Sunday, August 3, 2014

Sunday morning toons: It's a long way down the holiday road

It's nice to think I'm not the only one who finds that the Republican-hogtied Congress going on "vacation" for the month of August seems a tad redundant. As you'll see below, it's not just Lindsey Buckingham on my side.

We'll just let that thought hang there. We won't even mention the tort-reform enthusiasts in House Republican majority bring a frivolous Impeachment Lite lawsuit against the president for doing what they wanted him to do. Or the cleansing of Gaza – not an easy trick, making them the the sympathetic ones, but Israel's managing it with ease. Or the racist, nativist, Tea Partying opposition to sixty thousand refugees on our southern border – refugees from conditions largely if not exclusively of our own making in the 1980s and 1990s.

On the upside, there weren't any disastrous and sadistic medical experiments disguised as state-sanctioned executions this week, nor did Putin shoot down any more commercial airliners. And Justice Ginsberg has gotten in touch with her inner awesomeness (although, oddly, no toons about it this week). So there's that, I suppose.

Today's toons were selected by volunteers, since all the responsible people were out of their offices, 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.


p3 Best of Show: Chad Lowe.

p3 Medal for Evolutionary Excellence: Pat Bagley.

p3 Legion of Merit: Ben Sargent.

p3 World Toon Review: Gado (Kenya), Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), and Petar Pismestrovic (Austria).


Ann Telnaes celebrates the island-shirted defender of the Constitution.


Mark Fiore issues the challenge: Blink!




Keith Knight reminds us of the importance of those three little words.


Tom the Dancing Bug reminds readers of the importance of worshipping the right deity.


Red Meat's Ted Johnson and his son share some family history.


The Comic Strip Curmudgeon, realizing it could be worse, gazes in merely mild horror at the eternal now.


Comic Strip of the Day looks at the way political cartoonists handled events one hundred years ago this week.


Making babies laugh is my specialty! There's a funny twist at the end of "I Likes Babies and Infinks," directed in 1937 by Dave Fleisher, with animation by Seymour Kneitel and Graham Place (uncredited: Jack Mercer as Popeye, Gus Wickie as Bluto, and Mae Questel as The Slender One and Swee' Pea). The action uses depth of field and beautiful backgrounds so well that it can make you hate any Popeye cartoon after about 1960. And, once again, Olive's life would be much, much simpler if she didn't tell Popeye her problems while Bluto was listening outside the window. In luscious monochrome!






The Big, And Getting Bigger Since We Welcomed Back The Departed, Oregon Toon Block:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman is at the end of the line.

Allegedly Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen examines the importance of sincerely held beliefs.


Jesse Springer is off this week.



Test your toon captioning mojo at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.) And you can browse The New Yorker's cartoon gallery here.

No comments: