AP P.S.

The Associated Press today decided that husbands and wives get to be called husbands and wives, regardless of the sex of the people to whom they are legally wed.

From the latest update to the AP Stylebook:

"Regardless of sexual orientation, husband or wife is acceptable in all references to individuals in any legally recognized marriage. Spouse or partner may be used if requested.
 
"'The AP has never had a Stylebook entry on the question of the usage of husband and wife," said AP Senior Managing Editor for U.S. News Mike Oreskes. 'All the previous conversation was in the absence of such a formal entry. This lays down clear and simple usage. After reviewing existing practice, we are formalizing ''husband, wife'' as an entry.'" 

A few of the publications which run my cartoon made it out onto the streets with this week's episode of Ed & Smitty before the AP decision came down. My apologies to the rest.

This Week's Toon: News Corp's Wedding Pride

Paul Berge Q Syndicate Aug 10, 2011 EditorialCartoonists.com

Gay City News of New York City reports that a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's staunchly conservative News Corporation smells financial opportunity in them thar gay nuptuals in the Empire State:

While the New York Post, the conservative tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, opposed gay marriage in an editorial and gave scant coverage to the June 24 state Senate vote that enacted that law, a second News Corporation unit in New York City is selling pricey ad space in the inaugural issue of "Wedding Pride: The Magazine for Gay and Lesbian Wedding Planning."

CNG Publications is a unit of the Community Newspaper Group, which puts out a number of local newspapers in the New York metropolitan area. CNG is owned by News Corp., which bought out previously independent papers such as the Brooklyn Paper and Times Ledger. I can see Joseph Cotten storming out of Orson Welles' office right about now.

Q Toon: Last Week's Editorial Cartoon

I'm still getting over my post-vacation jet lag, so here's the cartoon I drew for Q Syndicate to release last week. National Coming Out Day is actually October 11, but since some of the newspapers that print my cartoons publish every other week, this timing enables whichever of them wants this cartoon to print it on time.

I don't have a lot to say about this cartoon, other than I hope that I got it out ahead of all the cartoons about the ever earlier and earlier commercialization of Christmas.

And here's this week's sneak peek, by the way.

LGBT Print Media

Press Pass Q reports this month on the demise of one LGBT paper, The Chicago Free Press (at the end of April) and the launching of another, The Wisconsin Gazette (last November).

It's sad to see the Free Press go; they ran my cartoons from Volume 1 Issue 1 in August, 1999, until sometime in 2009, and featured some excellent news coverage and commentary. I can't do better than columnist Jennifer Vanasco, who wrote:

“And because the Chicago Free Press was a very good paper, a lot of people read it. Not just gay people, but straight as well – and not just folks who had a reason to be interested in gay issues, but anyone who had an interest in [Chicago’s] North Side neighborhoods. When I still lived in Chicago – I moved from there in 2006 – people would stop me on the street to talk about that week’s column, or to ask me about something that had been in the paper. It felt personal – more personal that it feels to run a website, or write the occasional web-hosted blog post.”

Gazette Publisher Louis Weisberg used to work for the Free Press (his departure is not entirely unrelated to its eventual demise), which fills a void left by In Step (1984-2003), Wisconsin Light (1987-2002), and Queer Life News (2004-2008). (I'm not ignoring Quest, which started as a "bar rag" but has done its best to report news in the absence of an LGBT "news" paper.) I was happy to find the Gazette available in an art store in my hometown; the previous newspapers had only been available in the city's sole LGBT bar and a porn shop that went out of business last year, or by driving to Milwaukee.

The internet is a wonderful thing, but I like having a newspaper with my coffee. If I spill on it, I'm not out several hundred bucks.

It's Pride Month!

This is a cover drawing i did for In Step magazine in 1997 -- back when Milwaukee had two competing LGBT news publications. Since then, In Step, Wisconsin Light, and, last December, the four-year-old Queer Life News have all folded.

On the other hand, since I first started attending them, Milwaukee Pride Fest has moved to the Summerfest grounds as its first summer festival. (It was moved to August one year to make way for Harley Davidson's centennial celebration, but I don't think many people minded the move; after the cold weather of the previous years, fest goers appreciated being able to leave their parkas at home.)