Must Be the Season of the Imp

Today's wayback machine is set forty years ago to February, 1983, and we start off with the British royal family.

If it's any consolation to Prince Harry and Meagan, their forebears (his, anyway) had to put up with plenty of palace gossip and intrigue before either of them had even been born.

unpublished

There may have been a day when intrusion by British tabloid photographers on the royal family's privacy wasn't so obnoxious as it is today, but not within living memory. My cartoon included the Queen Mother, Princes Charles, Andrew, and Edward, and Princesses Diana, Anne, and Margaret hounding a fictional tabloid photographer and his wife.

I don't believe that this cartoon was ever published; the usual markings on the back of the paper telling layout what reduction percentage to get the cartoon to fit on the page are missing.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers, Wis., Feb. 3, 1983

When you hear about President Biden's lackluster approval ratings, it's useful to remember that the U.S. President in February of 1983 wasn't doing particularly well at the same stage of his presidency, either.

That imp in down in the corner was a gimmick I tried out that year of having a little character to add further comment on cartoons. Like Pat Oliphant's Puck, or Fred Siebel's crow, or R.C. Bowman's puppy (except I hadn't heard of R.C. Bowman yet). Mr. Imp didn't last very long.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers, Wis., Feb. 10, 1983

In fact, he was already missing by the next week's cartoon.

He was more trouble than he was worth. After spending a whole lot of time thinking up a cartoon in the first place, who needs to spend even more time coming up with lines for an imp that might well be saved for a later cartoon? 

Of course, these days, I have to come up with a headline to go along with the cartoon when I send it in to the syndicate. Otherwise, some editor there will send it out to my subscribers with a headline that steps all over the punch line. Imagine the third cartoon here under a headline "Telling Reagan to Let Them Think for Him."

in UW-Parkside Ranger,  Somers, Wis., Feb. 24, 1983

Alas, poor demon. Well I knew him, Horatio; an imp of limited jest.

QEII at 3

I get the pulp version of Time magazine delivered at home. It's been a biweekly magazine ever since COVID-19 broke out across the U.S., although they call everything a "double issue."

They often feature thumbnail pictures of the alternate covers of the magazine on one of the early pages, and occasionally covers of that fortnight's cover story subject from the past. The latter was the case with the current issue reporting Queen Elizabeth's death. I don't recall having seen a couple of the more recent covers, which must have been of Time's European edition.

Outside of the large-font decades from the '70's to the '00's, it's impossible to read the text on those tiny cover images, and I wondered how little Princess Lilybet rated a cover story when she was three years old and the niece of George V's heir apparent, Edward, Prince of Wales.

I mean, there has been plenty of press coverage of Harry and Megan's newborns, but I don't expect to see them on the cover of Time — even the European edition — while they're still toddlers. If one of them grows up to be a TV star, maybe, or Governor of California, sure.

They'd have a better chance if they go into television. Time only puts governors on the cover if they've just been nominated for Vice President.

As it happens, in 1967, Time published a series of books of snippets of articles from various years in the magazine's history, and I have the book about 1929. Sure enough, it includes a paragraph from this April 29, 1929 cover story. I don't know how the actual article began, but the excerpt launches by positing the prospect, however remote, of Elizabeth acceding to the throne.

If Death should come soon and suddenly to three men — George V, Edward of Wales, the Duke of York — England would have another Virgin Queen Elizabeth.

She did indeed eventually become Queen, of course; but Edward was still alive, and she was married with two children by then, so nix the Virgin Queen thing.

The 1929 article cites some palace gossip that forecasted that P'incess Lilybet becoming Queen someday wasn't such a far-fetched idea. George V had had been gravely ill that winter (but would survive another seven years). Prince Edward, then 34, was still a bachelor, as you may recall, and a story had circulated that he once vowed to renounce his rights to the throne upon his father's death. The palace gossip reported in Time was that he was already teasing Lilybet's mother, the Duchess of York, by calling her "Queen Elizabeth."

By the way, the folks at Time will happily sell you their Elizabeth Windsor magazine covers as framed  pictures, in case you happen to need something impressive on the bookshelf in the background of your next television interview.

Fare Thee Well, Elizabeth II

I won't have a remembrance post this Saturday about Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away Thursday at the age of 96. She is the only British monarch most of us from Boomers forward can remember, sitting on the throne for seven decades, longer than any other monarch except Louis XIV.

Not having drawn her in many cartoons myself — three, maybe four at the most — I will leave any Queen Elizabeth cartoon compilations to others. 

But here's one of mine from 2013.

Q Toon: And the Rest

Paul Berge Q Syndicate-Mar 13, 2013 EditorialCartoonists.com

For its first season of "Gilligan's Island," the show opened with a catchy little sea ditty as its theme song, which told the story of how the castaways got to the island, then introduced the characters in its third verse:

"With Gilligan,

The Skipper, too;

The Millionaire

And his wife;

The movie star

And the rest."

There were only two other characters in the regular cast, but it wasn't until the second season that the writers crammed "The Professor and Mary Ann" into the last line (leaving, I suppose, the radio announcer as the last regular cast member out in the cold.)

This month, the British Commonwealth produced a "Charter for the 21st Century" proclaiming broad support for human rights, which states, "We are implacably opposed to all forms of  discrimination, whether rooted  in gender, race, colour, creed, political belief or other grounds." The London Daily Mail asserted that "other grounds" is meant to refer to gays, lesbians, transgender and bisexual persons.

Not everyone is impressed, however. British gay rights activist Peter Tatchell points out that:

"More than 40 of the 54 Commonwealth countries still criminalise homosexuality, mostly under laws imposed by Britain during the colonial era. Six of these countries stipulate life imprisonment. Uganda is currently considering legislation that would introduce the death penalty for repeat gay offenders. The Nigerian parliament has before it a similarly draconian anti-gay bill that will outlaw same-sex marriage, and LGBT organisations and advocacy. The Commonwealth's response to these two bills - and to the homophobic witch-hunts in Cameroon - has been feeble."

Homosexuality is still a flogging offense in Pakistan; in Jamaica, anyone convicted of the "abominable crime of buggery" faces up to 10 years' imprisonment, with or without hard labor; Nigerian punishment already includes death by stoning as a possible punishment. (Wikipedia has a page devoted to LGBT rights in all countries of the world -- worth checking before booking that Caribbean vacation.)

The difference between the British Commonwealth and Gilligan's Island is that there were only seven castaways on the TV show. There wasn't any question who "and the rest" were.