This Week's Sneak Peek

Here's this week's coming distractions.

This guy's face is fun to draw. I find that men's faces are, for the most part, easier to draw than women's (see last week's attempt at Joan Crawford). For eighteen years of trying, I've only drawn a couple good caricatures of Hillary Clinton, for example. The rule isn't universally true, however; I have had fun with the faces of Ellen DeGeneres, Ann Coulter, Rosie O'Donnell, and others.

But this week, it's all about the boys.

R.C. Bowman Cartoons from 1900: The Philippines

Here's Part VI of a series, resurrecting cartoons from The Minneapolis Tribune Cartoon Book for 1901: Being a Collection of Over One Hundred Cartoons by R.C. Bowman.

Interrupting the Class

The United States took over the Philippines from Spain as a result of the Spanish-American War of 1898; a year later, Filipinos began fighting for independence. The fighting continued until President Aguinaldo surrendered in 1902. R.C. Bowman drew a connection here between the Philippine Revolution and the Boxer Rebellion in China.

The Filipino: "That's worse than a government without the consent of the governed."

The above cartoon references the post-Reconstruction moves to forcibly disenfranchise Black citizens; the issue in 1900 particularly concerned North Carolina. Newt Gingrich's talking points memo instructing all Republicans to use "Democrat" even as an adjective wouldn't come out until 90+ years later, so R.C. Bowman refers to the state Democratic Party with the label "North Carolina Democracy."

Keeping it alive

This is the one cartoon of Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo in this book (although it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the few photos I've seen of him). The rebellion's feet are soaking in the sentiment, common in the U.S. Democratic Party, that the U.S. had no business being an imperial power. It was less a peacenik stand than one favoring a limited federal government, and a disinclination to accept non-whites (non-Protestants as well) in any way that might make them citizens of the United States. The Tea Party would have felt right at home in the Democratic Party in those days.

The Philippines: "What yer got?"
Cuba: "Pie."
Philippines: "Where'd yer get it?"
Cuba "Mah Uncle Sam gin it to me; en maybe ef you was halfway decent, he' git you some."

Yes, there's a racist condescension in this cartoon, but what else would you expect?

Blanche Is Not Hungry Today

When my Better Half saw this cartoon, his first thought was that this was a reference to Streetcar Named Desire, so I guess I have to explain that Blanche is not Blanche DuBois. Or Blanche Devereaux. Blanche Lincoln, Blanche Calloway, or Blanche Barlow.

I had hoped that the eyebrows, the shoulders and the bird would help identify her as Blanche Hudson.

It doesn't help that the person on the left is an amalgamation of two completely different people and ends up looking like neither. I had tried sketching her with Ann Coulter's hair and Bette Davis' eyes, but I decided I needed to have Baby Jane Hudson's hair to have any hope of anyone recognizing the movie connection.

I suppose I needed to have her singing "I'm Writing a Letter to Reagan."

At any rate, the subject of the cartoon concerns the flap in right-wing circles over Ann Coulter's scheduled feature appearance at GOProud's "Homocon" conference, where she is billed as "the right wing Judy Garland."

"The publication of emails exchanged between Ann Coulter and the editor of anti-gay site WorldNetDaily regarding Coulter having been dropped as a keynote speaker at a WND event has sparked Coulter’s ire. The right-wing icon launched into WND editor Joseph Farah, calling him a "swine," and suggesting that the content of the fringe-right site is selected as a matter of publicity seeking.

"The roots of the disagreement between Coulter and the fringe news site began with Coulter accepting an invitation to speak at the first "Homocon," an event hosted by right-wing gay group GoProud. Once WND got wind of the upcoming appearance, they struck Coulter off their list of speakers for an event ["The Taking America Back National Conference"] scheduled to take place in Miami."

1900 Cartoons of R.C. Bowman, part V

Step right up, gentlemen; now's your chance to Pe(e)k-in.

Exactly how is that city pronounced, since it has variously been transliterated Peiping, Pekin, Peking, and now Beijing? All I know is that the current spelling has the least potential for puns.

Russia (the head waiter): "No shirt waists allowed here. I will have to invite you gentlemen to leave."

Really, I'm only including this cartoon because my own cartoon this week didn't come together the way I'd envisioned it. Something about this cartoon eludes me. Apparently shirt waists were a big social problem in 1900.

Getting scorched.

There's a very similar cartoon to this one in the book showing the British lion in South Africa getting his tail scorched because of whatever China is dumping into the ocean.

The United States received the Philippines from Spain as a result of the Spanish-American War two years earlier, and there was plenty of domestic debate over what to do with the islands. According to the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. should have had no interest in territory in the Eastern Hemisphere; there was also nativist sentiment against opening up citizenship to all those non-white non-English-speaking people. Coming soon: more cartoons about the aftermath of the Spanish-American War.

This Week's Sneak Peek

I needed to have googled an old Bugs Bunny cartoon this week. Instead, I wasted an hour or two hunting for a book I still swear I have somewhere of movie still shots.

1900 Cartoons of R.C. Bowman, part 4

Russia: "Now, gentlemen, don't get excited. There's no hurry."

One thing I find particularly interesting about this series of cartoons is the pre-World War II depiction of Japan. The human in the front of the group above represents Japan, and is very different from the buck-toothed, coke-bottle-glasses wearing stereotype that my post-war generation grew up with.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall./ Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

The Boxer Rebellion marks Japan's arrival as a world power. While Germany, Great Britain, Russia, France and the U.S. all sent troops to China, the largest contingent was from Japan -- even though the Japanese are represented by the smallest fellow in the above cartoons.

It turns out to be a hornet's nest.

R.C. Bowman's 1900 Cartoons: China

Part 3 of my continuing excerpts from The Minneapolis Tribune Cartoon Book for 1901: Being a Collection of Over One Hundred Cartoons by R.C. Bowman:

The Powers: "This horrible work was done in your shop, wasn't it?"
China: "Yes, but I didn't do it, therefore I'm not to blame."

The Boxer Rebellion had been underway for a couple years when Minneapolis Tribune cartoonist R.C. Bowman drew these cartoons. The Boxers (I Ho Ch'uan, Yìhétuán or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists") and Muslim "Kansu Braves" targeted foreign diplomats, capitalists and missionaries with savage intensity, because European imperial powers (England, France, Germany, Russia, Italy and Austria-Hungary) had begun carving China up into their own spheres of influence -- much as they had done with the rest of Africa and southern Asia. The dowager empress, Cizi (Tz'u Hsi) overthrew the western-backed Guangxu Emperor and supported the Boxer rebels' goal of evicting the foreign powers from China.

Li Hung Chang claims to have the simon pure article (and incidentally, it's for sale).

In June 1900, the Boxers attacked foreign compounds in the cities of Tianjin and Beijing; the German envoy was killed (and skinned, and his heart eaten by the Muslim general) as the Europeans retreated into a fortified area near Beijing's Forbidden City. The Boxers set fire to the area, destroying much of the Hanlin Yuan, described as "the oldest and richest library in the world."

The Boxer: "Why don't you shoot?"

In July, 222 Chinese Eastern Orthodox Christians, 182 Protestant missionaries and 500 Chinese Protestants, including women and children were killed in the Taiyuan Massacre.
Li Hung Chang: "Uncle, let me take your flag to wipe out the blots."
Uncle Sam: "No!!!!"

Next: more cartoons about China's Boxer Rebellion.