This Week's Sneak Peek

 Have I mentioned before how much I dislike drawing architecture?

I have? Okay.

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Some say that history repeats itself. Others say that it doesn't repeat itself, it just rhymes. 

In light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I'm departing somewhat from my usual review of cartoons hitting their century mark in order to look at works from the period of Soviet expansionism immediately after World War II, now that history is doing whatever it is that history does.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 erased Poland off the map of Europe, while assigning Lithuania to German control and Latvia and Estonia to the U.S.S.R.'s. By the spring of 1945, the USSR had occupied all three Baltic states and Poland. Viewing the Baltic states as errant parts of historical Russia, Stalin reincorporated all three into the Soviet Union.

The U.S. protested Stalin's move, but the Allies were preoccupied with the war's western and Pacific fronts. Opening up a new front with a supposedly allied nation was simply not going to happen. The U.S. never did recognize the USSR's annexation of the Baltic trio.

Likewise, Poland's fate was sealed before the defeat of Hitler. Once they were no longer of any use to Stalin, he had all of Poland's military officers summarily executed, and set up a puppet government in Warsaw. 

"Whose Move" by Walt Kelly in New York Star, 1948 

Stalin expected all of Germany would join the communist bloc as well. With Germany defeated, the Allies set up U.S., Great Britain, France and Russia zones of administration. Given the remarkable showing of the Communist Party in France's 1946 elections, Stalin figured that all he needed to do was subvert the British in their zone, and the U.S. would succumb to its isolationist partisans and withdraw out of his way.

"Blood from Turnips" by J.F. Meehan in Brooklyn Eagle, August 3, 1946

Ostensibly, what Stalin was interested in was war reparations from Germany and the weaker Axis powers. How he achieved it was by subjugating governments in Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania to control from Moscow. (Finland had German backing during its Continuation War against the USSR, 1941-44. But permanently reclaiming Finland for Mother Russia would remain just out of Stalin's grasp.)

"An Unlucky Day for the Traffic Cop" by Cyrus Hungerford in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 13, 1947

Alarm over rampant Soviet expansionism in Europe all but silenced any remaining isolationists in the U.S. The Truman Doctrine of speaking up for the sovereignty of smaller nations was useless without the military might and foreign alliances to back it up.

"The Foot Is Familiar" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, February, 1948

In Czechoslovakia, where Hitler's quest to carve up and conquer his neighbors had begun, the Soviets engineered a coup, overthrowing the elected government in Prague.

"The Speaker's Platform" by Edwin Marcus in New York Times, 1949

Soviet adventurism was not confined to Europe alone; the Allies were supposed to return occupied Iranian territories to control of Shah Reza Pahlavi's government, but Stalin refused to withdraw from areas taken by Russian troops. Instead, the USSR encouraged breakaway socialist republics in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan.

"Aw, C'mon, Joe, Let It Cool Off" by Dorman Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. March 17, 1946

With U.S. and British support, Iran crushed the Azerbaijani and Kurdish rebellions in 1946 and 1947 respectively.

Meanwhile, Truman responded to Stalin's push to undermine the governments of Greece and Turkey with substantial foreign aid that would have had Republicans of the 1920's howling in protest. Remnants of isolation still existed (notably at Hearst papers and the Chicago Tribune), but most of the protests to the Marshall Plan came from Moscow.

"Advice from an Expert in Internal Affairs" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, April 9, 1947

With nearly all of Europe reeling from World War II's devastation, the Marshall Plan stepped in to make sure that even the British Empire would be safe from the lure of Soviet domination.

"Great Expectations" by Edwin Marcus in New York Times, 1947

And the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was born: a mutual defense treaty that, again, would have been anathema to the American isolationists of the 1920's.

"Unintentional Cupid" by Richard Q. Yardley in Baltimore Sun, 1949

The founding countries of NATO in 1949 were Great Britain, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. Turkey joined in 1952, and West Germany in 1955.

"Observation Post" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, October, 1951

Stalin then, and Putin now, would characterize NATO as an offensive threat to Russia's existence. But for seven decades, Europe stayed at peace (for the most part) — possibly the longest respite from war the continent had seen since before the the cro-magnons met the neanderthals.

But it's all over now.

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Housekeeping note: My source for the Walt Kelly cartoon at the top of this post dates it in 1946, but every reference I can find about the "Pogo" cartoonist says that he first began drawing editorial cartoons in 1948, for the short-lived New York Star that began publishing in July of that year. Although events could have made that cartoon appropriate in either year, I can find no source mentioning that Kelly ever drew political cartoons for the Star's predecessor, PM, or any other publications before 1948.

Q Toon: It's Also Her Verb

Congressloon Lauren Boebert (R-CO), whom you may have seen screeching at the President during last week's State of the Union Address, followed up that performance by tweeting "My pronoun is patriot."

