Q Toon: Bubble, Bubble, Toilet Trouble

Delaware, the First State in the Union, is now also the First State in the Union Represented by a Transgender American.

Democrat Sarah McBride, whose deadname is Nunnoyer Dambizness, won election as the state's one and only Representative in the 119th Congress, and Republican panties immediately entered into wad mode. South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace led the hue and cry that Congresswoman-elect McBride would not be welcome in women's rest rooms anywhere in the Capitol building.

Speaker Mike Johnson, whose duties include assigning toilet stalls, readily acquiesced to Mace's demands, publishing a new rule that lavatory use must align with one's gender as assigned at birth, no matter what changes may have taken place in the meantime. His order gently suggested that members can avail themselves of the personal lavatory facilities in their own offices; and McBride has accepted the crapper command calmly and professionally.

It may not have occurred to the Transphobic Caucus that not all transgender persons have transitioned from male to female. There are some people who have found their peace transitioning in the opposite direction. While none of those persons have yet been elected to Congress, I expect that Congresswoman Mace will suffer advanced conniptions if she ever hears that Chaz Bono has come to lobby the legislature after a heavy lunch.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi might offer that Mace's complaints are much ado about chicken shit. We all remember how much deference the Trumpster mob showed to female sensitivities when they came to lobby Capitol Hill to overturn the 2020 election on 1/6.

Alas, Poor Cartoons Magazine

I must acknowledge Google Books' archive of Cartoons Magazine as having been an invaluable resource in putting together my series of essays featuring editorial cartoons of events 100 years ago. But sadly, that resource is approaching the end of the line.

Cartoons Magazine, Vol. 8 #1, July, 1915; cover based on a Rollin Kirby cartoon

Not Google or Google Books (at least not just yet — nothing on the internet is as permanent as we were once led to believe, especially the "information wants to be free!" part). 

What I mean is that Cartoons Magazine underwent significant changes in 1921, and not for the better as far as my purposes are concerned.

Cartoons Magazine, Vol. 1 #1, January, 1912

Cartoons Magazine was first published in 1912, by Henry Haven Windsor in Chicago, Illinois. The magazine featured a wide variety of mostly editorial cartoons at first, on all the major issues of the moment: U.S. government, elections, international affairs, wars, the economy, you name it. Most cartoonists represented in the magazine were from the U.S., but examples from Europe, Australia and Latin America appeared frequently; and occasionally some from Japan and the Philippines as well. At first, the cartoons stood without much explanatory text, but over time they came to be be accompanied by humorous essays on the topic — unless, as in the example of the sinking of the Lusitania, whimsy did not suit the subject.

The typical issue would also be leavened with less topical gag cartoons and jokes, slice of life cartoons, and seasonal cartoons about holidays, the weather, sports, school days, and so forth. "What the Cartoonists Are Doing" became a regular feature, reporting such things as when a cartoonist was moving to another newspaper, getting married, presenting a public demonstration, joining the armed forces, retiring, or had gone to draw the pearly gates in person.

One of two pages of cartoons critical of a racist South Carolina governor in the January, 1913 issue, accompanied by no additional text

Other features that came and went were profiles of individual cartoonists, two-page cartoon spreads by a given cartoonist drawing about the city where he was working, feature stories about historical cartoons and cartoonists, and full-page cartoons drawn expressly for Cartoons Magazine.

Advertisements in the front and back pages promised lucrative careers to graduates of this or that cartooning school. Charles "Bart" Bartholomew backed his claims up with reports of the exploits of his school's alumni; and if hardly any of his graduates achieved any lasting fame, I'm sure that several made a comfortable career in those days when they had multiple employment opportunities in any given city.

One thing that hardly ever appeared in Cartoons Magazine was the work of William Randolph Hearst's stable of cartoonists. You would, for example, find plenty of the work of cartoonists for Chicago Tribune, Chicago Daily News, Chicago Post, Chicago Inter-Ocean, or Chicago Journal, but nothing that appeared in Hearst's Chicago Examiner. I don't know whether that was by Mr. Windsor's editorial preference, or if Hearst's publishing empire did not make those cartoons available.

Cartoons Magazine, Vol. 19, #6, June, 1921

The June, 1921 issue of Cartoons Magazine, published in May of that year, would be the last under that title. For several months, its issues had featured short works of fiction or light essays toward the front of the magazine, always illustrated with cartoons drawn specifically for them. Political cartoons were still predominant, but it had been a while since an adaptation of one had appeared on the front cover.

