Sunday morning toons: Medical care in America: An Update

Lucky us. This week the toon world was heavily into the status of health in America. Not that Obamacare thing: Suddenly the right-wing media is all crickets chirping and the distant tinkle of glassware somewhere near Omaha on that subject.

For openers, it looks like the run-up to Memorial Day is going to be all about the VA's service performance, which is fitting.

Having raised a fortune in 2012 superPAC money with almost nothing to show for it except his own fees, Karl Rove is exploring his new career a TV doctor (he looks at Hillary Clinton and sees possible brain damage, as opposed to Bill Frist who looked at Terri Schaivo and saw the exact opposite! Tricky business!)

And House Republicans have the fever – and the cure is More #Benghazi!

At least it's all pushed Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling farther down the news feed for a little while. Plus, it was the occasion for a couple of good penguin sight-gags. And as loyal p3 readers know, we're all about the penguins here.

Today's toons were selected by a select House panel charged with establishing the scandalous link between political cartooning during the Obama administration and threats to national security 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 toon goodness.

p3 Picks of the week: Mike Luckovich, Chris Bennett, Matt Davies, Walt Handlesman, Jim Morin, Pat Oliphant, Joel Pett, Marshall Ramsay, Ben Sargent, Pat Bagley, Mike Keefe, Matt Wuerker, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Paul Szep.

p3 Legion of Merit: Keith Knight.

p3 Medal of Valor (with Hashtags): Eric Alley.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (tie): Jeff Stahler and Chan Lowe, with extra credit to Matt Wuerker. (I honestly expected this award to be given out to at least half a dozen variations on "Abbie Normal," but no such luck.)

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence: J. D. Crowe and Scott Stantis.

p3 World Toon Review: Silviano Mello (Brazil), Petar Pismestrovic (Austria), and Ingrid Rice (Canada).

How did this get by us? On April 29, Al Feldstein died at age 88. For three decades he was the editor of Mad Magazine, and created the magazine that every generation thinks of when they hear the name. (And, for the record, I still think this Mort Drucker gag is still the funniest single panel from my glory days.* I can't explain it.)

*And therefore the funniest single panel in all of human history, since as MAD's current editor says in the link above, “For each reader, MAD was funniest when they first discovered it.”

It's like imagining Damon without Pythias. Or Lewis without Martin. Or Rowan without Martin. Or, more to the point, Bugs without Elmer. Here at p3 we've often mentioned Portland's own Mel Blanc, the man of a thousand voices, but we haven't mentioned Arthur Q. Bryant – who made the voice of Elmer Fudd the voice that imitators always hoped for but never achieved. Here he is, in something wholly non-Fudd. And the really cool thing is that he looks exactly like you would have imagined he looks.

Ann Telnaes celebrates the return of Mister Warmth.

Mark Fiore introduces the universal language. (It's like Esperanto, except that William Shatner never made a movie in it. How 'bout that – the Shatman gets two plugs this week!)

Taiwan's Next Media Animation has good news and bad news: It could mean that TASERs and pepper sprays might get phased out by police. The bad news, it's more powerful by an order of magnitude, it's laser-sighted, and it looks so sexy you know they'll want to whip it out a lot more often.

Tom Tomorrow sings a chorus of "They'll never forget you 'til somebody new comes along."

Keith Knight gives a shoutout to something he could get nostalgic about.

Tom the Dancing Bug continues the olde, olde story. (Part 1 was featured last week.) We can look forward to Part 3 next week, if the troll will sanction it.

Red Meat's Johnny Lemonhead faces a true story of the 2014 job market.

The Comic Strip Curmudgeon considers the importance of setting reasonable goals, via The Family Circus.

Comic Strip of the Day says: When the going gets tough, the tough go dada-ist.

Chase me: It's pretty damned rare for the Golden-Age snobs here at Team p3 to include any animation produced after about 1957 (unless it's Canadian, of course). And I doubt if the long history of the feature has ever included the words "direct-to-video." But that's what we're featuring today, and it's a beaut. Directed by Curt Geda, with a great jazz score by Lolita Ritmanis, "Chase Me" was a little somethin' extra on the 2003 DVD Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman. This time I won't over explain. Just enjoy. (Hat-tip to Oliver Mannion.)