As one of the more prominent members of the fascist wing of the Republican Party, Boebert's claim to be a patriot can only be respected while recalling Samuel Johnson's observation that "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

Others have pointed out that "patriot" is not a pronoun; but once one acquiesces to the practice of using "they/them/their" as singular pronouns, or argues that language is historically flexible, one has to concede that any word can be a pronoun if people decide that it is one. As soon as other people start actually using "patriot" and "Lauren Boebert" interchangeably in conversation, well, quod erat demonstratum.

Last year, Boebert publicly scorned Mr. Potato Head for coming out as non-binary. Does one dare to hope that "My pronoun is patriot" is meant to signal that Boebert has suddenly developed an understanding of the transgender, non-binary, and accepting community?

I do hope she — oh, I'm sorry, I meant patriot — doesn't have difficulty finding a public bathroom when patriot has to empty patriots bladder. Some places are fussy about folks using a bathroom that doesn't align with the gender on patriots birth certificate.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Debutante?

These days, I'm reading a mystery novel I had bought some time ago after chatting with the author at a book signing. It's set, for the most part, in St. Paul, Minnesota, featuring a detective originally from Colombia and three deaths that appear to have some connection to undocumented immigration from Mexico.

The author includes a lot of detail about St. Paul in the book — street names, the histories of some of the neighborhoods, etc. — but one thing stuck out like a sore thumb. Recounting the background of a deceased lawyer, one of the officers says that he had worked at one point in "the IDS Building in Minneapolis."

Someone from the Twin Cities would no more say "the IDS Building in Minneapolis" than a resident of New York would say "the Empire State Building in Manhattan," or a San Franciscan would say "the Golden Gate Bridge over the Golden Gate Strait."

Unless there's another IDS Building in Edina or St. Louis Park now.

All the same, I appreciate the author fleshing out St. Paul as a real place, and he clearly knows whereof he writes.

Unlike, say, whoever wrote that there is a Detroit-to-Racine ferry.

Oh, and is it really necessary to italicize "tortilla"?

The Ladies Who Sketch

In celebration of Women's History Month, howzabout we check out some examples of women cartoonists of the 1920's?

from Cartoons Magazine, August, 1921

Cartooning has long had a reputation for being a male-dominated business, probably because of all those men hunched over drawing boards, but there have always been women among the ink-stained wretches. And not just to clean up after them.

Fay King was one of the most prominent of the bunch. She launched her career at the Denver Post at the age of 23 in 1912, drawing a regular cartoon panel and interviewing celebrities. A celebrity in her own right, her 1916 divorce from boxer and small-town mayor Oscar "Battling" Nelson was in all the papers.

"Flu Stories" by Fay King in San Francisco Call, 1918

King wasn't shy about appearing in her own cartoons; that's her caricature of herself peeking in from the side of the frame in this cartoon during the "Spanish flu" epidemic of 1918-19.

"Women Now read Newspapers" by Fay King, May 1, 1928

Nor was she shy about self-promotion; her name appeared prominently in the headline over her cartoons. (And there she is again at the newspaper stand.) She wrote articles to accompany her cartoons – or maybe it was the other way around — letting everyone know what Fay King observed, advised, remarked or said.

"Women Made Valentino Noted" by Fay King, 1926

Think she forgot to include herself in this cartoon? Nope. There she is, right next to her signature. 

Perhaps it will surprise you to learn that there was a select society of other women who, like King, found in cartooning a "promising and lasting success for women." I'm sure King was not being desperate for company when she explained in the above advertisement for Federal School of Illustrating and Cartooning: 

"It does not matter if she gets to weigh 200 pounds, has three chins and fat ankles. While her work meets with popular demand, she can continue as long as her ability and ideas hold out."

"Cap Stubbs" by Edwina Dumm for George Matthew Adams Service, March 11, 1922

Edwina Dumm started her daily comic strip, "Cap Stubbs" in 1918 after a few short-lived cartoon projects. This cartoon, however, lasted until 1966. Along the way, Tippie the dog was added to the strip's name, then got top billing, and eventually Cap's name was dropped from the strip title. 

"Cap Stubbs" by Edwina Dumm, March 16, 1922

Trade publication The Fourth Estate paid Dumm, who signed her strip with her first name, this clumsy compliment in their May 7, 1921 issue:

When “Edwina’s” identity is revealed to anybody who has studied her comic strip, the usual comment is: “Impossible! A girl couldn’t draw such a good strip about boys and dogs!” “Edwina” has been drawing ever since she was a child. Although she has just passed her twenty-second birthday, she has had a great deal of newspaper experience, as her comic strip “Cap” Stubbs, featuring the funny dog “Tippie,” has been syndicated for several years by the George Matthew Adams Service and has appeared in newspapers all over the country. 

