Toon: Essentially

Wisconsin's own Ron Johnson wrote an op-ed for USA Today this week in which he lamented the steps taken here and elsewhere to control the spread of the coronavirus. Worrying that we're blowing the global pandemic out of proportion, Johnson thinks too much of the economy has been shut down. "Every premature death is a tragedy," the sage from Oshkosh wrote, "but death is an unavoidable part of life."

And further, while social distancing is helpful, "much of our economy must stay open to provide life’s basic necessities. Rather than announcing general shutdowns and drawing up lists of 'essential' business that can remain open, let’s draw up lists of 'nonessential' businesses that pose a risk for coronavirus spread."

Johnson, chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, announced an investigation in March into the threat Joe Biden's son Hunter poses to national security. That investigation does appear to be on hold during the coronacrisis.

But I'm sure it will kick into high gear sometime between Labor Day and Election Day.

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As long as this social distancing thing remains the norm, we cartoonists are going to have to come up with creative ways of keeping the characters in our cartoons six feet apart without screwing up the artistic balance of the 'toon.

Toon: Give It To Me Straight

Sunday, Dear Leader crowed — make that tweeted — that the TV ratings for his daily coronacrisis press briefings are the best anyone has ever seen. Monday Night Football! The Bachelor finale! The Kennedy assassination!

U.S. media complained after the White House quit offering press briefings a little over a year ago; now that Trump himself comes to the podium day after day to spout self-serving nonsense leavened with the occasional scrap of factual information, the media have begun to ask the administration to go back to its cone of silence.

The daily press briefing has taken the place of the Trump campaign rally. He misses the adulation of the red-hatted throng, to be sure; but the State Media over at Fox, America One, and Sinclair Broadcasting do their part to reassure the Trump Loyalists that their overlord and savior is in charge of the situation and everything is under control. And that he has masterfully put down the wicked scheming of the Fake News and the Chinese and the George Soros.

By the way, Monday Night Football ain't all that big a deal any more. Monday Night Football is there for when the NFL lets the Bengals, Raiders or Jets sleep in on Sunday morning.

Toon: Sit. Stay.

Talking to your dog is perfectly normal.

When your dog starts talking to you, it's time to get out and see somebody human.

Next July We Collude with Mars

You look like you could use a break from the frightening news and sheltering in place and social distancing, so this installment of Sottiseback Saturday turns the calendar back 100 years to that time when Guglielmo Marconi picked up radio signals from Mars.

"Folks Who Listen Are Always Likely to Hear Something" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, February, 1920

Dateline London, January 29, 1920: William Marconi informs The Daily Mail that investigations are in progress regarding the origin of mysterious signals which he recently described as being received on his wireless instruments. He hopes to make a statement on the subject at an early date. Marconi insists that "nobody can yet say definitely whether they originate on the earth or in other worlds."

"Hearing Things" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, February, 1920

Marconi's caveat didn't stop cartoonists from having some fun with the idea of radio messages from the Red Planet.

"Vamping Her" by Dennis McCarthy in New Orleans Times Picayune, February, 1920

The French scientist Édouard Branly questioned how Martians came to learn Morse code. "If we attribute them to interplanetary sources (admitting that planets are inhabited) we must then admit that their people have reached a degree of development comparable to ours and that their science has led them to construct instruments similar to ours. This would be a succession of coincidences that I would call improbable."

"A Little Louder Please" by Neal McCall in Portland (OR) Telegram, ca. February, 1920

You might, however, dismiss M. Branly's skepticism as sour grapes; as Director of the Paris Observatory and founding president of the International Astronomical Union Édouard Benjamin Baillaud sniffed, "Frankly, I am in ignorance of this supernatural correspondence. It would seem that if New York and London received these messages, we should have received them at the Eiffel Tower."

"Somebody's Trying to Get Us" by Gaar Williams in Indianapolis News, February, 1920

As with all technological advancements that have richly benefited mankind, it turns out that Nikola Tesla was first. In the March, 1901 edition of Collier's Weekly, Tesla wrote about his experiments using a magnifying transmitter — his Teslascope, as it were — at his Colorado Springs laboratory two years earlier:

“I can never forget the first sensations I experienced when it dawned upon me that I had observed something possibly of incalculable consequences to mankind.My first observations positively terrified me, as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I was alone in my laboratory at night; but at that time the idea of these disturbances being intelligently controlled signal did not yet present itself to me. ...
Although I could not decipher their meaning, it was impossible for me to think of them as having been entirely accidental.
The feeling is constantly growing in me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another. A purpose was behind these electrical signals!”

"The Red Peril as Seen From Mars" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Association, February, 1920

Tune in next week, when we offer proof that Nikola Tesla invented the telephone, discovered the basic laws of thermodynamics, and wrote the plays of Shakespeare.

Wouldn't You?

Q Toon: Oh, You Thought THAT Question Was Nasty

In this time of a global health crisis, I would really like not to draw cartoons critical of the President of the United States.

Really I would.

But he simply refuses to stop saying foolish, spiteful, and false things at those daily press conferences that the mainstream television and cable networks are obliged to broadcast live and uncensored. One moment, he's reading a prepared statement outlining the current scope and nature of the spread of the coronavirus and measures taken to control it. The next, he's telling everyone to cluster together in church on Easter Sunday as if "Death Takes a Holiday" were a real phenomenon.

Or he's snapping at a reporter who tossed him a softball question.

[NBC's Peter Alexander asked,] "What do you say to Americans watching you right now who are scared" of the coronavirus outbreak?
"I’d say you are a terrible reporter," Trump responded. "I think that’s a very nasty question, and I think that’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people."
"The American people are looking for answers and hope, and you're doing sensationalism, the same with NBC and Comcast — I don't call it Comcast, I call it Con-cast — for whom you work."

Or he's denying that he had anything to do with his own disbanding of the National Security Council's global health unit — and whining that reporters aren't praising him for his travel ban on Chinese citizens. To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail; to Trump, every problem calls for keeping the foreigners out.

But worse are his outright lies and fabrications. No, Mr. Trump, the coronavirus isn't going to disappear "like a miracle" by April or by Easter. President Obama didn't dither when the H1N1 pandemic broke out. Tests for the virus have not been available to everyone who wants one. Google didn't have a coronavirus testing web site ready to roll out nationwide.

And if you have “always known this is a real—this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic … I’ve always viewed it as very serious,” you did a very convincing job of acting otherwise.

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I have been notified that Q Syndicate is suspending operations through the month of April. The coronavirus crisis has hit small, independent publications hard: most of them rely exclusively on advertising revenue to keep publishing, and most of their regular advertisers have nothing to advertise except "We're closed."

I will keep posting cartoons here when I can, although the schedule will undoubtedly become more irregular until this is over.

They Walk Again by Night!

Now showing at a grocery store near you!