Yet Another Luxembourg-Themed Post?

Having devoted three posts this month to the late U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg James C. Hormel, imagine my surprise when President Joe Biden named Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to that same post this week.

Why, I just happen to have drawn a bunch of cartoons featuring Tom Barrett, mostly for the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee back in the early 'aughts. I also wrote a school report on Luxembourg in the sixth grade for which I got somebody in the Grand Duchy to send me a very nice package of informational materials. But I don't know where that school report is any more, so let's take a look at the cartoons, shall we?

in Journal Times, Racine, Wis. Oct. 20, 1992

I thought I might have drawn at least one cartoon featuring Barrett while he was a member of Congress, but I'm only finding two in which he appears, and only as an extra. He had not yet been elected (although he was a shoo-in) in this first cartoon, in which Wisconsin's incumbent Republican Senator horns in on an imagined Democratic campaign event.

in Business Journal, Milwaukee, February, 1997

Here, Barrett is standing behind Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Milwaukee Brewers' new stadium.

(Clearly, I had no pictures handy showing what the Brewers' new baseball stadium looked like. I later drew a pencil sketch in the margin of this cartoon so I would know how to properly cartoon the building and Miller Park logo.)

in Business Journal, Milwaukee, June 4, 2004

Once Barrett left Congress and was elected Mayor of Milwaukee in 2004, I naturally had many more opportunities to draw him. These are only a few of them.

in Business Journal, Milwaukee, August 13, 2004

A politician can throw cartoonists a curve by changing their look; Barrett wore a more business-like hairdo as Mayor than he had as Congressman...

in Business Journal, Milwaukee, August 27, 2004

...And then he went and shaved off his moustache, which changed his look dramatically. Removal of his most noticeable facial feature meant having to rethink how to represent him in two-dimensional black and white.

Before long, however, I hit upon what would become my go-to caricature of him. Except for the nose. The nose is wrong here.

in Business Journal, Milwaukee, July 1, 2005

It's a good thing that it didn't take long to settle on my mayoral caricature, because by the end of the year, the Business Journal had decided that it didn't need an editorial cartoonist any more. Milwaukee's mayoral politics hasn't impacted LGBTQ+ news a whole lot in the meantime, so I haven't drawn Mr. Barrett for Q Syndicate.

But I did put him in a cartoon for the on-line Racine Post when he ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2010.

for Racine Post, July, 2010

The cartoon is based on a campaign commercial from the Republican Party that told voters that Milwaukee was going down the toilet. Of course, the Milwaukee County Executive running for governor on the Republican ticket, or the national Great Recession, had nothing to do with it.

By the way, the original GOP ad didn't portray outgoing Governor Jim Doyle and Mayor Barrett as Nosferatu and the Joker. It just ain't easy to depict the grainy black-and-white images of television/video political attack ads in a cartoon that's in grayscale to begin with, so I had to come up with something else.

Creating the third and fourth panels in color would have been a good choice; I didn't start using color until some months later, though. A missed opportunity, really.

So anyway, if there are any Luxembourger cartoonists looking for tips on how to draw the new ambassador from the United States, here you go. Check out whether Stuart Carlson or Phil Hands have any Qwantable examples out there, and have fun.

Just Like Hitler

Some redneck with a guitar Jr. got hisself axed from his gig singing the opening to ESPN's Monday Night Football this week. I was at a meeting, so I missed the first half of the game, and didn't know anything about it until the next morning.

Funny thing is, I thought the game ran pretty long. You'd have thought that skipping the "Are You Ready for Some Football" opener would have shaved a good five or ten minutes off the show.

Well, anyway, the problem was that the guy had gone on Fox 'n' Friends and compared the President of the United States to Adolf Hitler. To most of Fox News's audience, that's about as controversial as vanilla ice cream -- and ESPN might have let it pass if Monday's game were between Atlanta and Houston -- but ESPN ultimately decided that this was a metaphor too far.

Last month, Phil Hands, editorial cartoonist for the Wisconsin State Journal, took some heat for a cartoon in which a protester against Governor Scott Walker responds to Walker's announcement that he will "focus on creating jobs" by saying, "Ya know, Hitler created jobs in Nazi Germany!" The cartoon followed a Nazi protest in Milwaukee, at which some flyer distributed by counterprotesters included a remark that Hitler, like Walker, sought to bust unions.

Hands still has his gig at the WSJ, which is a good thing. We really don't have many editorial cartoonists drawing about state politics in Wisconsin, what with the Milwaukee J. Sentinel having fired all its cartoonists and the Capital Times going web-only. Joe Heller appears in several state newspapers, and Mike Konopacki and Gary Huck draw for Labor papers. Since the Racine Post logged off, I haven't had a real outlet for any Wisconsin issue cartoons other than this here blog.

