This Week's Sneak Peek

A visitor here commented that he at first mistook the testosterone-overloaded soldier in last Thursday's cartoon for the "cop" in The Village People. 

For the record, I draw that cop character like the guy on the right:

The soldier in the foreground of Thursday's cartoon might have been part Cop Guy and part Biker Guy, but I get how not everyone in outside the gay porn clientele might not be familiar with Tom of Finland and the like. Even Tom of Finland didn't draw guys whose shirts conformed to their abs and nipples.

And by the way, thanks to Mike "Comic Strip of the Day" Peterson for highlighting Thursday's cartoon at The Daily Cartoonist on Friday!

Q Toon: A Little Song, A Little Dance

Phoning in to the Fox Noise panel program "The Five" last Thursday, Donald Commodius Trump made the bizarre claim at the heart of my editorial cartoon today.

“Now I think I did very well with the gay vote, OK? I even played the gay national anthem as my walk-off, OK? And I think it probably helped me. But I did great. No Republican’s ever gotten the gay vote like I did and I’m very proud of it, I think it’s great. Perhaps it’s because I’m from New York City.”

The "gay national anthem" Trump referred to is the Village People's "Y.M.C.A.," one of the staples of his 2024 presidential campaign appearances (including the one where Trump appeared on stage and called for a 34-minute impromptu concert, after the crowd had already been standing for hours listening to music while waiting for him to arrive).

For dropping their cease-and-desist order to stop playing their music at Trump rallies, the Village People were rewarded by landing the gig to perform "Y.M.C.A." at Trump's "Make America Great Again Rally" and the Turning Point USA Inaugural Ball on January 19, 2025. 

I hope they were paid enough to be worth it, because I would argue that "Y.M.C.A." can no longer be considered the gay national anthem. Not only is it now a staple along with "Mambo #5" and "Electric Slide" of different-sex wedding receptions, the Village People front man and co-author of the song Victor Willis has disavowed its gayness:

“There’s been a lot of talk, especially of late, that Y.M.C.A. is somehow a gay anthem. As I’ve said numerous times in the past, that is a false assumption based on the fact that my writing partner was gay, and some (not all) of Village People were gay, and that the first Village People album was totally about gay life. 

“This assumption is also based on the fact that the YMCA was apparently being used as some sort of gay hangout and since one of the writers was gay and some of the Village People are gay, the song must be a message to gay people. To that I say once again, get your minds out of the gutter. It is not."

Don't count on being able to convince Secretary of Excursions Pete Kegsbreath to enlist "In the Navy" as a recruitment tool, however.

There are plenty of other nominees for Gay National Anthem, any of which is unsullied by association with the Absolutely Corrupt Trump Regime. There's "Born This Way," "I Am What I Am," "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," or "Supermodel (You Better Work)" — just for starters.

Dozens of new ones come out every summer, and I haven't even gotten around to the Lesbian National Anthems, Bisexual National Anthems, Transgender National Anthems, Queer National Anthems, and all the Plus National Anthems.

If you saw Monday's sneak peek, you will have noticed that I completely changed the last dialogue balloon. Originally, I had Trump "weaving" to the topic of his pens, the subject of a five-minute monologue during a recent televised cabinet meeting.

After I had nearly finished inking the cartoon, it occurred to me that it would be better to have him show off his ability to identify the five Village People. Just in case you thought he knew their actual names.

Inking on top of white-out doesn't work very well, so I wrote the substitute dialogue on a sheet of bristol board that I have used for drawing backgrounds for repetition in multi-panel cartoons. What I failed to consider was that the sheet of bristol board was from a bundle susceptible to bleeding. Instead of staying where I draw it, ink spreads out along the fibers of the paper. 

Not far, but not neat.

That's fine for backgrounds, which aren't meant to be in focus anyway. Lettering has to be neater, though, so I ended up spending a considerable amount of time cleaning up that lettering in PhotoShop.

So if someday you notice that I've switched over to using Comic Sans, cut me some slack. I'm not planning to do it, but lettering is probably the least favorite part of any cartoonist's job.

Q Toon: MAGA for Pay

I drew the original Village People in this week's cartoon, but they must be rolling over in whatever they have to roll over in if they've seen what the present iteration of the band has done to forsake its LGBTQ+ fanbase.

It all started when Donald Berzelius Trump insisted upon playing their "Y.M.C.A." at his MAGA rallies, especially at the one that degenerated into a half-hour-plus concert of his personal playlist while he, his Republican hosts, and a stand of hand-selected Trump l'oeilists stood and waited awkwardly for Trump to get tired of swaying and pumping his fists back and forth.

By the way, if you've ever been to any political rally, you know that the hand-selected loyalists who get to stand up on stage have been standing up on stage listening to that same music for two hours before the candidate ever arrived in town. The hoi polloi in the audience have been listening to it for just as long, if not longer.

Anyway, liberals mocked Trump for being such a fan of a Big Gay Anthem in spite of his antiLGBTQ+ rhetoric and threats.

The Village People, who had once upon a time joined with other artists calling on Trump to cease and desist playing their music at his rallies (organizations are supposed to pay royalties on that kind of thing, and surely Trump never has), apparently decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em (along with Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Soulja Boy, Rick Ross and the more standard cast of Trumpster musicians). The group sang "Y.M.C.A." at Trump's "Make America Great Again Rally" and the Turning Point USA Inaugural Ball on January 19.

Front man Victor Willis announced in a Facebook post that "Y.M.C.A.," in spite of its obvious gay references, isn't about gay stuff after all. I guess that has been a well-kept secret for almost half a century.

“There’s been a lot of talk, especially of late, that Y.M.C.A. is somehow a gay anthem. As I’ve said numerous times in the past, that is a false assumption based on the fact that my writing partner was gay, and some (not all) of Village People were gay, and that the first Village People album was totally about gay life. 

“This assumption is also based on the fact that the YMCA was apparently being used as some sort of gay hangout and since one of the writers was gay and some of the Village People are gay, the song must be a message to gay people. To that I say once again, get your minds out of the gutter. It is not. ...

“As I stated on numerous occasions, I knew nothing about the Y being a hang out for gays when I wrote the lyrics to Y.M.C.A. and Jacques Morali (who was gay) never once stated such to me.”

Out heterosexual Willis, who variously portrays the cop or the admiral in the band, is the only current Village Person from the original group. He dropped out of the band from 1980 to 2017, rejoining after an out-of-court settlement 

Willis gave his logic for helping Trump celebrate his return to Washington: “We believe it’s now time to bring the country back together with music, which is why VILLAGE PEOPLE will be performing at various events as part of the 2025 inauguration of Donald J. Trump.” 

Under normal circumstances, “bringing the country back together” would be a laudable goal. But bringing the country together behind a lying, corrupt, vindictive, impulsive, dull-witted, petulant, bigoted, boorish, solipsistic, venal, felonious, overgrown brat who tried to violently overthrow the previous duly elected President of the United States is not.