Sneak Peek of the Week

We're in for some good, wholesome family entertainment when this week's Q Syndicate cartoon comes out.

Q Cartoon: Those Darn Pedophile Priests

And if this turns out to have been a problem in the 1940's and '50's, we can always blame comic books and commies.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Worldwide quakes and the Rapture having failed to materialize on schedule, we can now go back to criticizing mainstream religion.

Stay tuned.

You Wanna See My ID? I'll Show You My ID!

The La Crosse Tribune the other day noted a striking dissimilarity between two of the Wisconsin Republican ruling party priorities:

•Why do the leaders of our state insist on making it more difficult to vote while making it easier to carry a weapon? Why do you have to show a photo ID to vote when, under one of the concealed-carry proposals, you can apply for a license by mail without proof of identification? ...
If democracy is at the forefront of the argument for concealed carry, how does that square with making it more difficult for people to vote in a state that has virtually no voter fraud, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board? Those two concepts just don’t add up to a more democratic Wisconsin.

There were 488 gun-related deaths in Wisconsin in 2007 according to the Legal Community Against Violence (citing National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, WISQARS Injury Mortality Reports, 1999-2007. This compares with a mere 20 instances of voter fraud in 2008 (and keep in mind that our Republican Attorney General, J.B. van Hollen, has been diligently working for years to prove the Republican myth of widespread voter fraud).

So clearly, making it tougher to vote than to carry a gun into a polling place makes a lot of sense.

The Tribune's other arguments against the concealed carry bills working their unstoppable way through the legislature have been heard before (although not by our gun-happy Republicans, who will hear none of it):

In other words, if concealed weapons aren’t a good idea for the place where legislators work, why is it a good idea for our workplaces or churches or Lambeau Field? ...

Under at least one of the proposals, someone convicted of a violent misdemeanor — stalking and battery, for instance — could carry a concealed weapon. Do we really think that will have a safe, healthy ending?

This Week's Toon: Tammy Baldwin for Senate?

Curiously, I haven't drawn terribly many cartoons about Representative Tammy Baldwin, the first out lesbian elected to Congress. In part, that's because, like most cartoonists, I draw more cartoons that are critical of politicians than cartoons that say "Hey! Great job!" It's also because -- while she is no shrinking violet -- Ms. Baldwin doesn't spend nearly as much time on television or penning op-ed pieces for print journalism as some other congressmen do.

As such, she might be a fitting successor to retiring Senator Herb Kohl.

But because I haven't drawn her much, I haven't yet captured her caricature.

One of the first cartoons I drew about then-candidate for Congress Baldwin was for the cover of In Step Magazine, a now-defunct LGBT bi-weekly newspaper to whom I was a regular contributor in the mid-1990's. It was the year-end issue of the paper, and the drawing was a collage of faces and images in the news in 1997.


I thought this was a terrible likeness, but somebody on her staff liked it enough to secure my permission to use it on the cover of an invitation to a birthday party-cum-fund raiser for candidate Baldwin. (I forget how they got around that brush partly in front of her hair.)

I drew her again once she won election to Wisconsin's second congressional district -- this after House Majority Leader Dick Armey publicly referred to Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank as "Barney Fag":

This Week's Sneak Peek

With Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl's decision not to run for another term, some LGBT activists and Emily's listserve are excited by the prospect that 2nd District Representative Tammy Baldwin might run for the seat. In news reports, her name usually appears in the paragraph that begins "Others mentioned as possible candidates are..."

This Week's Toon: Trump's Wedge Issue

I could swear I posted this cartoon on Wednesday. In fact, I did. I linked to it from my Facebook page.



It must have been here yesterday for Chris Hale to comment on it, but somehow it disappeared from the internet since then. So here it is again.

Unless it disappears again...