Sunday, February 7, 2016

Sunday morning toons: And I read about it in Willamette Week!

(Thanks for the nod, Batocchio! Some day I'll chew through the hunters' nets and set you free.)

Three days' worth of Non Sequitur cartoons, by Wiley Miller, were pulled from the Oregonian's comics page last week. (You can see the strips beginning here.) The editor's justification was that the strips, which gently ridiculed (though not by name) the Bundy brothers' takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon, "seemed jarring and in poor taste given that someone now was dead." He added:
That decision has yielded a grand total of two reader complaints.
– although that may be more a gauge of shrinking Oregonian readership numbers than of any reaction to the decision to withhold the strips in question.

Alert p3 readers may recall that the O had a similar bout of the fantods (albeit suffered by a different editor) in 2012, also resulting in a week's worth of strips getting pulled. In that case the cause of the disturbance was a Doonesbury series ridiculing Virginia and Texas Republican legislators attempting to mandate transvaginal ultrasounds for all women seeking an abortion. (The p3 coverage of that dust-up began here, and continued here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

It's probably a coincidence that in both cases the O's editorial judgment came down on the side of gentle handling for right-wing extremism. Just an abundance of caution.

Today's toons were selected – with appropriate concern for the delicate sensibilities of our readers – 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 toony goodness.


p3 Best of Show: Jeff Stahler.


Ann Telnaes sketched this week's Democratic Town Hall.

Mark Fiore ponders: Does the pointless focus on Iowa's caucuses prove the existence of God? Or something else entirely? Or . . . ?


Tom Tomorrow follows the election coverage so you don't have to.

Keith Knight thinks about the poor Iowans who will never get better.

As we approach the Super Bowl, Reuben Bolling reminds us that a neuronic cluster is only as strong its weakest ganglion. And there's no "I" in CTE!

Marriage: Tricky business. Marriage to Red Meat's Ted Johnson: Doubly so.


The Comic Strip Curmudgeon itemizes a million ways to die in a Dick Tracy strip, the newest of which appears to be narcotizing plot lines. (And yes, I know he only lists seven ways, but the one about the rats sounds pretty bad, and without the reference to a million I lose the hook for this entry.)

Comic Strip of the Day celebrates the only indigenous American art form other than jazz.


Mrrrff? Simon's Cat's latest adventure, "Tough Love," directed by Simon Tofield, is a convincing excuse for giving the whole Valentine's Day thing a miss. Come for the meditation on the fickleness of romance, stay for the hilarious moment of embarrassment for Simon's Cat (you'll know it; trust me).



The Comfort-Fit Oregon Toon Block:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman got this shot in on The Man Whose Face You'd Love to Punch even before he'd smirked his way through the Fifth Amendment before Congress.

Maybe/Maybe Not Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen considers the virtues of knowing where he stands. (Thirty-six years ago, I had a dream of buying an old station wagon and driving the country roads of Iowa. Every time we saw a farm house, we'd pull up the drive, knock on the door, and ask the person who answered if they'd voted for Reagan. If they said yes, we'd laugh uproariously and drive on to the next farm. If they said no, we'd say Hop in – we're going to have some fun. 'Twas ever thus, I suppose.)

Matt Bors brings up a pretty widely-held sentiment. Lucky think he's not carried by the Oregonian, eh?

Jesse Springer thinks that popular Oregon passtime isn't as simple as its enthusiasts make it sound.



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



No comments: