Saturday Morning Book Report

"If It Isn't the Corn Borer, It's Something Else" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, May 23, 1975

Last month, I mentioned having bought a book of cartoons by Des Moines Register editorial cartoonist Frank Miller in a resale store. (I should clarify that if you came here by googling for the Frank Miller who drew Batman, Sin City, and Daredevil cartoons, that's someone else entirely. But you're welcome to read on.)

I first encountered Miller's cartoons in the Milwaukee Journal, which used to run three portrait-oriented, syndicated editorial cartoons side by side on its Saturday editorial page. The newspaper racks in library where I went to college had the Des Moines Register, which was one of the last U.S. newspapers running its editorial cartoonist on the front page, so I got to see his work much more often in those years.

"A Low Opinion" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, June 28, 1956

Over the course of the book, you watch Miller develop his curious pen-and-ink style with copious shading that appeared hastily scribbled. But not haphazard; the earliest drawings in the book are drawn in charcoal, and this shading appears to be Miller's way of emulating charcoal with pen and ink. Sometimes, as in the cartoon at the top of this post, characters' faces would be entirely in shadow — not something you see in most cartoons.

The editorial cartoons section of the book opens with Miller's first cartoon for the Des Moines Register in 1954, and ends with the cartoon he had not quite finished drawing when he died in 1983.

Since it was Miller's editors at the Register who chose the cartoons for the book, they may not have been the ones Miller would have chosen himself. They tend to be on the gentler side, particularly where individual Iowa politicians are involved. (An exception is a cartoon showing Senator Roger Jepsen, who had switched his vote on a military sale to Saudi Arabia, carrying his own head under his arm.)

By way of illustration, this cartoon by Miller, a Korean War veteran, probably didn't raise a lot of Iowans' hackles in 1965:

"Some of Us Are, Fella" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, Nov. 30 1965

Ten years later, as the South Vietnamese military collapsed, this cartoon might have been a little more controversial. It's not in the book; nor is any other cartoon about Saigon's defeat.

"American Monument in Southeast Asia" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, ca. March 29, 1975

The writers of the book describe Miller as "unassuming but not humble, aware of his talent but not crowing about it," so perhaps fire and brimstone cartooning was simply not his style. He might not even have seen any point in collecting his cartoons in a book in the first place; to clear out his basement, he once sold several of his original drawings in a garage sale for only 25¢ apiece.

The book allows that at least two of Miller's cartoons provoked such a response that he was forced to apologize for them. In one, a calendar of September hath 31 days. The other, commenting on Sandra Day O'Connor's ground-breaking nomination to the Supreme Court, hangs on a mildly sexist, even trite, joke. If  Miller stuck by any of his cartoons in the face of reader complaints, there's no mention of that in this book.

What you will find are every president from Truman to Reagan, a couple of Iowa governors, lots of lovingly rendered Iowa scenery, and one famous visitor to the state.

No caption, by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, Oct. 4, 1979

Updates on the Eights

August has a reputation for being a month of summer doldrums in which little happens by way of news, but I find plenty to disprove that reputation when leafing through my cartoons drawn in August years ending in 8. That is partly because of national political conventions in election years, but not entirely.

August, 1978 saw the election of Cardinal Albino Luciani as Pope John Paul I, who broke with tradition both by selecting a double name and by having the Roman numeral I after it (unlike, for example, Pope Francis). Allied with neither the conservative or liberal activist cardinals of the time, Luciani had not been among the popularly rumored successors to Pope Paul VI.

Black smoke rose from the Sistine Chimney as the first three inconclusive ballots were burned. White smoke should have signaled the election of a new pope, but witnesses described the smoke from the fourth and conclusive ballot as gray.

John Paul I's papacy would last only 33 days (which still doesn't rank as the shortest papacy on record; ten popes reigned more briefly than he). He apparently had a heart attack while reading in bed, leaving little legacy besides the double name taken up by his successor, and rumors — fictionalized in Godfather III — that he was murdered.