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.

And, while the big O has kept its comics pages alive – and has even moved them to color – things are looking a little ominous back east. Jim Romanesko writes: New York Post Drops Its Comics Section (And Few People Notice).

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

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman gives us a bird's eye view of GOP Presidential primary sweepstakes.

Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen (who may not be an ex-Oregonian at all, and we're looking into it, but not in a creepy stalker way) shares gift ideas for the unvaccinated.

Matt Bors explores the many useful possibilities of hashtag activism.

Jesse Springer gets a little teary-eyed as the moment nears when the couple stands in front of the judge and says those magic words. (Look for the announcement on Monday at noon. It's BYOH – Bring Your Own Hankie.)

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

Sunday morning toons: Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of the 2016 campaign!

And why not? There are only 1186 days until Election Day, 2016.

And by a remarkable coincidence, the NSA's domestic surveillance uncovered a herd of wild elephants about to trample through the cities of Oregon. Haven't seen any wild elephants lately? Thank your NSA.

And you could find out more about all this in your local daily newspaper, if there are any left by the time you see this.

This week's toons were hoovered by the NSA straight off the pads, notebooks, and graphic tablets of the nation's top political cartoonists – why waste time with publication and syndication? – even before they appeared on the pages at McClatchyDC, Cartoon Movement, Go Comics, Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com, Politico's Cartoon Carousel, Comic Strip of the Day, and other fine sources.

p3 Picks of the Week:

John Luckovich, Jack Ohman, Joel Pett, Jim Morin, Pat Oliphant, Signe Wilkinson, Bill Day, Pat Bagley, , Adam Zyglis, Jen Sorenson, Matt Wuerker, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: R. J. Matson.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: Kevin Siers.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence: Bruce Plant and Kevin Siers.

p3 World Toon Review Vladimir Kazanevsky (Georgia), Bernard Bouton (France), Alex Falco (Cuba), and Shahrohk Heidari (Iran).


Ann Telnaes reminds us why we shouldn't get our “news” from Leno. Stewart and Colbert, okay – but not Leno.


Like many Americans, Mark Fiore finds the timing just a little too . . . too.


This story of a gun-waving idiot was making the rounds on social media earlier this week, but it's not the news until Taiwan's Next Media Animation says it is.


Mad Magazine's loveable Cold-War characters have a special new friend – and notice that there's not a red-haired, gap-toothed magazine mascot anywhere to be seen.


At Comic Riffs, his Washington Post blog, Michael Cavna tracks down cartoonists' takes from around the country on the Post's buy-out by Amazon.com gazillionaire Jeff Bezos. (Although he sounds understandably eager for the storm of media attention to blow over.)


Tom Tomorrow presents the happy side of NSA surveillance.


Keith Knight draws the line at letting them move into his neighborhood. Fig Newtons – heh.


Tom the Dancing Bug breaks the fourth wall, big time.


Red Meat's Ted Johnson and his wife make a difficult decision.


A reckless, amorous, swashbuckling trio, riding a magic carpet to romance and adventure! That's the unlikely description of today's animation subject. Last week we looked at one of the more obvious bits of cultural imperialism waged by the Disney studios toward our brown friends around the world. Here's another sample – or at least the trailer for it: The Three Caballeros premiered in Mexico City in 1944, starring Donald Duck (representing the benevolent US), Jose Carioca (representing Brazil, he first appeared in a similar Disney-ganda film with Donald in 1942 – we'll get to that next week), and new character Panchito Pistoles (representing Mexico with the level of gross cultural stereotyping that wouldn't be seen again until Frito-Lay introduced the Frito Bandito). Directed by Norman Ferguson, with uncredited voice work by Clarence Nash (Donald), José Oliveira (Joe), and Joaquin Garay (Panchito). It's perhaps telling that in the whole project there wasn't one person who could brief the announcer for the trailer on the fact that the double-L in Spanish are rolled. (The full 70-minute feature is available here.)

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.

