October Jest

Next stop on our Graphical History Tour: October cartoons up from the spooky basement! Ghosts? Goblins? Werewolves and vampires?

No! Worse! Presidential politics!

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., Oct. 11, 1984

We were at the height of the political campaign season forty Octobers ago, so naturally, my cartoons were all about the candidates' debates.

President Ronald Reagan put in a poor performance during his first debate appearance with Democratic nominee Walter "Fritz" Mondale. Unlike President Joe Biden's poor performance this past June, it didn't result in hand-wringing from his side of the aisle urging him to pull out and let his Vice President take the wheel.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., Oct. 18, 1984

And it barely moved his poll numbers.

Walter Mondale tried to spook voters with the zinger, "'Let's tell the truth. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did."

But Reagan had the mic drop moment with "I want you to know also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience."

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in UW-M Post, Milwaukee, Nov. 3, 1994

I drew this cartoon for the Hallowe'en day edition of the student newspaper at the University of Milwaukee in 1994, but their October 31 edition had no editorial page — the entire issue being devoted to campus sports. So they held it for the Thursday issue, after Hallowe'en was past. At least Election Day was still to come.

The incumbent Congressman in my district, Democrat Peter Barca, would be defeated in that year's Republican wave. He's running for that same seat again this year, and the campaign of the current incumbent, Republican Bryan Steil, has one television ad out now featuring a group of veterans complaining about a vote Barca made in favor of cutting veterans' benefits.

One of those veterans, from the look of him, wasn't even born when Barca cast that vote. The tiny print footnote during the ad disappears quickly and refers only to the House Bill Number. I doubt anyone is going to look up whether it was a procedural vote, an omnibus bill, or an amendment. I don't see Politifact weighing in on it.

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In 2004, I was asked to draw a series of sketches about that year's presidential election for Lavender Magazine in Minneapolis. This was the cover drawing for their October issue:

in Lavender Magazine, Minneapolis, October, 2004

I had done color cartoons for the Milwaukee Business Journal the year before, but the cartoons I sent to Lavender Magazine were black-and-white images for their own people to colorize. I somehow don't have a copy of the published magazine, or even a downloaded image of the cover, and their on-line archive doesn't date back to 2004; so the above is how I colored it myself this week.

I'm fairly sure that I did see the published magazine. I just don't know whether I simply can't find it, or if it was among the stuff that had to be thrown out after our basement flooded several years ago.

in Lavender Magazine, Minneapolis, October, 2004

In any event, this is an example of what I sent them, and my recollection is that the illustrations like this one to accompany text of the cover articles appeared in color.

The editors asked for eight illustrations, in each case spelling out what sort of scenario they had in mind for each one.

in Lavender Magazine, Minneapolis, October, 2004

This is my colorization, from an earlier post, of another of the Lavender spot illustrations, of John Kerry getting a make-over from the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy crew.

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Well, that's enough politics for a Saturday, so I'll close with one of my most popular efforts, from October of 2014, after the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to overrule lower court rulings finding marriage inequality unconstitutional.

for Q Syndicate, October, 2014

The Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges making marriage equality the law of the land would come down the next year.

Three of its dissenting Justices are still on the bench, and share with the three Trump appointees who have since joined them a marked disdain for stare decisis.

The February of Our Discontent

Today's Graphical History Tour reminisces about my own cartoons — mostly — from Februaries ten, twenty, thirty, and forty years ago. First stop: the Windy City! Remember when Rupert Murdoch bought the morning tabloid?

in UW Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., February 16, 1984

Under Murdoch, the previously Democrat-leaning Sun-Times editorial stance veered sharply to the right, and the news hole became infested with lurid, and not necessarily factual, sensationalism. Sun-Times columnist Roger Ebert complained about the paper featuring photos of bikini-clad "Wingo Girls," and deeply flawed "news" stories such as one accusing a North Shore rabbi of keeping a sex slave. Nor did he like the rather ugly headline font, which I aped in my cartoon.

