What's in a Name?

 Tariffic!

Q Toon: The GOPranos

On Jennifer Welch's I've Had It podcast last month, and later on Don Lemon's eponymous Show, Hunter Biden confided that there is a cabal of closeted gay Republicans who take their self-loathing out on the rest of the LGBTQ+ community:

"Everybody in DC knows this: There is this closeted gay mafia, largely Republican, that exists in Washington, and everybody knows every single one of them, who's gay. The only reason that that is relevant is  because I believe that internal  conflict creates so much vitriol inside a person that they take it out on the rest of the world...

"And so what they do is their whole lives they've been closeted, and so you have this, like black ball inside yourself, this, like, blackened heart by the fact that you can't be who you wanna be, and so you take it out on everybody else."

Pressed to name names, Biden coyly replied, "I'm already in enough lawsuits, Don. Are you asking me if Josh Hawley [R-MO] is gay? Are you asking me if Stephen Miller [NSDAP-WH] is gay? Are you asking me if Speaker Johnson [R-LA] is gay?"

As if Don Lemon wouldn't already know who's gay in D.C. He's a journalist. He's got gaydar.

The topic came up upon the death of the famously closeted Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), at a time when the Republican Party from top to bottom has gone all-in on persecuting transgender persons, drag performers, and the gender non-conforming. If yethinks the party doth protest too much, you're not alone.

Republican policy may be "No Fats Or Fems" for the moment — paging the Secretary of Testosterone Testing the Troops! — but the party has established a record of moving the goalposts ever rightward.

Don't think your gym membership is going to keep you safe.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Water

Or, What's It All About, Algae?

Frou Frou Dining

 They were particularly impressed with the plush toilet seat covers.

Must've Been the Last Straw

Oh, well. I'm sure DJ Trump's Freedom 250 party mix will have the national mall groovin' and swayin'.

Anyway, here's this week's sneak peek:

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Do Not Adjust Your Set

How come spaceships on Star Trek only meet each other head-on, face-to-face? Someday, I'd like to see a Star Trek episode in which the Enterprise meets a ship approaching at a perpendicular angle, or even upside down.

And then when the viewscreen shows the other ship's captain and bridge crew, so are they.

Not Suitable for General Audiences

With apologies to Charles Addams...

...and to anybody lacking an encyclopedic knowledge of his work.

I'll explain later.

Space. The Final Vomitorium.

When I slap together these Graphical History Tours featuring my own cartoons, I usually dredge up one cartoon from each decade marker for the month. But when I started looking through the cartoons from April of 1985, I couldn't decide which one I wanted to write about.

So here are a whole bunch of them.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., Apr. 25, 1985

With the current maladministration punishing any media that don't kowtow to Trumpspeak, here's a reminder of an earlier president's efforts to get reporters to echo the Official Line.

Unlike the Gulf of Mexico, which has bore that name for centuries, the Reagan administration's space-based "Strategic Defense Initiative" was brand new. But it was popularly called "Star Wars" after the film series. Reagan and spokesflack Larry Speakes were up against late-night comedians and editorial cartoonists. "Star Wars" was shorter than "Strategic Defense Initiative" and pithier than "SDI."

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Kenosha Wis., Apr. 4, 1985

This cartoon starred local Congressman Les Aspin (D-WI) in a triple role. The inset copies a cartoon I had drawn for the Ranger the previous November, after Aspin had debated Republican challenger Pete Janssen on the Parkside campus, cruising on his way to an eighth term. First elected in 1970 as a critic of the Vietnam War who had served as a U.S. Army officer in Vietnam and a Pentagon systems analyst under Robert MacNamara.

With some serious seniority under his belt in 1985, the Defense Department gadfly was named Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, and his more conservative positions soon came to the fore. I drew this cartoon after he voted in favor of Reagan's Star Wars program and the controversial MX missile system.

He would also support Reagan administration aid to the Contras fighting against the socialist government of Nicaragua, and later, George H.W. Bush's build-up to the Gulf War I. It got him deposed as Armed Services Committee Chair, but only briefly; it also got him named Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense.

