This Week's Sneak Peek

Okay. Now you know what the cartoon is about.

I was looking over the headlines cluttering up Time magazine's "What Really Happened" cover story last night and noticed that not one of them was an LGBT news event.

I suppose there could be some LGBT news item hidden behind the area left blank for the mailing label (the death of Michael Jackson and the shootings at Fort Hood are partly hidden there), or behind the cover title or the flag. But I'm not sure what story they could choose. The two major LGBT stories between 2000 and 2010, marriage equality and gays in the military, arrived at the forefront in the 1990's, and have yet to develop in a decisive direction.

A report on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is scheduled to be released tomorrow, after nearly a decade of discharges of openly or outed lesbian and gay service members during wartime. A few state supreme courts ruled that denying marital rights to same-sex couples was unconstitutional, but many states passed restriction of marriage amendments to their constitutions. Meanwhile, George W. Bush pushed a Different-Sex Marriage Only amendment to the U.S. Constitution during his reelection campaign in 2004, never to take the issue up again once the election was over.

If tomorrow's Pentagon study paves the way to allowing lesbian and gay service members to serve their country openly and honestly, the federal government will have to address the issue of same-sex couples again. Spouses of service members are entitled to certain benefits; will those benefits be extended also to legally wedded spouses of gay and lesbian service personnel? What of service members in the "domestic partnerships" and "civil unions" available in states which do not recognize "marriages" between same-sex couples?

I hope our LGBT community leaders are ready for that battle when it comes. Their track record to date is not impressive.

Q Toon: Bon Voyage, with Benefits

This week's cartoon imagines how Tom of Finland's Kake would cope with U.S. airport security this Thanksgiving weekend.

I had considered casting in this cartoon the unnamed character who has appeared in two previous cartoons I drew for Q Syndicate on airport security -- last January and originally back in 2002. I had also thought about putting disgraced former New York Congressman Eric Massa in this cartoon, except that a.) it would be funnier to have him working as the TSA screener, if not for b.) hardly anybody remembers him any more.

Surely among those people who pick up the LGBT newspapers which carry my cartoons there will be some readers who recognize this Tom of Finland character and can imagine how the rest of this episode plays out.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Here's your sneak peek at this week's cartoon. It's looks like a tribute either to Tom of Finland, or 1970's Dick Tracy.

Q Toon: Cindy McCain Reconsiders

One of the main challenges in caricaturing women is their hair.

Men tend to keep the same hairstyle as long as they can. A hairstyle change may be forced upon them by genetics (e.g. Jerry Brown), or it may simply go gray (Russ Feingold), but that change tends to be gradual. Sudden changes, such as when Jimmy Carter started parting his hair on the opposite side of his head, or when Al Gore tested out a beard, tend to be rare.

But some women change hairstyles relatively often.

In her appearance in the NOH8 campaign video, Cindy McCain does not wear the hairstyle I drew on her head in this cartoon. This hairdo comes from an appearance on the campaign trail in 2008, whereas her hairdo in the video is a sort of short, free and breezy cut. Unfortunately for the purposes of the cartoon, that haircut wouldn't be distinctive enough for people to recognize it again in the last panel.

Some cartoonists still draw Sarah Palin with her hair piled up in the 'do she wore when most of America first met her, even though she hasn't been favoring that style in over a year. There aren't a lot of cartoons of Hilary Clinton these days, but the few that you see tend to show her wearing her hair as she wore it in the '08 campaign, or even when she was First Lady.

Look for considerable consternation among cartoonists if Nancy Pelosi ever restyles her hairdo.

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.

This Weeq's Sneaq Peeq

I'm planning to draw another cartoon for
the Racine Post this week also, although its publication could possibly be delayed. At any rate, this is a sneak peek at the Q Syndicate cartoon, and that's the reason for the misspelled blog entry title.

Speaqing of spelling, I discovered a peculiarity of English when sending this cartoon off to the syndicate. Did you know that retract takes "able" to become "retractable," but extract, detract, and distract all take "ible" ("extractible," "detractible," "distractible")? I may have to go back into my files to find out if I misspelled the word in my Greater Milwaukee Business Journal cartoons about Miller Park's retractable roof.

Will Talgo Make Tracks Outa Here?

Spanish train maker Talgo opened a factory at the former Tower Automotive plant in Milwaukee only months ago because Wisconsin was committed to building a high speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison.

Then voters elected Scott Walker, who had campaigned on stopping high speed rail in Wisconsin, governor. Walker had also promised to bring 250,000 jobs to the state, but, like cutting taxes and balancing budgets, Republicans are used to making totally contradictory promises.

Not surprisingly, Talgo is publicly considering moving elsewhere -- say, somewhere interested in its high-speed trains -- in spite of those tax cuts that are supposed to bring all the new jobs!

Walker is urging Talgo to stay, but is committed to stopping high speed rail; for, as his running mate, Rebecca Kleefisch so ably explained, suburban Republicans have minivans. Anybody who doesn't have a minivan has no business trying to get out of town.

Thanks to Walker, Kleefisch, and our Republican legislature, there will soon be 150 or so Milwaukee workers joining the long line of people waiting for those 250,000 jobs.

Perhaps someone will open up 62,500 gas stations at the Tower/Talgo plant.