Rupert Murdoch's ownership of the Chicago Sun-Times turned out to be short-lived; he sold the paper in 1986 in order to buy its sister television station, WFLD channel 32, upon which he built his Fox television network.

The consequences of Murdoch's media empire in the U.S. have proven to be more serious than grinding out his brand of tabloid sensationalism. By pushing an ever farther right-wing agenda in print and on television, and pretending that it is "fair and balanced," Murdoch has devoted his life to fanning the flames of insurrection and bringing the U.S. to the brink of fascism.

"There Goes Jesse to Syria" by Jack Higgins in Chicago Sun-Times, January 3, 1984

Since I've brought up the Sun-Times, I have to take note of the passing this week of its editorial cartoonist Jack Higgins at the age of 69. 

Higgins had started drawing for the Sun-Times a few years before Murdoch bought the paper, so you can't blame the Aussie for his later turn to the right. Drawing about Chicago politicians for two decades is bound to do that to a cartoonist. Chicago liberals, however, grew discouraged that only Higgins remained as leftist stalwarts Jacob Burck, John Fischetti (a legacy from the Daily News) and Bill Mauldin disappeared from the Sun-Times editorial page. 

Higgins's work eventually disappeared, too; until running a cartoon on the front page to announce his death, the Sun-Times hadn't printed an editorial cartoon for years.

Still, during the '80's, Higgins remained an equal opportunity critic. During the 1988 presidential campaign, Higgins drew a cartoon of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Dan Quayle "playing through" Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm attack (a parody of a famous photograph). The paper caught some local flack for printing that cartoon...

"Mind If I Play Through" originally in Chicago Sun-Times August 24, 1988

... but it won him and the Sun-Times the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee Wis., February 28, 1994

Returning to my own scribblings, but sticking with the topic of offensive cartoons, I drew this cartoon after an Israeli-American doctor, Baruch Goldstein, shot and killed 29 Palestinian worshipers, wounding 125 more, at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. This terrorist act took place during Purim and the holy month of Ramadan on February 25, 1994.

Goldstein was a member of the extremist Kach Movement of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. The movement agitated for the forced removal of all Palestinians from their homeland, and creation of a theocratic Jewish state in which only Jews would be citizens with the right to vote. Kach leaders issued statements in support of Goldstein's actions, and Kach was banned as a political party by the Knesset as a result.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been a touchy issue at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, which has vocal Jewish and Islamic student organizations. My crude ethnic caricatures were overshadowed by controversy over pro-Palestinian students posting in the student union a banner which included the Star of David to represent Israel.

Published on my old GeoCities page, February 2004

Jumping ahead to February of 2004: Vietnam War veteran John Kerry was the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. His campaign touted Kerry's military service, which stood in contrast to President George W. Bush's wartime service in the Texas National Guard.

Where Jack Higgins referenced the "Napalm Girl" photo to twit Dan Quayle's wartime service in the Indiana National Guard, I referenced "Operation Dewey Canyon III," in which a group of Vietnam veterans, including Mr. Kerry, tossed their service medals and ribbons at the U.S. Capitol to protest our army's incursions into Laos.

The Bush campaign succeeded in neutralizing the war service disparity thanks to scurrilous allegations against Kerry by a group of so-called "Swift Boat Veterans" — allegations played up and magnified by Rupert Murdoch's media empire. As a result, Kerry has the distinction of being the only Democratic presidential candidate since 1988 to receive fewer popular votes than his Republican opponent.

Can't we discuss something more pleasant?

for Q Syndicate, February 2014

I love watching the Olympics. Even the Parade of Nations, which runs so long that whichever network is broadcasting the games usually takes a dozen commercial breaks between parade leader Greece and the host nation bringing up the rear.

Part of the fun is checking out the flashy, occasionally garish, outfits the athletes are wearing. And how many nations will follow Tonga's lead in wearing body oil instead of a shirt.

