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Halloween Warning

Arrrgh.

Yes, I realize that LEGALLY, he's actually correct- but come on, it still sounds absurd and amoral coming out of anyone's mouth. That's because it is absurd and not just amoral, but immoral. How'd I do at making him look as plastic, stiff, polished and fake as I could?

By the way, here's the Wikipedia entry on why this election will be as frightening as any in our history, in case you're interested:

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 08-205 (2010), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited—because of the First Amendment. The 5–4 decision, in favor of Citizens United, resulted from a dispute over whether the non-profit corporation Citizens United could air a film critical of Hillary Clinton, and whether the group could advertise the film in broadcast ads featuring Clinton's image, in apparent violation of the 2002Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act.^[2]

The South Will Rise Again!

Let's face it, Nixon had a "Southern Strategy" and Lee Atwater had Reagan start his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi to take advantage of "latent" prejudices essentially to the capture the Confederate voters who left the Democratic party when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act and the Republican party has pretty much been the party of anti-intellectual, straight, white, Evangelical males ever since. Now we have Rick Perry because Mitt Romney isn't Christian enough and Sarah Palin and Michelle Michelle Bachmann are still women.

A 'C' student governor from Texas that everybody would love to have a beer with... hmmm, where have I seen this movie before?

No Mr. Bond-Market, I expect you to DIE!

Conciliatory to a fault?

Smurfalicious

Mal•Adjusted

Sheez. I forgot how much work it takes to draw, scan, process, and write these silly trifles. 

Sometimes the phonetic pronunciation fits more than others

Obstructions-R-US

Head Drama

Exclusive; Rare Sighting!

Stupid Chic

I have plenty of other things I should've been doing today, but the anger and bile just got too backed up and I had to either let it out or it was about to kill me. Sorry, loved ones, I've fallen off the wagon. I know how much political cartooning hurts everyone around me, but I just wasn't able to keep walking the straight and narrow. Tomorrow is another day and another opportunity to behave civilly. I'll ask my higher-power to help me. Meanwhile SOMEONE has to point out that politicians should really be required to pass a test in U.S. History and Civics before even being allowed to open their mouths on camera, let alone run for President.

More Equal Than Others

An homage to two great heroes, George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' and Grant Wood's 'Daughters of the American Revolution.' 

Something New

At last, something new. But I'm not promising much. As the toon implies, this is really a test-run. I had to do some PC repair for my wife and daughter so they can print project reports for 4H, since we have a combo printer/scanner, this gave me the opportunity to test them both. I'm interested in the different feel I got by just using an old fashioned #2 pencil instead of pen before scanning it into Photohop. 

Notice also the stitches from where I had that bump on my forehead removed last week. My kids say it looks creepy and my wife called me "FrankenTed" today.

I can see trying to simply keep a cartoon diary. Nothing as elaborate as "American Splendor," the cult-classic alternative/underground  autobiographical comic books by the late Harvey Pekar that I think are the inspiration for 2003 film staring Paul Giamatti, just single-panel gags riffing on the banal, mundane, tedium of being me. But I don't know if I could do that daily or even weekly, though it would certainly be good creative-discipline to try.  And I'm all about discipline, just ask my wife. 

Okay, that didn't come out right- that was meant to be an ironic statement about my being an adult-ADHD scatterbrain. If you thought it sounded like I like being disciplined, get your mind out of my gutter!

Anyway, now that I know I have a scanner at home, that's one less excuse. But, cartooning has the same difficulties as writing- "Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself - it is the occurring which is difficult." ~Stephen Leacock

I seem to find myself somewhere between fame and fortune or wide spread prominence (cartooning for thousands of readers) and absolute obscurity (cartooning just for myself). It means a lot to me that the few of you are out there, long time friends and something like "fans," encouraging me with comments on facebook about how you want me to toon s'more and post them here. Thank you, I appreciate it.

Man Overboard

This could be a commentary on the 500-Year-Floods on the Missouri River.

It could be more of a visual analogy; the "waves" of corn in the fields can make driving through the countryside feel a little bit like being on the oceans. In that way, this could be seen as a form of visual poetry.

Of course, it could also be that I wanted to finally post something to my cartooning blog, felt like playing in Photoshop, was too lazy to get out of my chair and look for my sketchpad, and a boat floating in corn is the only thing I could think of. Oops, did I just end a run-on sentence with a preposition? Watch out for the grammar NAZI's. 

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Making plans to return to tooning regularly as a hobby- just haven't quite got the gumption yet. Wish me some.

America's Original Sin

I'm not really sure what this means. You sometimes hear of slavery or racism referred to as "America's Original Sin." I've been reading a lot of Cornel West lately and I'm beginning to wonder if either "manifest destiny" or imperialism/colonialism/mercantilism aren't our "forbidden fruit," we fought for our independence from Brittan, but couldn't wait for those opportunities to be the big man on campus- Mexican War, Spanish-American War, WWI, oil and influence. 

Of course, being a bleeding-heart  liberal, I could believe that any of Martin Luther King's big 3 evils are our corporate sins- Materialism, Militarism, and Racism. 

I believe it was Republican President Calvin Coolidge who said that the chief business of America is business and that "The man who builds a factory builds a temple." Too bad manufacturing is pretty much dead now days, I suppose if Cool Cal were around today he'd consider Goldman Sacs a temple. Conservatives like to go on about our Christian heritage, but they forget to mention that the Pilgrims were working for the London Virginia Company or that the Jamestown settlers were working for the London Company. It would be great if America were really founded on Biblical morals and religious freedom, but let's face it, gold, tobacco, competition for global trade, cotton, and slavery all played pretty hefty roles.

Anyway- just trying to provoke critical thinking. It's been a long time since I either drew a cartoon or collaged a piece of satire like this. Have fun being provoked. Happy National Cartoonist Day.

MAY 5, Every Year