The Dog Days of Cartooning

Or, You Cannot Be Sirius.

1986

in Iconoplastic, Poughkeepsie NY, August 1986

Our Graphical History Tour today delves deep into the Bergetoons vaults for its carefully ripened and aged cartoonistry.

Iconoplastic ("The Magazine for the Self-Interested") was published by a college classmate of mine, Mark Hopkins. The photocopied zine was a way for a bunch of us who had attended St. Olaf together to share our artwork and creative writing with each other. Most of the cartoons I sent to Mark had appeared previously in the UW-Parkside Ranger, but this was one I had drawn expressly for Iconoplastic.

Every one of the five issues of Iconoplastic was dated August, 1986; this cartoon appeared in the second of them. There was supposed to be a sixth and final issue in June of 1987, but if it was ever printed, I never got to see it.

I had begun writing the date in the margin of my cartoons, so I know that I actually drew the above cartoon in August of 1986. I'm sure that it had to do with Ronald Reagan's Missile Defense Initiative, popularly known as Star Wars.

1996

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee Wis., Sept. 3, 1996

Why am I including this September cartoon in a collection of my August cartoons? Well, according to my margin notes, I drew it in August. Its topic was the 1996 Republican Party platform, a laundry list of religious right priorities, which the party's nominee, Sen. Bob Dole, told reporters he hadn't read.

The composition of this cartoon is a lot like one I had drawn two months earlier, but with a slightly different cast of Republicans standing behind Dole. Appearing between him and Newt Gingrich is probably the best caricature of Pat Buchanan that I ever produced, which is a pity, since I drew plenty of other cartoons in which he was the main focus rather than an extra in the background.

I had drawn the earlier cartoon for a summer semester issue of the Post that was never published, so I wasn't concerned that some reader might have thought they had seen this cartoon before. 

2006

for Q Syndicate, August 2006

There is nothing wrong with your set.

At some point during the sketching out of this cartoon, I realized that for the dialogue to read properly — for your eyes to read the straight line before the punch line — I either needed the second dialogue balloon to cover Mildred, or to flip the drawing horizontally 180 degrees.

I decided that rather than starting the whole cartoon over, I would just write the dialogue, my signature, and the date in mirror image, then flip the whole cartoon 180 degrees in Photoshop. Being left-handed, I ink my cartoons from right to left anyway, so as to avoid smearing wet ink with the side of my hand.

Here's how the published cartoon looked.

Visually, I think the composition of the cartoon worked better this way, too. The eye sees Luke and Brian first, then Mildred, and finally the two men talking behind Luke and Brian's back.

According to my marginalia, I drew this cartoon in August as a cartoon to be held in reserve, to be released sometime when I didn't send in a cartoon on deadline, so I can't be sure when it was actually published. I think my Better Half and I went on vacation that November, although that would have been an odd time for Mildred to be watering her garden and everyone else to be wearing shorts.

Unless they lived in Florida or southern California.

2016

for Q Syndicate, August 2016

Running for President in 2016, Donald Trump responded to the Pulse Night Club massacre by claiming that his anti-immigrant policies would protect LGBTQ+ Americans.

He didn't mention that the heavily Latino clientele of the Pulse Night Club was just the sort of people who would be targeted for exile to concentration camps in shithole countries by the Corrupt Trump Regime™'s ethnic cleansing program. 

And he apparently had no clue that the T stands for Transgender, people whose persecution would join that of Latinos and Moslems as Corrupt Trump Regime™ priorities.

That, and erecting monuments to himself all over Washington, D.C.

Drawing them discomfited by what I had Trump say in this cartoon, I gave a hefty benefit of the doubt to three of his ardent supporters: Kellyanne Conway, Rudy Giuliani, and his running mate, Mike Pence. That benefit proved entirely undeserved. The three proved ready, willing, and eager to debase themselves in service of Dear Leader's alternative facts, phantom election fraud, and commitment to not just one, but two Corinthians.

