This Week's Sneak Peek

There's Justice for you. And in honor of Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, both breasts are covered.

Happy Valentines Day to all you lovers.

Ptoon: Obamacare Redux

Okay, I know I said some disparaging things about drawing cartoons for free. But I had to spend an afternoon in a waiting room this weekend and started doodling. I went ahead and finished the cartoon, and here it is.

New York Times Weekly Cartoon Contest

The Sunday New York Times has just announced its new editorial cartoon contest! It has invited 80 top editorial cartoonists in the country to send in a completed editorial cartoon every Friday by 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The Times editors will select one cartoon to run in that Sunday's paper and award the winner a $250 prize.

The Times will require that it retain exclusive rights to the winning cartoon, meaning that it cannot be syndicated to other newspapers or magazines, or appear in books, or, presumably, be submitted to the Pulitzer committee. The 79 losing cartoonists will get bupkus for their efforts, but on the bright side, they don't have to pay an entry fee.

I'm not one of the select few cartoonists to receive the invitation to try to draw for the Times (remind me to cry over that later), so I don't have any personal stake in the righteous indignation of pretty much the entirety of my profession. Tom Richmond explains why we cartoonists have our panties in a knot over this:

"[T]he people who received this letter and were invited to participate are professional editorial cartoonists who are among the best in the business. They are being asked to work on spec, something that no creative professional should be asked to do, and the rate being offered is roughly 1/3 what exclusive printing rights should be going for."

 The kerfuffle probably mystifies those in the general public and the Huffington Post who think editorial cartoonists should be happy to draw for "exposure" alone. I've tried that -- my cartoons for the now defunct Racine Post were for exposure alone, and a lot of good that done me. I write this blog for exposure; ditto. (But then, I spend considerably less time on this blog than on cartooning, so there.)

I've got a couple of sunken lengths of sidewalk in front of my house. As soon as I find a contractor willing to fix my sidewalk for "exposure," I'll reconsider my lack of enthusiasm for cartooning jobs that pay in that precious commodity.

Q Toon: Boycotting the Gay Away

"One Million Moms" has decided to boycott J.C. Penney because they've signed Ellen deGeneres on as their advertising pitchperson:

“Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families. More sales will be lost than gained unless they replace their spokesperson quickly. Unless JC Penney decides to be neutral in the culture war then their brand transformation will be unsuccessful.” -- OMM statement

The American Family Association quickly joined OMM in their boycott effort:

"Does it offend you? Are you offended by this or are you kind of just ‘ho hum, so be it’? There comes a time when there needs to be a holy rejection of corruption that is literally putrefying our families. It’s time, long overdue, and too many people are sitting back and just letting Sodom and Gomorrah come walking in the door.
…
"Does it offend you, when you hear what retailers now—putting icons before you and your kids who are known, and according to some, flaming homosexuals?"

Meanwhile, right wing organizations are also trying to boycott Starbucks because the coffee vendor has come out in support the current bill to legalize marriage equality for same-sex couples in the state of Washington. So have Google and Microsoft; can One Million Moms chuck their PCs and learn to Bing on their Apples? Wait a minute -- Bing is Microsoft! Oh, when oh when will Rupert Murdoch buy up a search engine that will be "fair and balanced" and "neutral in the culture war" as conservatives see it?

And are the wingnuts still boycotting Ford?

This Week's Sneak Peek

I didn't see any J.C. Penney ads during the Super Bowl last night.

Not being an east coaster, I couldn't bring myself to root for either team. There just wasn't an interesting narrative for the build-up to the game. It's not as if the coaches were brothers, or one of them was hoping to avenge his brother's loss in the playoffs, or either side was a Cinderella team in their first Superbowl game ever, or my favorite team hadn't choked in the playoffs.

But at least the Giants and the Pats kept the game interesting right up to the final second. Unlike the Pro Bowl game the week before, which only served as a reminder to most Americans that, hey, your team may not have made the Superbowl, but at least your quarterback isn't Cam Newton. (Sorry, Carolina.)

Happy St. Ansgar Day!

Today is the feast day of the patron saint of Denmark and Sweden, St. Ansgar. Legend has it that if the French-born archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen awoke on his feast day to see his shadow, there would be six more weeks of æbleskiver. Or until green beer would be on tap. Something like that.

From the web site of St. Ansgar Catholic Church of Hanover, Illinois:

"Deep in his heart, he carried the desire to give his life for his faith, to show his love through martyrdom. Contrary to his wish, Ansgar died peacefully in Bremen on February 3, 865, and was buried in the cathedral. After his death, Sweden again returned to paganism."

But all was not for naught: eventually, a crater on the moon was named for him.

Ansgar is also the patron saint of people whose life story wouldn't make a compelling movie.

Q Toon: Meeting the Founding Fathers

Last week, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie vowed to veto any bill out of the state legislature extending marriage equality to same-sex couples.

When only judges had the temerity to find that the Constitution applies to gays and lesbians, conservatives would blast those "elitist judges" and call for legislatures to vote to keep homosexuals in their proper place. Now that legislative approval of marriage equality in New Jersey is all but guaranteed, the governor avers that the matter is too important to be left to the people's representatives and ought to be put to a vote of the people themselves.

My knee-jerk instinct was to draw parallels to the Black Civil Rights movement, but it seems Governor Christie has already done that:

“People would have been happy with a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets of the South.”

Likening the struggle for gay rights to other facets of the fight for civil rights, particularly for African-Americans, is debatable. Many on my side of the debate say that while the issues in both fights are not identical (I'll concede that there are more gays who are able to pass as straight than there are blacks who are able to pass as white), there are still significant similarities (you think LGBTs don't get lynched? It's called gay-bashing, and it still happens).

But out of respect for African American History Month, I decided to steer clear of that particular argument this week.

Besides, the ridiculous parallel I might have drawn had already come straight out of Christie's mouth. I'm pretty sure that referenda on civil rights would have gone down to defeat in many states in the '60's, and not just down in Dixie. I'm absolutely certain that the marriage of future President Obama's parents would have been voted down by the same caliber of people who today question his citizenship (I'm looking at you, Georgia Republicans).