Cartoons Magazine and Wayside Tales, Vol. 20, #1, July, 1921

With the July, 1921 issue, Cartoons Magazine merged with Wayside Tales. The editor's note explained the changes to come:

"To our readers: Beginning with this issue, CARTOONS MAGAZINE makes its appearance as CARTOONS MAGAZINE AND WAYSIDE TALES. The best cartoons of the month will appear as before, with the running whimsical comment which has distinguished our pages in the past. In addition to the cartoon feature, however, the magazine under its new title will offer entertainment in the form of popular fiction by the best writers of the day. Romance, adventure, humor, mystery — these themes will constitute the new menu which we will serve our readers. Each issue will contain one serial by a popular novelist, one complete novelette, and a number of short stories, as in the present issue. — The Editor."

The table of contents made it clear which half of the magazine title came first inside, in spite of its placement and font size on the front cover.

So for August, they fixed the cover.

Wayside Tales and Cartoons Magazine, Vol. 20, #2, August, 1921

Editorial changes went further than as described by the Editor's Note. Topical cartoons remained, but political cartoons completely disappeared. There was not one cartoon about the new administration, about Democrats or Republicans, about immigration, or about Yap, Germany, Ireland, Armenia, or Mexico. Probably the closest thing to controversial cartoons were the ones about Sunday Blue Laws that I brought you last week.

Wayside Tales and Cartoons Magazine, Vol. 20 #6, December, 1921

Of course, when I say that the cartoons weren't controversial, I mean that by the standards of the time. Their cartoons featuring Black Americans would be highly controversial by today's standards, and I don't feel any pressing need to post them on a blog under my name. Ditto and ibid. for a few cartoons featuring Native Americans (with, by the way, the cut line "Drawn for Wayside Tales").

Wayside Tales, Vol. 21, #1, January, 1922

With the January, 1922 edition, "Cartoons Magazine" disappeared from the title entirely. There were still drawings and cartoons inside, and a dozen advertisements aimed at aspiring ink-slingers; but the "80 Pages of Humor" had been whittled down month after month to only 40 pages. 

Editorially, all that was left of Cartoons Magazine in the February issue was ten pages of "Best of the Jests." The final edition of the magazine was the May, 1922 issue.

Q Toon: Yes, We Have No Palmettos

If the polls are to be believed, Pete Buttigieg has soared into the lead among Democratic candidates for president in first in the nation contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

But even if December polling translates into actual voting in February, the next stop on the campaign trail is in South Carolina, where Mayor Pete is polling just slightly ahead of A Poke In The Eye With A Sharp Stick.

Whereas Iowa and New Hampshire electorates are among the whitest in the nation, South Carolina Democrats rank among the blackest. Not that race has helped black candidates there; even if you added Cory Booker's numbers and those of Kamala Harris before she suspended her candidacy this week, you'd still fall well short of former Vice President Joe Biden's support among South Carolina Democrats. Apparently, being anti-malarkey is a big selling point down there.

I don't hold a lot of stock in polls this far before any actual voting, however, especially where Democrats are concerned. Democratic candidates are like a bunch of cats in a room, and the polls are like a laser pointer shining on one of them. The rest all attack that spot of light until it lands on one of the other kitties.

Remember: at this point in 2003, Howard Dean led the polls; Hillary Clinton had a substantial lead over Barack Obama in December of 2007.

But once the cattle calls debates are over and the caucuses and primaries are underway, my cartoons will have to focus on issues, not who's up and who's down. My deadline for cartoons that will appear after the polls close is well before the polls open. So if I'm gonna comment on the horse race, I have to do it now.

Remembering Fritz Hollings

Retired Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-SC) died Saturday at the age of 97.

To my generation at least, he will chiefly be remembered as the Democrat who signed onto the Republicans' Gramm-Rudman bill in 1986: an attempt to cut the federal deficit by blindly cutting all government expenditures by a uniform percentage.

Oh, and he tried running for president once. But that didn't last long, and you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody outside of his immediate family who remembers when that was.

Q Toon: Sermon at the Counter II

In spite of feeling that I put out the definitive cartoon on the topic just over a month ago, I've drawn about local county and municipal clerks who still defiantly refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the Supreme Court of the United States notwithstanding.

Rowan County, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis is putting up a legal fight claiming that other people's right to a marriage license is a violation of her First Amendment religious liberty rights to refuse to do her job. On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning stayed his earlier ruling that had required Davis to set her religious views aside and stop discriminating against same-sex couples.

Kentucky is not alone in facing unresolved issues related to marriage equality since Obergefell v. Hodges. Lawsuits have now been filed in Colorado, Florida, Mississippi and South Carolina claiming that public officials' religious beliefs supersede their responsibilities to their constituents.

Now, in case there are any sticklers out there who question the religious sincerity of the unnamed clerk in this week's cartoon, please note that in every panel of the cartoon, her head is covered by a dialogue balloon.