Q Toon: DeSantis Suit

As much as I would prefer to put out simple, direct single-panel editorial cartoons, I've ended up drawing a lot of four-panel cartoons this year, because cartoons about news stories that aren't necessarily front and center in the national conversation require a bit of exposition. My topic this week, however, while a local story, got the attention of the White House the other day — mostly because, as Jennifer Psaki pointed out, it's really part of a vast right-wing conspiracy national trend. 

“Make no mistake: This is not an isolated action in Florida. Across the country, we’re seeing Republican leaders taking action to regulate what students can or cannot read, what they can or cannot learn, and most troubling, who they can or cannot be."

"Don't Say Gay" bills forbidding any mention of LGBTQ-ness in public schools are nothing new in Right-wing Kancel Kultur, but Florida legislators have now apparently taken a cue from Texas's anti-abortion law. It's not the state that will restrict teachers' freedom of speech; they're just deputizing their antigay minions to sue! sue! sue!

A Florida bill that would limit classroom discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity and encourage parents to sue schools or teachers that engage in these topics is speeding through the state House and Senate.

It's being called a "Don't Say Gay" bill by LGBTQ advocates, who fear that if this bill is signed into law, it could act as a complete ban on the lessons on LGBTQ oppression, history and discussions about LGBTQ identities.

...

Rep. Joe Harding, who is the sponsor of the legislation, hopes it will "reinforce the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding upbringing & control of their children," according to the bill's text.

Governor DeSantis has expressed support for the bill, alleging that

“We’ve seen instances of students being told by different folks in school, ‘Oh, well, don’t worry, don’t pick your gender yet, do all this other stuff’,” DeSantis said. “They won’t tell the parents about these discussions that are happening.”

He continued: “That is entirely inappropriate.”

Republicans pushing the bill have claimed that its reach is limited to pre-K through third grade curricula, but the legislation’s language does not, in fact, make any mention of curriculum instruction or grade-levels. Its vague language bans “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity,” which could be stretched to include even the most tangential, casual mention of someone's parents or spouse.

Kara Gross, the legislative director and senior policy counsel for the ACLU of Florida, testified to the state Senate Education Committee against the legislation, calling it “government censorship.”

“If passed, it would effectively silence students from speaking about their LGBTQ+ family members, friends, neighbors and icons. Additionally, it would bar students from talking about their own lives and would erase their very existence,” she said. “These are not taboo subjects, but banning them makes them so."

The Republican-dominated committee sent the bill to the full state Senate on a strictly party line vote.

 

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: Auld Lang v. Syne

Extending 2020? Doesn't everybody think it was more than long enough?

Well, not a certain occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue desperate to find some way to keep January 20, 2021 from happening.

Adding more months onto everyone's least favorite year might not win him any new fans, but you can bet his legions of Trumpster cultists would suddenly be agitating to observe Undecember, Duodecember, Tredecember, ad infinitemcember all the way to 2025 and beyond. 

And it isn't any more ludicrous than any of the other frivolous lawsuits filed on the Donald's behalf.

When L. Lin Wood, Jr. filed one of those suits with the attestation that:

...it was surely a Freudian slip of epic propecia. Proportions!

I only hope that nobody on the Team That Couldn't Sue Straight sees this cartoon in time to take this argument to court.

Q Toon: The Unveiling

Sure, there have already been plenty of cartoons mocking Donald Crybaby Trump's infantile refusal to accept defeat in the presidential election; but seriously, it's like I've been setting this cartoon up for two and a half years.

June of 2017 is when I started drawing him with a pig's snout, and I am eagerly looking forward to retiring the leitmotif. And everything else about him.

As one after another of Trump's frivolous lawsuits and recounts fail him, The Corrupt Trump Administration finally gave up his obstinate refusal to begin the transition process to the new Biden administration late Monday. Recounts in Wisconsin's Milwaukee and Dane Counties continue, however, in the GOP's on-going effort to disenfranchise people of color, students, and others who have the effrontery to live in urban centers — the GOP's desperate effort to, in fact, steal the election.