"Cinderella's Dream" by Juanita Hamel for Newspapers Features Service Inc., March 18, 1922

A female cartoonist drawing about a little boy and his dog may indeed have raised eyebrows a century ago. What those eyebrows had been expecting were cartoons like the ones Juanita Hamel drew for the "Women's Features Page" of major newspapers: romantic fantasies and other heart-tugging fare told here in a single panel above a very short story.

"Mother's Memory Babies" by Juanita Hamel, Dec. 14, 1921

Hamel started her career at the St. Louis Times and Chicago Herald before getting syndicated by Newspapers Features Service out of New York. "Frequently I have been asked how I happened to take up art," she told an interviewer in 1923. "As a matter of fact, art took me up. I was raised in an atmosphere of art. I remember the work done by my grandmother — paintings of the Civil War time, with the atmosphere of real romance, and this with the stories of adventure and hardships endured by the pioneers of the middle west imbued me with the desire to paint."

"The Triumph of the Green-Eyed Monster" by Nell Brinkley for International Features Service Inc., Jan. 1, 1921

If romanticism isn't your thing, Nell Brinkley here gives us an example of another topic open to the fairer sex: Sunday School morality tales. "Poor little Dan" in this story, pays the price for entrusting his safety to two adults and their pet dragon, Jealousy. 

Brinkley drew romantic vignettes, too, of course. But perhaps she was in a particularly foul mood that day.

This second cartoon topped a full-page story by Brinkley.

"Four Things Too Wonderful" by Nell Brinkley in New York American, Aug. 29, 1926

In addition to the ladies shown above, notable women cartoonists of the early decades of the 20th Century included Emma Gordon, Ethel Hays, Virginia Huget, Alice McKee, Lou Rogers, Eleanor Schorer, Edith Stevens, and Dorothy Urfer. Trina Robbins, author of The Flapper Queens: Women Cartoonists of the Jazz Age, observes: 

“There’s this myth that women didn’t draw comics or that they had to change their names; this is untrue. If you were good, they published you. Women were drawing comics and people loved them. Just as many women read newspapers as men, and the editors were smart enough to carry the strips the women liked.”

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P.S.: The New York Times yesterday printed a very belated obituary for "flapper cartoonist" Barbara Shermund (1899-1978), whose cartoons appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, the original Life, Colliers, and Pictorial Review. Definitely worth a look-see.

Q Toon: Wanted!

Not content with persecuting transgender citizens, Republicans in charge of Texas law enforcement are itching to criminalize being the parent of a transgender child.

Anti-trans rhetoric in Texas has grown louder in the past few weeks. Attorney General Ken Paxton ... issued an opinion that likened gender-affirming surgery — a procedure that gives transgender people a body that aligns with their gender identity — to child abuse.

Days later, Gov. Greg Abbott doubled down with a letter calling on professionals, including teachers and doctors, to report parents who give their children gender-affirming care. The letter added that there would be similar reporting requirements for the general public, and consequences for those who don't report.

Abbott's letter directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and other state agencies to investigate certain gender-affirming services as child abuse.

Anti-transgender legislation has been tearing through "red states" like wildfire; so while the Paxton opinion and Abbott's letter do not carry the full force of law, it hardly seems like much of a stretch to imagine the Texas legislature taking this horrible idea and running with it. 

Nor is it a stretch to imagine them modeling legislation after their infamous new anti-abortion law, inviting parties with no present legal standing to step in and sue the parents, the Uber driver who takes the family to the clinic, the receptionist who lets them in, and of course, all medical and counseling professionals along the way.

This in spite of recent studies which find that access to gender-affirming care significantly reduces the risk in transgender and non-binary youth of depression and suicide.

But after all, it's an election year, and beating up on transgender folks really brings out the Republican base.

Becoming more base every day.

Remembering Richard Guindon

Daily Cartoonist passed along the news yesterday that Dick Guindon has died at the age of 86.

"Guindon" in Minneapolis Tribune, Jan. 15, 1978

His eponymous cartoon panel in the Minneapolis Tribune (later Star Tribune) was something I looked for every day when I was in college, and which I missed after I graduated and returned to Wisconsin. Because I saw his cartoons nowhere else until the internet became a big deal, I've always associated his off-beat sense of humor with Minnesota.

"Guindon" in The World According to Carp, 1983

"Guindon" in The World According to Carp, 1983

So, several years later, when I wanted to include a Minnesota native in a cartoon for the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, did I draw Mary Richards Tyler Moore? Garrison Keillor? Al Franken? Prince? 

No.

Even though there was very, very, very close to zero percent of the Beej readership who would have the remotest glimmer of an off-chance possibility of recognizing her, I drew my Minneapolitan in the style of Dick Guindon.

in Business Journal, Milwaukee, March 24, 2005

To one of my all-time favorite cartoonists: rest in peace, sir. We'll fly the carp at half-staff in your memory.