A friend asked me recently if I've ever used Adolf Hitler in a cartoon. I could only think of two, and have only been able to find one. Dating from 2003, it isn't likening anyone to Hitler; instead, it had to do with an allegation that Hitler was gay. 

The other cartoon was probably in the 1980's, and may be lost to history. If I ever run across it, I'll try to remember to post it -- it's just that I don't remember what it was about. Just vaguely that I drew him shocked or surprised about something or other.

Racine Post Farewell Cartoon

Pete Selkowe asked me to draw a cartoon for the announcement that the Racine Post would be closing up shop, and sent me a link to an interview on YouTube of himself and Post founder Dustin Block in what I have taken as a mild suggestion that the two of them appear in the cartoon.

I took a very cartoony approach to these caricatures, and, having met both men in person, I'm quite confident that either Pete or Dustin would be able to strike up a conversation with anyone reading this cartoon and never be recognized.

The Post has been an exclusively on-line reporting and opinion site; Pete and Dustin used to work for the paper-and-ink Journal Times (for which I once drew, for that matter). In its brief existence, the Post actually broke a few important local news stories, and provided a needed counterpoint to the JT. (I mean nothing pejorative against the JT by that; I believe, however, that journalism without competition is unhealthy in the long run.)

But Dustin got a job with AOL's "Patch" (about which I know absolutely nothing save that it has something to do with local news), and Pete isn't so infatuated with his own writing that he wants to run the site solo. (Read their own explanation in the link above, while it lasts.)

So, fare thee well, Racine Post. It's been good to know you.

Trashy Racine Post Cartoon

Here's a local issue cartoon I drew for The Racine Post today. There's a story on the site reporting that the new recycling bins delivered to Racine residents this month have computer chips in them to monitor the sort of use they're getting. Racine being a place where people who don't like any kind of change are quite willing to speak up about it, the bins had already stirred up a hornets' nest even before folks found out that the bins were monitoring their garbage for the gummint.

If the cartoon looks a little different from my usual style, it's because it was drawn primarily with felt marker instead of quill pen. I had hoped that a new pen would still have a sharp enough edge to enable some degree of detail; unfortunately, for that I had to resort to ballpoint pen -- a medium I gave up decades ago on the very wise advice of Bill Sanders, then cartoonist for The Milwaukee Journal.

I have been having a hard time finding the kind of india ink I like these days. I was happy with Winsor & Newton, but the local art stores now only sell it in the packs of multicolor inks; and you may have noticed that I don't use colored ink. I tried Speedball Super Black next, and it was okay... but it has also gone missing at the local art stores. I am very disappointed with Dr. Ph. Martin's Black Star, which is, as far as I'm concerned, gray. It's darker than #2 pencil, but not by enough for my tastes.

This week's Racine Post cartoon

After an excessively long hiatus, I've finally contributed a local-issue cartoon to the Racine Post. The issue concerns the sweeteners Racine has offered to entice a small business, American Tire and Recycling, to open a plant in town.

From the Post article:

The city would pay American Tire $39,600 to cover the company's rent at 2301 S. Memorial Drive for 18 months. In exchange, the company is committed to creating 88 jobs over 18 months, with city residents getting first shot at the jobs.

City Development Director Brian O'Connell said the jobs incentive grant was 'unique' for Racine. ...

The company is committed to immediately hiring 33 low-skill workers and 20 truck drivers for the Racine site. It intends to ramp up to two shifts with a total of 88 workers over the next year and a half.

While the low-skill jobs may not pay great, O'Connell said, they're needed in Racine. The city has a large unskilled workforce that could use jobs that don't require degrees or advanced training. ...

The meeting started with O'Connell taking some heat from the committee for providing a written review of the agreement on Monday, the same day as the meeting.

'Is there any way this committee can be better informed?' Alderman Q.A. Shakoor II asked O'Connell.

O'Connell said he didn't have an excuse. 'It's the simple press of business,' O'Connell responded to Shakoor. 'I don't have a better reason.'

Originally, the caption had Mayor Dickert having promised that the city council would clear snow off AT&R's roof; then I decided that changing it to the neighbors would be more effective ... even though I'm fully aware that the 2300 block of South Memorial Drive is not really a residential area.

Paul Ryan's Health Care Plan

Peter Selkowe at The Racine Post recently asked if I'd be interested in submitting cartoons about local politics on occasion. This first cartoon spins a local angle on a national topic: Health Care Reform.



Our congressman, Republican Paul Ryan, has actually gained some national stature by being the lone Republican to do more than bark "No!" on the issue. He actually put forth a health care reform proposal, although it failed to garner the support even of his own party.

One component of his proposal is a health insurance tax credit -- $2,300 for a single filer, $5,700 for a family. As anyone who pays for their own health insurance knows, that tax credit falls far short of what a decent health insurance policy costs these days.

Far short.