was known.

As the world waited, a band had marched out and played a couple very brief snippets of tunes that many in the waiting crowd knew and tried to sing along with. When the band abruptly stopped, the crowd kept singing, but the band didn't rejoin them. This was several minutes before the lights came on in the chamber behind the balcony window, so it wasn't because the announcement was imminent.

The initial announcement was made in Latin -- including Latinizing the man's name -- so for a while, all I knew was that the cardinals had elected Georgium Marium Somebody and he had taken the name Franciscum. If there was any mention of Argentinibus or Bonibus Airibus, I completely missed it. I only took one semester of Latin in college, which was enough to figure out qui vicit quem, but the class never got around to learning New World geography.

Once news sites started reporting the name of The New Guy, I went in and broke the news to the Bible study group. They all were surprised that it wasn't Timothy Dolan (who used to be the archbishop in our area, so the local media had been echoing New York media speculation of Dolan's chances).

For my own part, however, that I had suspected that this Pope would turn out to be either Latin American or Italian.

I had no idea he would turn out to be both.

Q Toon: Meanwhile, Back at the Vatican

On the Racine Post blog, a reader responded to my latest cartoon (on the Wisconsin gubernatorial race): "Walker raised taxes????? Walker passed the Wheel Tax in The City of Milwaukee, Tried to talk over MPS from the voters? Walker allow Billions of Gallons of untreated sewage into Lake Michigan?"

I posted a reply citing the One Wisconsin Now tax and fee figures reported in the Shepherd Express, and this person's response was, "Calling the Shepherd Express a newspaper is like calling the Journal Times a newspaper."

As tempted as I was to reply that a.) I hadn't called the Shepherd Express a newspaper, b.) the Shepherd Express and Journal Times print news on newsprint on a regular basis, which ought to define them as newspapers, and c.) whether or not they were newspapers was completely irrelevant -- especially in the case of the Journal Times, which wasn't part of the conversation at all -- as tempted as I was, I realized that to reply that way would send the discussion veering off on a useless tangent, the way so many internet discussions end up.

Then I realized that here we had the opportunity to provide a definition for Sarah Palin's new verb, to refudiate. To refudiate: to argue or to deny by changing the subject; to counter an argument with an unrelated accusation.

E.g.: "Bush administration policies caused the worst recession since 1929, and now Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to prevent President Obama from reversing those policies."
"Show me the birth certificate!"

"Sarah Palin says that America cannot achieve energy independence while federal regulations continue to discourage domestic exploration and extraction."
"Sarah Palin says she can see Russia from her house."

This week's Q Syndicate cartoon (above) is not an example of refudiation, however. It is rather an example of the Will & Grace school of comedy: creating a joke by making a gratuitous celebrity reference with no direct connection to the topic at hand.