Q Toon: Terms of Enragement

Given how the assassination of nine Black Americans in Charleston, South Carolina's Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church during a Bible study last Wednesday night has dominated the news in the U.S. this week, my Q Syndicate cartoon this week is only very tangential to LGBT issues.

This weekend on NPR's On the Media, Brooke Gladstone noted what she called the media's rules for different races when it comes to mass murder:

"If [Dylann] Roof were Muslim, he would have been identified swiftly and universally as a 'terrorist.' Reporters would focus on his 'recruiters,' which in his case could be a multitude of white supremacist web sites, or one of the many hate groups that exist legally in his own state. But when the suspect is white, he's an 'aberration,' immediately furnished with a name, a family, a history, and a diagnosis. Whereas a black suspect, for instance, accused of far less or nothing, more often is displayed as a nameless emblem of a social disease."

In the days since, The Guardian of Great Britain led American media in unmasking the Council of Conservative Citizens as Roof's on-line recruiter. Digging further, American media found that the head of the CCC, Earl Holt III, has donated thousands of dollars to Republicans over the years (including Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Senator Ron Johnson, and Representative Paul Ryan); Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum are among the presidential candidates now stumbling all over themselves to turn away that cash.

Well, who could have known that an organization sharing its acronym with the Coo Clucks Clan would be a bunch of racists? Besides the Southern Poverty Law Center, that is.

And while Republicans have been hastily disavowing Roof's recruiter, Walmart, Amazon, Target and even the state of Alabama have taken the rebel battle flag off their shelves and flagpoles. Anything to keep the subject away from gun control, I suppose. Minneapolis might even rename Lake Calhoun.

I do so hope that Roof is being kept up to date with these developments in the Race War he wanted to spark.

Q Toon: Condemned to Repeat It

Senator Lindsey Graham appeared with Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman on CNN earlier this month, and program host Piers Morgan brought up the topic of marriage equality. After Graham had stated that South Carolina would never vote for marriage equality, the other two senators couched the issue in the question of states' rights to define marriage for themselves.

Morgan then suggested that it wasn't fair that a couple could be legally married in New York but not in South Carolina. I've twisted Senator Graham's words in the cartoon, so here's his original reply:

"Can — can I suggest this? Slavery was outlawed by a Constitutional amendment. Go watch 'Lincoln,' a great movie. The people decided. The question for us is who should decide these things? Should it be a handful of judges or should it be the people themselves? And I come out on the side of the people themselves. Different people will look at it differently. But slavery was outlawed by a Constitutional amendment. If you want to propose a Constitutional amendment legalizing same-sex marriage and it passes, that’s the law of the land."

Mission Implausible

Last week, William Gheen, a South Carolina Democrat (yes, a Democrat — the political spectrum is S.C. skews to the right compared to most of the country) now active in the Tea Party movement told his fellow teabaggers that Senator Lindsey Graham was being blackmailed to support Democrats' version of Immigration Reform:

"Sen. Graham, you need to come forward and tell people about your alternative lifestyle and your homosexuality. Come out of that closet, Lindsey. Come out of that log cabin closet...Look, I'm a tolerant person. I don't care about your private life, Lindsey. But as our U.S. Senator, I need to figure out why you're trying to sell out your own countrymen, and I need to make sure your being gay isn't it."

What connection there is between being a closeted gay and supporting immigration reform is beyond me. If Gheen wasn't saying that Sen. Graham was being blackmailed, perhaps he was charging that immigration reform is somehow part of the Homosexual Agenda. Could we be planning to allow homosexuals from around the world into our country to infiltrate our post-Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell military so that we can rise through the ranks and achieve World Domination?

Since the weekend, when this cartoon was drawn, Sen. Graham has declared himself against any immigration reform bill likely to come out of this Congress, so I suppose Mr. Gheen's bizarre linking of the Senator's long-rumored "private life" and his openness toward moving immigration reform forward has had its desired effect. (For the record, I have no idea whether Sen. Graham is gay, straight, or a eunuch pining away for Greta Garbo.)

The question now is whether Republican or Teabag minders will trot out insinuations about Lindsey Graham — or any other unmarried politician — any time he is suspected of wavering from the Tea Party Line.

Or, How To Speak Southern?

Outing blogger Mike Rogers has reported allegations that South Carolina's Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer is a closeted gay man. The rumors could doom the career of the 40-year-old bachelor, but may be just the thing to save Governor Mark Sanford from impeachment.

On the other hand, South Carolina legislators may prefer that Sanford be succeeded by someone they can imagine themselves trouncing in the next election.

The last time I drew S.C. Governor Mark Sanford...

The last time I drew South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford...

... most of the country had never heard of him.