You can also make a game out of figuring out which nation is going to come next. Most of the nations enter in alphabetical order, but that's dependent on the alphabet of the host nation. When Tokyo hosted the 2022 Olympics, Iceland and Ireland came in ahead of Azerbaijan and Afghanistan; Germany was between Denmark and Togo; and Peru entered between Belize and Belgium.

This summer in Paris, the U.S. would enter somewhere among Eswatini, Micronesia, and Fiji, except that by virtue of hosting the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, we'll come in near the end instead.

Long Road to Victory, Part II

Part II: The Democrats Evolve

Happy Independence Day! It's Smackback Saturday here at Bergetoons, and we're reviewing the history of the debate over same-sex marriage. (Part I was this past Wednesday.)

Republicans had no problem forcefully proclaiming that they were four-square against marriage equality from the start, but the issue posed more of a dilemma for Democrats. Gays and lesbians had been shoring up their status within the Democratic party for many years by the time the issue came to prominence; but same-sex marriage did not poll well in the 1990's.

Defense/Definition of Marriage Acts (DOMAs) swept into law across the country; many states passed these as amendments to their constitutions in order to prevent the legal challenges that nearly brought marriage equality to Hawai'i. Fearful for their electoral careers, Democrats went along with this antigay tidal wave. As far as Republicans were concerned, it didn't hurt that these ballot measures brought their right-wing Christian soldiers to the polls in droves.

Having used the issue to electoral benefit in 2002, 2004, and off-year elections, Republicans kept pushing a federal constitutional amendment to limit marriages to one man and one woman This from 2002...

And this from 2004...

In an attempt at compromise, some pro-gay Democrats offered lesbians and gays legal arrangements that were sort of like marriage, but not quite. The state of Vermont was first to pass a Civil Union registry, which made its governor, Howard Dean, a darling to some LGBT Democrats.

"Civil Unions" and "Domestic Partnerships" allowed Democrats to offer some support to gay and lesbian couples while still holding out some hope of not being tarred and feathered in the next election as "destroying the Family." As we'll see in another installment of this series, the religious right and their political allies really had no interest in yielding a millimeter.

Lest we forget, during both of his campaigns for president, Barack Obama was reluctant to voice any support for marriage equality, in spite of a sterling record on other LGBT issues (and in spite of having indicated his "unequivocal" support in a candidate questionnaire for a Chicago LGBT newspaper back when he ran for the Illinois State Senate in 1996). I drew this cartoon in 2011, when he visited the Human Rights Campaign to tout his administration's record.

That changed -- but that's a topic for another day.

Lifestyle Artist

I was reading a Christian Science Monitor cover story on "Obama and Race" yesterday, and in one of the sidebar articles, Little Rock, Arkansas resident Chane Morrow was described as a "lifestyle artist."

I've heard of "lifestyle coaches," the people such as the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy crew who come into your home and throw out all your clip-on ties. But what the hell is a "lifestyle artist"?

The top result when I googled the term was the LinkedIn page of a guy in Singapore who defines it as "someone who take responsibility of their own lives and then proceeds to create their ideal lifestyles. Very much like how an artist works."

English is not the guy's first language, so I'll cut him some slack on the grammar. Let's just say that I find intriguing the notion that creating one's ideal lifestyle is art. As Picasso had his blue period at one time and his cubist period at another, Mr. Lifestyle Artist may have his beach bum period at one time and his investment banker period later on.

My ideal lifestyle, as it turns out, is to become a Lifestyle Art Critic.

So here, in no particular order and with no moral judgment, are my top ten Lifestyle Artists of all time -- realizing, of course, that actual artists do not qualify:

1. RuPaul
2. Kato Kaelin
3. The Unibomber
4. Octomom
5. Naked Cowboy
6. Anna Nicole Smith
7. Joseph Smith
8. Bob Jones
9. Theodora (c. 870-916)
10. Timothy Leary