In the meantime, his House position in those days got us Blue Angel fly-overs on Fourths of July hereabouts.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Kenosha Wis., Apr. 11, 1985

Wharton School of Business D-student Donald Trump has been wreaking havoc recklessly imposing and revoking draconian tariffs, eviscerating your 401k and college savings fund. It's all part of his cunning plan to undo decades of global free trade.

Forty years ago, the postwar American dominance of world markets was suddenly challenged by Japan. In the 1960's, Americans considered Japanese products cheap and of inferior quality; but after the energy crisis of the 1970's made gas-guzzlers unfashionable, Japanese automakers produced fuel-efficient cars while U.S. automakers were slow to retool.

The U.S. complaint was that Japan was not letting American goods into their country while underselling our domestic manufacturers. (And then buying our domestic manufacturers.) At the end of March, both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of resolutions calling for retaliation against Japan unless it reduced its trade imbalance with the U.S. Over the course of the year, 300 protectionist bills were introduced in Congress by members of both political parties. 

So the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations hammered out free trade agreements wherever they could; and thus Coke was able to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. And domestic manufacturers moved all the jobs to Mexico, China, and wherever the median wage was a bushel of beans per month.

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I drew an alternating pair of comic strips for the Ranger that year. "Reductio and Absurdam" starred a man and a woman — I never established which was Reductio and which was Absurdam — who appeared in a variety of situations. They might be a couple, or co-workers, or teller and customer, as the gag warranted.

"Reductio and Absurdam" in UW-Parkside Ranger, Kenosha Wis., April 11, 1985

The only consistent conceit was that, except for any text, I drew the cartoon in charcoal. The problem with charcoal as opposed to india ink is that I couldn't go back and erase pencil marks showing around the charcoal. 

I called the other cartoon "Post Nasal Strip." That I drew with india ink, the medium I've relied on for most of my cartoons for not quite 60 years. 

"Post Nasal Strip" in UW-Parkside Ranger, Kenosha Wis., Apr. 11, 1985

"Post Nasal Strip" tended to be more topical than "Reductio and Absurdam," here highlighting a quote by Sen. Jake Garn (R-UT) upon his return from a jaunt into outer space on the space shuttle Discovery. NASA had publicly mused about sending a artist, journalist, or teacher as the first civilian into space, but gave the seat to the Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies instead.

Garn had flown as a pilot with the U.S. Navy and the Utah National Guard before winning election to Congress in 1974. Designated "payload specialist" for the Discovery flight, he was the guinea pig for experiments on Space Adaptation Syndrome. So basically, he was there to throw up.

And so he did. And the rest is History.

"Jake Garn was sick, was pretty sick. I don't know whether we should tell stories like that. But anyway, Jake Garn, he has made a mark in the Astronaut Corps because he represents the maximum level of space sickness that anyone can ever attain, and so the mark of being totally sick and totally incompetent is one Garn. Most guys will get maybe to a tenth Garn, if that high. And within the Astronaut Corps, he forever will be remembered by that."

Two side notes about my cartoon: I snuck in the Ranger Features Editor, Jim Niebuhr, as the fellow delivering the punch line in the final panel. And yes, having performed on a thrust stage, I know what a vomitorium really is.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., May 2, 1985

Last week's Graphical History Tour was all about the fall of South Vietnam, so I'll close with this cartoon drawn for its tenth anniversary.

The cartoon was supposed to accompany an article about the anniversary. The article didn't run, but the Ranger ran my cartoon anyway, just below the cartoon I had drawn for the editorial page.

You'll notice that there is one president missing from my cartoon. There was a war in Vietnam (this time with China) during Jimmy Carter during his presidency, but the U.S. stayed out of if. Nor did Carter commit American troops to a shooting war anywhere else, so there was no particular reason for me to include Carter in this cartoon.

No Thanks, I've Had Enough

 

Toon: Town Hall Do-Si-Don't

We interrupt today's regularly scheduled cartoon for this important breaking cartoon:

In case you missed it, Donald Disco Trump had a Town Hall rally in Philadelphia the other night, fielding pre-screened questions from the pre-screened audience, when, a couple of questions in, two members of the audience fainted.

Trump stopped taking questions, which is perfectly reasonable, and asked the backstage staff to play some music.

As a church organist, I've had to wing some music because somebody in the back pews has collapsed. I fainted in church once myself a very long time ago (fortunately, not as the organist). I've been in the congregation when a woman suffered a heart attack.

