Sunday evening toon

There are days when I think the best job in the world would be to write for the Weekly World News. Unlike their Elvis 'n' Oprah counterparts on the supermarket tabloid racks, WWN doesn't even pretend that they're printing responsible, factual journalism. It's all blissfully, contentedly made up out of whole cloth.

Compared to the WWN, The Onion is The Economist.

Sure, The Onion has "Vigilante Cop Acts As Judge, Jury, Prosecuting Attorney, Bailiff, Stenographer, Executioner." But the WWN has "Bat Boy Sighted in NYC Subway!"

But what has that to do with the venerable p3 tradition of the Sunday toons, you ask? I'm getting to that.

The brewpub where we have our regular Drinking Liberally meetings posts pages from the WWN over the urinals. It's the perfect reading material when you're in a meditative mood.

To my astonishment, last week there was a story on the posted page that included something true. I was shocked. Not too shocked to finish, but shocked all the same.

The story was a list of dubious trivia items, but there amid bits of nonsense, some kind of editorial oversight had allowed a mention to slip through of what is reputed to be the first political cartoon published by an American newspaper. From May 9th, 1754, edition of The Pennsylvania Gazette, published by Ben Franklin, comes this, our Sunday toon for today:

(Note that I've linked, not to the Weekly World News, but to the BBC's website. WWN may have inadvertently told the truth on this one, but that doen't mean they've made it easy to track down after the fact.

Note also that May 9, 1754, was a Thursday, but then we're not known to be fussy about the Sundayness of our Sunday toons here at p3. Enjoy.)

Image via the Benjamin Franklin Tercenteniary.