(If you're interested in the really down-and-dirty truth about Disney empire and cultural imperialism, try your hand at How to Read Donald Duck, a 1972 book on the Disney's promotion – often with direct US government support – of industrial capitalism on the silver screen. The authors, Chilean activists Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, were quickly driven into political exile. And as for Chile, well, you may remember how that turned out.)


The Not Huge, But Certainly Bigger than Last Week's Big Oregon Toon Block: Matt Bors considers the tricky problems of marriage – at least some marriages.

Jesse Springer returns with the news: In Oregon did Kublai Kahn a stately pleasure dome decree.

Test your toon captioning mojoat The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here).

Saturday morning tunes: Voyage

Today is actually the 17th anniversary of the day “The Macarena” hit the top of the charts in 1996 (you can look it up), but – although we're serious rumba fans here at p3 – we're going to give that moment a big miss.

Instead, we're celebrating the undersea arrival of the US nuclear submarine Nautilus, the first nuclear powered submarine, at the North Pole on this day in 1958. The landmark journey inspired the 1961 Irwin Allen fantasy/scifi film “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” and, in 1964, the TV series of the same name, also created by Allen (reusing sets and props from the film to keep the TV production costs down).

And that, in turn, finally gets us to today's tune, the series main theme, composed by Paul Sawtell. (VttBotS also brought on board several other well-known composers for various episodes, including Jerry Goldsmith, Nelson Riddle, Alexander Courage, and Morton Stevens. )

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here. 

And finally, just because I can (click to enlarge):

Saturday morning tunes: Yes, he would give his heart gladly

But each day as she walks to the sea, she looks straight ahead not at he.

Sigh. I always enjoy this bossa nova classic when I hear it (even when it's a Blues Brothers throw-away gag), but I have to ignore that bit of grammatical violence committed by Songwriter Hall of Fame lyricist Norman Gimbel (who translated the original Portugese lyrics approximately into English) just to get a rhyme with “sea.”

Because everyone knows that practically nothing rhymes with “sea” in English.

I'm pretty sure that p3 literary hero Frank Jacobs didn't have to pull anything that lame to get a rhyme in his MAD Magazine parody of the song, which began, “Short, and bald, and fat, and ugly, the guy from Jersey City's loaded . . . “

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.

Sunday morning toons: Resetting our clocks

(Updated below.)

Most of America set their clocks ahead one hour last night, something of an anachronism in a world where farm vehicles have Blu-ray and cell phones, but there we are.

But not everyone set their clocks forward; in fact, sadly, it's not too hard to find people who have gone roaring into the past:

Jeb Bush, forced to disagree on immigration policy with his own book, which went to print in December, is trying to set the clock back to sometime before that.

Many Republicans have used the death of Hugo Chavez as an opportunity to relitigate the Cold War, which, as you may recall, ended when we won in 1989. (Did I really originally type "Cesar?" Sigh.)

South Dakota is looking for that sweet spot right before 1973, when all that icky women's-right-to-control-their-own-bodies stuff started catching on.

The conservative majority on the US Supreme Court appears to be living happily in some period before 1964.

Bankers, and the regulators and legislators who roll with them, would like it to be the 1920s.

Corporate America, and the justices and legislators who roll with them, would like to set us back to the Gilded Age -- call it 1880.

Not to be outdone, nine Republican Senators saw the vote on the expanded Violence Against Women Act as an opportunity to take us sometime into the Fifteenth Century.

Today's toons were selected between 2:00am and 3:00am this morning, from the week's pages at Cartoon Movement, GoComics, McClatchyDC.com, Slate, Time, About.com, Daryl Cagle, and other fine sources.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Jack Ohman, Jim Morin, Lee Judge, Kevin Siers, Lee Judge, Clay Bennett, Tom Stiglich, Jeff Danziger, Matt Wuerker, Jen Sorenson, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: David Fitzsimmons.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (tie): Steve Sack and Joel Pett.

p3 Who's Governing on First? Medal: Joe Heller.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence: John Cole and Gary McCoy.

p3 World Toon Review: Cam Cardow (Canada), Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Farid Ben Morsli (Italy), and Rainer Ehrt (Germany),


No, no, be of good cheer -- Ann Telnaes captures The Almost-First Lady, who assures us that, if politics teaches us anything, it teaches us to accept our failures, as well as our successes, with quiet grace and dignity.


