Number of murder-suicide
events that have occurred at Fort Hood, in Texas:
2
Number of nanoseconds
after the second Fort Hood incident when the right-wing media began
scuffling over whether the shootings proved that (a) there were not
nearly enough guns at the scene, (b) President Obama should be
impeached, or (c) both.
6
Number of people on the
entire planet richer than casino owner Sheldon Adelson:
7
Number of GOP 2016
presidential wannabes who went to Las Vegas to compete for his
private campaign funding, only a day or two after the Supreme Court
told us that unregulated campaign money can only lead to corruption
if there's some obvious and direct quid-pro-quo arrangement:
4
A hypothetical amount of
money that a donor could now dump straight into a single House
candidate's campaign, thanks to this week's McCutcheon decision
further removing restrictions on private and corporate donors, that
wouldn't be "a heck of a lot of money," according to
concurring Justice Scalia:
$3.5 million
The number of sign-ups for
the Affordable Care Act by the deadline last week that was cited by
conservative opponents of the law as proof that the target figure of
7 million would never be reached:
7.1 million
TV advertising revenue in
2012 for the NCAA "March Madness" tournament:
Over $1 billion
Amount of that paid to the
athletes themselves:
$0
But you knew that last one was coming, didn't you?
Today's toons were selected using an
elaborate 64-part triple-elimination multiple-seeded bracket system
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 Picks of the week: Mike
Luckovich, Chan
Lowe, Joel
Pett, Ted
Rall, Marshall
Ramsey, Ben
Sargent, David
Fitzsimmons, Brian
McFadden, Matt
Wuerker, and Monte
Wolverton.
p3 Best of Show: Mike
Luckovich.
p3 Legion of Merit: Jim
Morin.
p3 Croix de Derriere: Clay
Bennett.
p3 Award for Best Adaptation from
Another Medium (tie): John Cole
(also note Terrence Nowiki's link in the comments!) and Steve
Sack.
p3 World Toon Review: Kevin
Kallaugher (Engand), Martin
Slutovec (Slovakia), and Bernard
Bouton (France).
Ann Telnaes presents: Pop
goes the Boehner!
Mark Fiore gives us a tour of
the Sheldon
Adelson Petting Zoo.
Taiwan's Next Media Animation
has a story with a moral: Always
check the calendar before you jump.
“How About Never” is more than memoir, though; it’s also an enormous window into the mystery and alchemy behind the creation and selection of New Yorker cartoons. Mankoff even dissects the famous “New Yorker Cartoon” episode of “Seinfeld” to shine a light on all the intellectual rigor and comedic criteria that go into accepting a cartoon.
And taking the counterpoint is p3's Master of Umbrage, Ted Rall, who minces no words, as is his wont: The New Yorker is bad for cartooning.
From the psychiatrist’s couch to the sexless couple’s living room to the junior executive’s summons of his secretary via intercom, New Yorker cartoons are consistently bland, militantly middlebrow, and mind-numbingly repetitive decade after decade. Which is fine. What is not fine is not seeing fluff for the crap that it is. The New Yorker is terrible for cartooning because it prints a lot of awful cartoons, and uses its reputation in order to elevate terrible work as the profession’s platinum standard.
(Warning to patrons: No one will be
seated during the terrifying "James Thurber 'Bloodhound'"
scene!)
Tom Tomorrow looks at what's
simmering just beneath the surface, and it isn't pretty.
Keith Knight recognizes those who perform a
thankless task.
Tom the Dancing Bug asks:
If corporations are people, can
they go through adolescent rebellion?
Red Meat's Ted Johnson weighs
his options. (And in fairness to Ted, it was April 1st.)
The Comic Strip Curmudgeon
meditates on how life is an
endless series of bland, mind-numbing experiences that we undertake
to stave off death. Good times.
Comic Strip of the Day
investigates what happens when you look at things through
a South African filter.
Did you ever see a dream walking?
Well, I did. And there you have the title, the main musical
theme, the first line of the lyric of the theme, and the basic plot
of this little gem directed in 1934
by Dave Fleischer (and, uncredited, Seymour Kneitel who also
contributed to the animation work), with uncredited work by Billy
Costello as Popeye, William Pennell as Bluto, and Mae Questel as The
Slender One, plus musical direction by Sammy Timberg. The work of
Warner Bros animation musical director Carl Stalling is still the
gold standard to me, but Timberg's playoff of orchestration and
animation in this toon is just a wonder to behold. I always like to
remember Leonard Maltin blowing off on TV about the rich, deep blues
of this cartoon. I suppose that there is a colorized version of this
short out there somewhere (it was a not-infrequent practice to
colorize them later), but this is the original, in gorgeous
monochrome and 2D.
The p3 Sunday Comics Read-Along:
Pearls
Before Swine, Doonesbury,
Rhymes with Orange, Zits,
Adam @ Home, Mutts,
Over the
Hedge, Get
Fuzzy, Prince
Valiant, Blondie,
Bizarro, Mother
Goose & Grimm, Rose
is Rose, Luann,
Hagar
the Horrible, Pickles,
Rubes, Grand
Avenue, Freshly
Squeezed, The Brilliant Mind
of Edison Lee, and Jumble.
The Big, and Working On a Miracle,
Oregon Toon Block:
Ex-pat Jack Ohman
sees it as an out
with the old, in with the new kind of week.
Ex-pat Jen Sorenson
signs us up for Obamacare
101.
Matt Bors pleads:
Wolf
Blitzer, will you please chill out?
Jesse Springer looks
askance – yes, askance – at the various Oregon municipalities
who are using a legal loophole to delay the opening of medical
marijuana dispensaries in their jurisdictions.
Test your toon captioning mojo at The
New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon
contest. (Rules here.)
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