You May Ask Yourself, My God! What Have I Drawn?

At least once a month, this Graphical History Tour dredges up some of my old cartoons at decade intervals, and today we start with September of 1983.

in University of Wisconsin Parkside Ranger, October 13, 1983

This is one of less than a handful of cartoons I drew using gesso and an artist's blade. The technique involves coating the drawing surface with a white plaster called gesso (it is available in other colors), then painting over that with ink. Once that is dry, you cut away at the ink to reveal the gesso beneath. The resulting heavy shadows can be striking.

You don't have to completely cover the gesso with ink; I've seen cartoons and other artwork where the creator drew the scene on top of the gesso, then continued by cutting away some of the ink in order to lessen shading — the result resembling a woodcut.

My cartoon here came in response to a drunk driving crash in which the president of the student government was critically injured. Although I had made no attempt whatsoever to make anyone in the cartoon a caricature of him, my editors worried that some readers would find it in bad taste.

Well, not every cartoon is meant to be funny, and a cartoon of the student mascot crying would have been trite. To their credit, the Ranger editors held the cartoon to include it in a four-page feature section on drunk driving a few weeks later.

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in Gaze Magazine, Minneapolis, 1993

Some cartoons are meant to be totally serious. Other cartoons are meant to be utterly silly.

In 1993, it was hard to avoid Barney the purple dinosaur, whether you had small children in the house or not; there were various cartoons and late-night comedy sketches around riffing on his "I Like You, You Like Me" song and that dopey voice of his. 

Years later, I saw that some other cartoonist had gotten around to drawing pretty much the same idea that I had. Or maybe it was a meme. Or quite possibly both.

Puns are low-hanging fruit in the cartooning biz, and yours would have to be extremely elaborate and exquisite before you'd have any right to claim, "Hey! That's my idea!"

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2003 marked Harley Davidson's centennial celebration in Milwaukee, and the people putting the big 100th anniversary party together thought it would be a great idea to keep everyone guessing what the big-name entertainer they had hired for the big concert at the Marcus Ampitheater.

Rumors flew that they were bringing in Steppenwolf, whose "Born to Be Wild" is a biker anthem, but who had broken up in 1972. Or perhaps the Allman Brothers, or George Thorogood, or Judas Priest. Or maybe even the Rolling Stones!

in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, Sept. 5, 2003

So fans of those bands were disappointed and upset when the mystery headliner was revealed to be Elton John.

Make no mistake: everyone recognized that Elton John was and is a star performer. But he doesn't have that biker vibe one generally associates with riding on a Hog.

Front or back seat.

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for Q Syndicate, September, 2013

One of my favorite things to do in a cartoon is to take a cliché and turn it on its head. The occasion for this cartoon was actually how little opposition arose when six counties in New Mexico began granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The counties had responded proactively to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit on behalf of same-sex couples in the state. The New Mexico State Supreme Court would rule unanimously in favor of marriage equality in December, extending marriage rights into the more hesitant 27 counties.

A year and a half later, the Supreme Court granted those rights to the rest of the nation, and opposition has proven to be nowhere near "fever pitch."

Except in the case of a few county clerks and a couple of ethically challenged Supreme Court Justices.

100 Years Ago: The Punitive Expedition

Judging from the date on this March 16, 1916 front page of the Chicago Daily News, Salsaback Saturday last week was focused on the wrong World War.

But let's overlook for a moment the sinking of the Dutch steamer Tubantia and even the front page editorial cartoon by Luther Bradley of Benedict Arnold bemoaning his lost opportunity of getting into Congress to block preparedness. We'll get back to WWI in a minute.

100 years ago this month, the U.S. Army chased Pancho Villa (José Doroteo Arango Arámbula) into Mexico. Villa, who had earlier received some support from the American government in his country's on-going civil war, had led guerrilla raids against American interests since January in hopes of undermining the government of Mexico's provisional President Venustiano Carranza. In the early morning of March 9, Villa and his force of 500 men  attacked Columbus, New Mexico, killing 18 people (ten civilians and eight soldiers) and setting fire to the town.

Villa's guerrillas were driven out of the town by the superior weaponry of the 13th U.S. Cavalry. On March 13, Carranza’s government agreed to recognize the American right to “hot pursuit,” giving U.S. President Wilson the green light to send 6,000 men under the command of General John “Black Jack” Pershing after Villa.

Cartoon by Clifford Berryman, March 10, 1916

Uncle Sam: "I've Had About Enough of This"

Gen. Pershing's "Punitive Expedition" into Mexico would last until the following February, but was wearing out its welcome by April. This next cartoon by the Australian cartoonist David Henry Souter for the Stock Journal noting three headlines ("Mexico Has Declared War on the United States," "All Americans Have Been Ordered to Leave Mexico," and "The Fighting Has Begun and Americans Killed") dates from June, 1916:

Uncle Sam: "Stop clicking that pesky typewriter, Woodrow; I want to hear myself shoot."

The cartoon refers to the many letters of protest the U.S. President had sent the German Kaiser to protest attacks on Atlantic shipping. The cartoon also seems to predict the German Foreign Ministry's invitation for Mexico to join the Central Powers were the U.S. to join the allies (the Zimmerman telegram was decoded in January, 1917); it looks to me that Pancho Villa is riding a dachshund.

Contrary to the above cartoon, Mexico did not actually declare war on the United States, although the Mexican Army did attack the 13th Cavalry at Parral, Chihuahua, on April 12, and the Mexican and U.S. Armies fought a serious but indecisive battle at Carrizal, Chihuahua, on June 21. Negotiations between the two countries brought them back from the brink of war; and Pershing and his soldiers were withdrawn to the U.S. in time to head for the war in Europe.

The U.S. never did capture Villa, even though the Army tried yet again after WWI.

Cartoon by Sidney J. Greene, November, 1916; apparently a reference to a cartoon he'd drawn of Roosevelt four years earlier.

"Breaking In Again."

Teddy Roosevelt: "This is no place for me!"

Q Toon: Fever Pitch in NM

My "News Item" is, shall we say, somewhat misleading.

This week's cartoon is occasioned by this ABC News report, that there has been little opposition to the spread of marriage equality ever since Doña Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins began granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples in August.

The only crowds that gathered outside his Dona Ana County office were gay couples wanting to marry. The state's top politicians stayed neutral. New Mexico's three Catholic bishops said it was a matter for lawmakers. And an evangelical mega-church in the state's largest city was mum.
"I have gotten some fairly nasty religious-related telephone message," Ellins said. "But generally speaking, I am surprised by the relatively muted response from those who clearly disagree."

The change was prompted by an ACLU lawsuit. Six of the state's most populous counties now recognize same-sex marriages. The New Mexico Supreme Court is scheduled to weigh in on the matter next month.

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Postscript: There appears to be some problem with the AAEC site today -- at least in my browser. If there is no cartoon showing at the top of this page, you can find my cartoon here, on the Michigan Pridesource page.