Sunday morning toons: Special "Rabbititis" edition

There were a lot of health care reform-related toons this week, but a surprising number hinged on jokes about "deeming" or "reconciliation," meaning that by the weekend they were obsolete. And they're just getting warmed up on March Madness, which--alas--is used to describe basketball tournaments, and not the Texas schoolbook selection process, as it probably should be.

Let's get started, as usual, with Daryl Cagle's toon round-up for this week.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Pat Bagley, Mike Keefe, Jef Parker, Michael Ramirez, Steve Sack, Jeff Stahler, Bill Day, Gary Varvel, and Monte Wolverton,

p3 Best of Show: R. J. Matson.

p3 Legion of Merit: Ed Stein.

p3 Grimm Truth Award: Bill Schorr.

p3 March Madness/HCR Harmonic Toon Convergence Award: Adam Zyglis and Henry Payne.

p3 World Toon Review: Igor Kodenko (Ukraine), Alexandr Zudin (Russia), Stephane Peray (Thailand), Patrick Chappatte, (Switzerland) and Cam Cardow (Canada).


Ann Telnaes takes out the trash.


Mark Fiore salutes the March of the Un-Gay. It gets odd, but stay with it.


Robert Altman's "Popeye" was the focus this week at Lance Mannion's ongoing First Virtual I Hate Robert Altman Film Festival.


I always said that if anyone could capture the weird, loosely-wrapped, ensemble joy of the early Fleischer Popeye toons (to say nothing of the Thimble Theater strip where Popeye originated on January 17, 1929, above), it would be Altman. The question is, did he pull it off? (Image via Wikipedia. Click to enlarge.)


All the King's (Super)men: Last October I noted that the heirs of legendary Marvel (and, for a while, DC) artist Jack "King" Kirby--whose creations were box office gold for most of the last decade--were working to assert control over the intellectual property (and the revenue stream) his huge body of work represents. The story was complicated to begin with, involving intellectual property law and the rights of Marvel Entertainment Group, plus Sony, Fox, and Disney; and it just got a lot more complicated recently, for reasons it'll be easier if you just go read about. If intellectual property rights law isn't your cup of tea, read it for the story of uber-lawyer Marc Toberoff, a man who once pitched the idea of an intellectual-rights lawsuit to the still-grieving wife of the creator of Casper the Friendly Ghost.


Kevin Moore pays tribute to Alex Chilton.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman reminds us that politics is the art of the possible, in a cartoon that will make absolutely no sense to anyone outside the metro area.


Twapped with a cwazy, contaminated wabbit! "Hare Tonic," directed by Chuck Jones in 1945, is one of my favorite Bugs Bunny toons. The story is classic Bugs-bedeviling-Elmer, and the camera angles, the swooping shifts in perspective, the fluid motion, the apparent physical heft of the characters (without which the necktie gag would never work)--all make this just a lovely little piece of eye-candy.

No p3 Bonus Toon this week; Jesse Springer's on hiatus.


Remember to bookmark:

Slate's political cartoon for the day.
And Time's cartoons of the week.