And Trump himself still refuses to concede, which we've known for the past four years that he could never bring himself to do.

In this cartoon, I am, of course, anticipating the day when Trump's official presidential portrait is unveiled in a White House ceremony. It is a traditional honor every American president has afforded to his predecessor since 1978, a tradition broken by Trump himself. (Former President Jimmy Carter declined having a ceremonial unveiling of his own portrait, but other than that, the tradition has stood.)

Now I suppose it's unlikely that Soon To Be Former President Trump will commission a portrait of himself as the Pig Baby from Alice in Wonderland. His official portrait is more likely to come from the guy who cranks out hagiographic paintings of Trump wrapped in an American flag and shaking Jesus's hand while walking on water.

Either way, he's unlikely to show up for the official unveiling. Unless that's the only way he can get anyone to pay attention to him any more by then. 

Q Toon: One Man In His Time

We now return you to our regular programming.

We don't have Showtime at our house, so I haven't seen Mr. Cohen's latest TV show; I've only read reports of how the shapeshifting chameleon has been able to con several right-wing and alt-right-wing politicians into saying and performing things that will be the wet dreams of the opposition research for their opponents in the next election.

Mr. Cohen's characters are way over the top, but are camouflaged among a cast of real-life characters who are way over the top themselves. From our Corrupt President to his venal minions, and the hordes of adoring, frenzied fans willing to accept any crackpot conspiracy theory as long as there isn't a whiff of truth in it, it's easy to see how Cohen's outrageous characters blend in virtually undetectably.

But as long as we're going to hell in a handbasket of deplorables, we might as well enjoy the ride.

You'll never guess whom Waldo is disguised as.

Trumpery

In two days, my country turns the highest office in the land over to a self-absorbed, mendacious, double-dealing, amoral con man. A man who lies without even thinking. A man who will take a solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and will proceed to turn the United States of America into a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of The Trump Corporation.

One of the blogs I follow noted this week the English word "Trumpery," which has been around since Shakespeare and Milton. According to the Oxford Dictionary, its meaning of "deceit, fraud, imposture, trickery" dates from at least 1847; the definition above comes from my grandfather's 1938 MacMillan Modern Dictionary.



The word derives from the French "tromperie," meaning a cheat, which in turn comes from the verb "tromper," to fool or deceive. The verb also gives us the artistic term describing two-dimensional art that appears so real that you mistake it for being three dimensional — a marble sculpture that appears to be wearing a gauzy veil — wax fruit that looks tempting to eat: trompe l'oeil, literally "trick the eye."

Trompe l'oeil

So be forewarned. From now on, if I refer to KellyAnne Conway, Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Rudy Giuliani or any of their ilk as a "Trump loyalist," the pun is intended.

Q Toon: The Protectionist

As it turns out, Donald Berzilius Trump spent much of this week trying to attract Black and Latino voters with his new slogan, "What Have You Got to Lose." (Considering the priorities of states controlled by Republicans, The Right to Vote comes to mind.)

But earlier this summer, Trump tried to use the Orlando massacre as the basis of an appeal to LGBTQ voters, awkwardly pausing partway through the five-letter acronym. Perhaps he was having difficulty remembering the whole thing. Perhaps he gets out of breath saying five-syllable words. Better page Dr. Harold Bornstein.

As a cartoonist, it's a daunting challenge to come up with things for Cartoon Trump to say that are more outrageous than the things that come out of Reality Trump's mouth. One imagines that Trump's spokesschmucks are taking Botox injections to avoid the inadvertent looks of terror when they contemplate having to explain what they are hearing.

✒

P.S.: This story broke this week.

It All Makes Sense Now

Melania's Turn of Phrase

Somebody had better warn Rudy Giuliani that the calls are coming from inside the Quicken Loans Center!