Sunday, April 1, 2012

Sunday morning toons: Celebrating the third branch of the federal government


So this is it: The future of the Affordable Care Act is going to come down to whether Anthony Kennedy woke up yesterday morning aligned with the true magnetic north (in which case he will vote with the pro-industry, anti-consumer conservatives on the Supreme Court), or did not (in which case he will discover his opinion comes down with the non-conservatives on the court). And in any case all nine members of the Court have life tenure and state of the art health care, so the decision won't affect them personally (including the justices who apparently felt no obligation to read the Act before hearing arguments).

Today's toons were selected by a faceless government bureaucrat, who was imposed between me and my readers, from the week's pages at Slate, Time, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Signe Wilkinson, Randy Bish, Rick McKee, Clay Bennett, Matt Wuerker, Steve Kelley, Jim Morin, Bill Day, Mike Keefe, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Nick Anderson.

p3 Legion of Highest Merit: Mike Luckovich.

p3 Order of the Ugly Truth (with clusters): Ben Sargent.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: R. J. Matson.

p3 World Toon Review: Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Jianping-Fan (China), Paresh Nath (India), and Cam Cardow (Canada),


Ann Telnaes thinks we're asking the wrong question about health care reform. (Telnaes, bless her heart, is obviously a communist, of course.)


Mark Fiore celebrates the friendship of two new pals: Shoot-em-up Charlie and his buddy ALEC.


Taiwan's Next Media Animation helped “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” go where no video journalists have gone before: inside the camer-free chambers of the Supreme Court.


The stories in the Silver Age Superman family had their problems, probably none more evident from this distance than the silliness that could overtake storytelling when you've got a main character with essentially godlike powers, rendering ordinary conflict beside the point. Perhaps nowhere was this more evident than in Lois and Superman's baffling romantic history.


And speaking of arrested development: What would happen if Calvin (the puer aeternus of Calvin and Hobbes legend) were to -- gasp! -- grow up? Unpossible, you say? Well, Pants Are overrated says different. It may have been an unreachable goal to begin with, but it has its moments. See what you think.


”An extremely polite menace:” Last August, p3 Sunday morning toons noted that Glenn Beck, a man for whom the dividing line between fantasy and reality was always drawn in sidewalk chalk anyway, was genuinely upset that in an alternate-universe Marvel Comics title, Peter Parker is killed off and the Spider-Man costume and mission are taken up by a young half-black half-hispanic character named Miles Morales. Seven months later, Beck has gone where your lap goes when you stand up, and Miles Morales's Ultimate Spider-Man comic hits the stands next week.


And speaking of everyone favorite web-crawler, the indispensible Comics Should Be Good counts down the 50 best Spider-Man comic covers ever.


Tom Tomorrow considers the endless search for a certain kind of moment.


Keith Knight presents a tale of two viral emails.


Tom the Dancing Bug presents The Hunger Games 2012. Critics say it's completely unbelievable. But it certainly ain't pretty.


I can understand the part about Red Meat's Ted Johnson's living room wall; but why is he wearing pajamas??


The Comic Curmudgeon chronicles the accelerating collapse of decency, including respect for James Fennimore Cooper.


What is the significance of the fate of the bug? Discuss. Continuing our salute to the animation that's come out of the National Film Board of Canada, here's the award-winning, but painfully recognizable “Getting Started,” written, animated, and directed in 1979 by Richard Condie.


If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.


The p3 Big Oregon Toon Block:

Jack Ohman imagines the Supreme Court finally reaching a decision.

Matt Bors brings us a public service announcement from McGruff's idiot brother. Last time I saw a mustache like Geraldo's it was chasing Bugs Bunny with a pair of shootin' irons. Seriously.

Jesse Springer didn't send out a new toon this week; but while we're waiting you can browse his archive.


Test your toon-captioning skills at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

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