On those occasions, the worship service was interrupted, but not for long. In the case of the woman having a heart attack, the EMTs arrived soon and got her to the hospital as quickly as possible.

For reasons that defy logic, Trump had the backstage crew DJ an impromptu concert for 39 minutes, starting with not one, but two renditions of Franz Schubert's Ave Maria — two, because the DJ played an instrumental version and Trump wanted Luciano Pavarotti's performance.

Followed by several songs by artists such as Rufus Wainwright who have demanded that he cease and desist playing recordings of their performances at his rallies.

According to video from the evening, Trump played Rufus Wainwright’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” as well as Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond,” Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain,” James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” Elvis’ “An American Trilogy,” the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” and Andrea Bocelli’s “Time to Say Goodbye.”

All the while, South Dakota Governor Kristi "Shoot the Pooch" Noem (the moderator for the evening) and a mute Greek chorus of special guests were trapped on stage. You could see them distractedly swaying and shuffling and clapping along with the Donald, clearly wondering how to get the hell out of there without being noticed.

In the end, Trump answered only four people's questions, and left town happy and pleased with his performance.

With Apologies to Garry Trudeau

 

Toon: My God, It's Full of Stars

We've stepped outside several times over the weekend in search of the aurora light show. I don't know whether it's light pollution from Foxconn, or from Milwaukee to our north, but we haven't caught the display everyone else on Earth seems to have.

Even with the clouds that came in Saturday night, some people in our area got some nice photographs, so we must simply have not waited outdoors long enough.

This Weak's Sneek Pique

Actually, in lieu of a sneak peek at this week's cartoon, here's my obligatory Total Eclipse cartoon for sharp-eyed readers.

You Know the Number; Look Up the Name

 

This Week's Sneak Peek

Ask a clutch of cartoonists what they have the most difficulty drawing, and a solid majority of them will probably tell you...

... hands.

Especially performing some function that you won't find in Bridgeman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life.

That's when it's helpful to live in the same house with someone willing to be a hand model.

Or to have a book with over a thousand illustrations of hands in all sorts of activities.

Or you can just resort to trial and error.

The Brand New Monty Python Papperbok, Warner Books

Q Toon: The Dating Game

Is there time before the Superbowl™ for one more cartoon lampooning magazoid Swiftophobes and fusty oldsters who somehow don't remember Beatlemania?

Actually, I can sympathize with any Baby Boomer who took his girlfriend to see the Beatles and she spent the entire concert screaming at the top of her lungs. But at least he didn't pay current TicketMaster prices to get his eardrums split.

But frankly, I just can't understand what Clyde and his buddies have against Travis Kelce dating Taylor Swift. I mean, don't they want their macho football star to be seen with a pretty blonde white girl, a country singer to boot?

Okay, I get it that she's not joining you in the Cult of Trump; and yeah, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are available. But be reasonable. He's Travis Action Movie Star Lookin' Kelce with the perfect pearly whites gleaming through an effortlessly virile beard. If Clyde here had his choice of those three women, I don't think he'd pick either of the congressional harridans.

Just turn to the Talladega Channel, Clyde. Maybe they'll have a shot of Kid Rock and Ted Nugent in the stands for ya.

Antisapientic Cartoon Decried

To the editor of the Warshinton Post-Malone:

I was profoundly dismayed over the blatant mockery of human beings in the January 20 editorial cartoon. This caricature is outrageously offensive, despicable, and blasphemous, not only to the human beings who are unfairly and racistly portrayed, but also to the countless innocent homo sapiens, living and dead, who have ever existed since the beginning of time. It is a morally reprehensible depiction that implies a justification for the drawing of antisapientic editorial cartoons by "quote" editorial cartoonists "end quote," including women and children. An apology, not just to readers, but to the countless victims of editorial cartoonists, is in order.

Why can't we see more courtroom sketches and cartoons about kittens?

Severely,

Tigger McBoots, editorial illustrator (Mrs.)

This Week's Sneak Peek

 This conspiracy theory idiocy might have been an interesting topic for a cartoon this week. But it isn't.

Toon: Led Sailor Man

 Testing out the new scanner so I don't run into any snags at deadline:

It Comes Already Furnished

 And look how open and spacious it is!