Sunday morning toons: Special "Isn't It Lovely?" edition

A liberal icon is dead--and come to think of it, health care reform itself isn't looking so good either. Let's dive into Daryl Cagle's toon round-up for this week.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Pat Bagley, R. J. Matson, Bob Englehart, David Fitzsimmons, Jimmy Margulies, Steve Sack, Adam Zyglis, and Jeff Stahler.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: Patrick Chappatte (Non-liberal arts majors can click here.)

Ted Kennedy's death was marked by Taylor Jones, Ed Stein, Eric Allie, Mike Keefe, and John Trevor (among others).

p3 World Toon Review: Stephane Peray (Thailand), Guy Badeaux (Canada), Christo Komarnitski, (Bulgaria) and Werner Wejp-Olsen (Denmark).


Will there be a hot time in the old town tonight? Ann Telnaes thinks maybe so,


Change is in the air, but Mike Doonesbury has found his anchor.


This is not your parents' New Yorker: No upper west side couples gazing across the table at a little bistro. No tweedy academics sharing their trendy angst in the faculty lounge. And definitely no whimsical, Thurberesque tributes to sexual repression. The New Yorker cartoon caption contest is in a place all its own.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman notes the presence of an empty chair. (And speaking of caption contests: Ohman regularly features one at his Oregonian blog.)


Isn't that lovely? Mmm?As the story goes, Warner Bros animator Chuck Jones decided that Yosemite Sam had become a little too easy for Bugs Bunny to get the best of, so Jones went in the other direction, replacing the loud, boastful, but foolish Sam with the polite, soft-spoken, and casually destructive Marvin the Martian. (Although he wasn't named Marvin, or anything else, until years after his first screen appearance, when they needed to give the character a name for merchandising purposes. In this story, he's simply referred to as "Commander, Flying Saucer X-2.") From 1952, directed by Chuck Jones, here's Marvin's second theatrical outing: "The Hasty Hare."

(By the way: The opening music is the main theme from musical director Carl Stalling's Anxiety Montage. And for those keeping count, this is Marvin's second p3 appearance.)

p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer notes that, for some newcomers to Oregon, there may be a temporary period of cultural adjustment (click to enlarge):




And finally, check out Slate's political cartoon for today.