Sunday morning toons: Special "Farewell to Opus" edition

With a pair of entries that are both funny and creepy (albeit in very different ways), Jeff Danziger totally owns this week's toon review from Bob Geiger. There's also a well-deserved shot at Alan Greenspan, the economist who finally ran out of "other hands," from Chan Lowe.

And Daryl Cagle's round-up, not unexpectedly, covers the spectrum from the Obama-McCain race to the McCain-Obama race.

p3 Picks of the Week: Nate Beeler, Mike Lane, Mike Keefe, John Darkow, Steve Sack, Henry Payne, and Jeff Stahler.

p3 Citation for Outstanding Achievement in a Halloween-Related Toon: Larry Wright,
Jeff Parker, and Gary Brookins.

p3 Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Musical Score for a Toon: Steve Breen.

p3 Laureate for Well-Deserved Mocking of an Economist: R. J. Matson, Adam Zyglis, and J. D. Crowe.

p3 World Toon Review: Patrick Corrigan (Toronto), Sergei Elkin (Moscow), Paresh Nath (New Delhi).


Trudeau calls it for Obama: Syndicated cartoonists send their strips out often weeks in advance. Occasionally this causes problems when events intervene between creation date and publication date--remember those strips that had to be pulled at the last minute after Hagar the Horrible invested all his money in Iceland? But Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau knows no fear. Here's what's coming for this Wednesday morning's strip (Spoiler alert!):

Comic creator Garry Trudeau delivered a series of strips for next week's papers showing his characters reacting to an Obama victory. But he offered no such option in the event of a comeback by John McCain, who's trailing Obama in the polls.

Trudeau's syndicator is offering papers a series of rerun strips from August. But the Obama story line is forcing some editors to question whether "Doonesbury" could put them in a spot — albeit in the funny pages — similar to 1948, when the Chicago Daily Tribune infamously declared in huge, front-page type that Republican Thomas Dewey had beaten Democrat Harry Truman for the presidency.

The strip shows three soldiers watching TV and reacting to this announcement: "And it's official — Barack Obama has won ... Making him the first African-American president in history!"

"Hoo-Ah!" one of the soldiers says.

"Son of a gun! What a great, great day! We did it!" another soldier says.

"He's half-white, you know," says a white soldier.

"You must be so proud," responds a soldier, who isn't white.

The rest of the week's strips allude to an Obama victory.

Tim Bannon, editor of the Chicago Tribune's Live! section, where the paper's comics usually run, said the strip won't appear in the comics section because of deadline issues but might end up on another page.

No word so far on how the Oregonian is going to handle it.


Ann Telnaes observes that trick-or-treating is a little different than when we were kids.


Good night, you Prince of Bloom County, you King of Outland. Where will Opus spend eternity? We know it won't be on the shores of Tahiti, but we also know it won't be in the local animal shelter. The answer is here.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman knows a deal when he sees one.

Halloween Special: It's not often you're going to get two Disney animations back-to-back around here at p3, but "The Skeleton Dance" (1929) has always been a kick. The music is the Saint-Saëns composition "Danse Macabre," adapted by Carl Stalling (before he escaped to Warner Bros.). It comes in at #18 on the Top 50 Cartoons list.

p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer has figured out what makes Oregon unique among all 50 states this week. (Click to enlarge.)