Sunday, September 13, 2015

Sunday morning toons: A simple desultory phillippic (Or how I was Ben Carsoned into submission)

Today's picks were a little difficult, and not so much because of an embarras du choix on the big news stories of the day as because the topics were ones that didn't seem to bring out the best in our usual go-to artists. Here are some things you won't see much of this morning.

Nine-eleven hasn't had inspired many new thoughts from anyone (let alone cartoonists) for some time now.

Trump is a blowhard with high ratings who's got the GOP establishment terrified and humiliated – we get that. Now if only some courageous cartoonist would take on Trump's creepy tendency to volunteer in public that his daughter is so hot he'd probably hit that himself if he weren't her father, they'd be an absolute lock for this week's p3 Best of Show award. (I mean, I understand that part of the attraction for many of the short-fingered vulgarian's fans is that the man has no filters, but come on.)

And as for that dreadful person who's slowly discovering that fame is a drug now that she's been reinstated in her semi-hereditary job as a county clerk: When Republican presidential candidates are elbowing each other to stand next to you on-stage like Politburo officials at a May Day Parade, you know you've got a ticket on the next train to Duck Dynasty-style celebrity, however ephemeral. (By the way, her job, which she feels she doesn't actually have to do if Jesus says so, pays a bit under eighty grand a year. The 2009-2013 median income in Rowan County KY was $35,236; the median income for Kentucky during the same period was $43,036.) So yes, it's amusing to point out that Special Agent Scully continues to do her job even though she doesn't believe in UFOs, but if all you had to go with this week was that she's a hypocrite – or the fact that she's a bit on the frumpy side (I mean, Trump looks like an overripe citrus fruit exploding in slo-mo; what's up with that?) – you probably didn't make the cut today.

I been Donald Trumped and stomach pumped.
I been Late Show talkered and Scotty Walkered.
Huckabee'd and Cruzed 'til it's no fun.
I been Facebook memed and home-town teamed,
E-mail servered and life preservered,
And caveman jokes are feeling overdone.


I knew a man, he's so unhip, when you say "santorum"
He thinks you're talkin' about a presidential candidate.

(Acknowledgement.)

Today's toons were selected – left-handed, of course – from the week's offerings at McClatchy DC, Cartoon Movement, Go Comics, Politico's Cartoon Gallery, Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com, and other fine sources of cartoon goodness.


p3 Best of Show: Clay Jones.

p3 Legion of Merit: Rick McKee.

p3 Medal of Achievement ("Shamelessly Recycling Condi Rice's Lies" Division): Michael Ramirez.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation From Another Medium (tie): Robert Ariail and Matt Bors.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence (Part 1): Matt Weurker and Stuart Carlson.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence (Part 2): Joe Heller, Dana Summers, and Phil Hands.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence (Part 3): Drew Litton and Ken Catalino.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence (Part 4): Rob Rogers and Michael Ramirez. (Our records indicate that's the first time Ramirez has hit the p3 exacta, by the way.)

p3 World Toon Review: Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Ingrid Rice (Canada), and Vasco Gargalo (Portugal).


Ann Telnaes brings us the Mike Huckabee revival – in at least one sense of the term.



Tom Tomorrow brings you up-the-picosecond news, and it involves the Invisible Tentacle.

Keith Knight finds the bright center of an otherwise-dismal universe. Maybe.

Reuben Bolling will be hunted down and skinned alive if the pop culture enthusiasts get the joke. (The morons can be safely counted on not to.)

Red Meat's Ted Johnson and son take in the latest blockbuster. Or perhaps, in the lingo of the film industry, we should call it a "tentpole movie."


Comic Strip of the Day points out things you might not have seen (well, I certainly didn't) about The Heart of Juliet Jones, plus his two favorite 9/11 cartoons.


You gotta be a touchdown-getter, you bet! To celebrate – if that's the word we're looking for here; perhaps "observe" is nearer the mark – the inevitable return of football season, here's a classic Popeye, directed by Dave Fleisher in 1935. The title song was the most popular football anthem of its time. Now an IMDB search of its title only turns up an episode of "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." Sad, huh?



The Big, And Getting Bigger Since We Welcomed Back The Departed, Oregon Toon Block:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman thanks Trump for his service. (As CSotD points out, dissing someone for taking a draft deferment is like dissing them for deducting their mortgage payments, and the short-fingered vulgarian would have been fine if he'd just kept his big bazoo closed.)

Theoretically Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen shows why we're proud to claim her – if, in fact, we have the right.


Jesse Springer reacts to the notion of two Oregon judges deciding they would rather not perform civil wedding ceremonies at all than possibly being compelled to officiate a same-sex marriage. In Oregon, judges are not required to perform marriage ceremonies (unlike, for example, county clerks in Kentucky), so perhaps that puts Oregon a little higher on the chain of being than Kentucky. Maybe.



Test your toon captioning majic at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.) And you can browse The New Yorker's cartoon gallery here.



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