Skipping ahead ten years, August, 1988 was an election year in the U.S. Wisconsin's statewide partisan primary was held in September back then (reminder: now it's this Tuesday!). There were races to succeed retiring Senator Bill Proxmire in both parties. Two of the candidates were Democratic former Governor Tony Earl and Republican Steve King, best known for having held and drugged Martha Mitchell, wife of Nixon's Attorney General, in her hotel room to keep her from talking to the press.

My cartoon for The Journal Times took note of the senatorial candidates' names as well as a nickname for Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. "Duke" didn't really suit the man well, and it didn't stick. As for King and Earl, both lost their parties' nominations to State Senator Susan Engeleiter and the ultimate winner, Milwaukee Bucks owner Herb Kohl.

Earl currently serves on the governing board of the governmental watchdog group Common Cause Wisconsin. King has been Trump's ambassador to the Czech Republic since 2017.

The National Republican Party held its presidential nominating convention in August. Vice President George H.W. Bush had the nomination all locked up, so the only suspense was over whom he would name as his running mate. His choice of Senator J. Danforth Quayle (R-IN) surprised everyone, including your humble cartoonist, who had not included Dan in the above cartoon.

Skipping ahead another ten years to August, 1998, I was freelancing separate cartoons for University of Wisconsin campus newspapers (yes, even in August), the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, and LGBTQ biweekly In Step News.

Rep. Joel Hefley (R-CO) had sponsored an amendment to a vital appropriations bill; the amendment would have gutted President Clinton's Executive Order 13087, which added sexual orientation to the federal government's nondiscrimination policies. Lobbying the Republican-controlled House and Senate to defeat the amendment was a chief goal of the Human Rights Campaign that year. Surprisingly, the House voted 252-176 to defeat the Hefley Amendment.

Of course, the George W. Bush and Donald Joffrey Trump administrations revoked Executive Order 13087 and its Obama administration equivalent, E.O. 13672.

I had to get one Business Journal cartoon in here. I think you ought to be able to figure out the point of the editorial it accompanied.

But the Big Story out of August, 1998 was not about appropriations bills or rural property taxes.

President Clinton's vehement denials of sexual encounters with White House intern Monica Lewinsky were given the lie when Lewinsky turned over a blue dress stained with presidential semen (which her pal at the Pentagon, Linda Tripp, had encouraged her to save as evidence).

These days, there's an entire cable news network devoted to defending the current president, no matter how overwhelming the evidence against him, and crowds of ardent supporters who will hoot and holler their fervent belief in his obvious lies. But in August, 1998, it seemed that the only person in the whole country willing to stick his neck out in support of William Jefferson Clinton was Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA). He may still have the original of this cartoon.

I'll leave you in suspense over how the Lewinsky story turned out, and instead jump ahead another ten years to August, 2008. The Olympics were coming for the first time to Communist China, where the authoritarian government took strict measures to clean up Beijing in time for the games.

If only they could have worked as hard to clean up the smog!

Even while authorities were shuttering the dance floor of Destination, Beijing's one and only gay dance bar (claiming the bar was too small to be a club), official state media were highlighting Destination as proof of the country's friendliness to its LGBTQ citizens. From the Xinua news article “Beijing’s Gay Scene Comes Out of the Closet”:

At weekends, the floor is always crowded with young men dancing close to each other to hit songs from Rihanna, Justin Timberlake or Kanye West. The strobe lights flash over their ecstatic faces and sweating bodies. Some stand in the corner drinking, flirting or just watching. … Today, China's young gay men enjoy a freer environment. With the thriving online gay communities, such as aibai.com, idanlan.com, gays can easily find each other and arrange activities through on-line forums or chat rooms.

2008 was also another presidential election year, of course.

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain (the party convention wouldn't be held until September) launched a peculiar attack on Barack Obama on the grounds that it was somehow a bad thing that the Democratic nominee wanted drivers to keep their tires properly inflated.

The party's convention mantra of "Drill, Baby, Drill" would prove catchier than "Drive, Flabby, Drive." But George W. Bush's Great Recession would hit in September, totally changing the national conversation.