Mark Fiore has the funniest, better-than-the-target-deserves animation I've seen in a long, long time. Well played, sir.


Taiwan's Next Media Animation doesn't seem to be working at the moment. I'll update this later when the site's back up. Meanwhile, we'll just call them <airquotes>Next</airquotes> Media Animation.


”There have never been as many cartoons online, or as many readers – but the quality level is very low. Many are basically just memes.” Well then. Veteran political cartoonisst Ted Rall gave a session at SXSW on political cartooning in the age of the Web, social media, and shrinking newspaper circulation. The transcript's here.


Superman struggles for edgy relevance -- Success: DC Comics and Mad Magazine (both owned by TimeWarner) are doing some crossover work -- and not for the first time. (Al Jaffee turns 92 on Wednesday, by the way.) Also too: Supergirl gets the treatment.


Superman struggles for edgy relevance -- Fail: Just go read the story.


Tom Tomorrow ponders the Zen koan How can you improve on perfection?


Keith Knight has a brilliant plan! Too bad a lot of people aren't cool enough to appreciate it.


Tom the Dancing Bug shows us that people who do not pay attention to pop culture are doomed to repeat it. Or something like that. Anyway, here's the chance to get yer sci-fi /fantasy ya-yas out.


Red Meat's Bug-eyed Earl feels misunderstood.


The Comics Curmudgeon, to our astonishment, and perhaps his own, uses “Nearly everything about this is perfect” and “Heathcliff” in the same sentence.


Don't you know that every time you go near that window you give me populations of the heart? There were three Popeye shorts with Eugene the Jeep between 1938 and 1940. There wasn't much effort at continuity among them, so I'm not feeling driven by it now. (The third and final one, from 1940, gets the p3 treatment here.) Besides, the Jeep apparently has powers somehow connected to the fourth dimension, so why should he be bound by our linear, human view of time? Huh? “The Jeep” was drected by Dave Fleischer in glorious black and white, animated by Seymour Kneitel and Graham Place, with a host of uncredited contributions, including Jack Mercer as Popeye and Margie Hines as Olive and Swee' Pea, and musical direction (including Eugene's theme) by Sammy Timberg. Be listening for “Search-ez la frame,” a pun I had no possible hope back in the day of getting -- or even spelling right!

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here. 

The p3 Big Oregon Toon Block:

Matt Bors actually makes a lot of sense on this one, if you give it just a couple of seconds.

Jesse Springer holds out hope for universal background checks for firearm sales in Oregon, but it looks like peace^* for assaut rifles and high-capacity magazines:

^*Update: And it looks like it's going to be peace with an unacceptable price tag.

Test your toon-captioning magic at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Sunday morning toons: Yesterday's headlines today!

This just in:

State Dept Gives Approval to Environmentally and Economically Lethal Keystone XL Pipeline Deal, EPA Not Bothered for Its Opinion

The Sequester Begins the Austerity Process in the US

Old Times There Are Not Forgotten, But the Voting Rights Act Might As Well Be

North Korea Has Its First ET Summit

Bob Woodward, Self-Promoting Wuss

Pope Hops Catches Last Train for the Coast, Just Before Next Round of Leaks

Don't wait to see it on yesterday's headlines at your local coffee shop -- get last week's news today, from the week's pages at Cartoon Movement, GoComics, McClatchyDC.com, Slate, Time, About.com, Daryl Cagle, and other fine sources.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Jack Ohman (runner-up for the 2013 Herblock Prize -- way to go!, Nick Anderson, Mike Smith, , Signe Wilkinson, Daryl Cagle, Dave Grandlund, Mike Wuerker, Jen Sorenson, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Chad Lowe.

p3 “If He's An Alien, That's Not Much of a Disguise” Medal: Jim Morin.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: Clay Bennett.

p3 World Toon Review: Dale Cummings (Canada), Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Tjeerd Royards (Netherlands), and Alex Falco (Cuba).


Ann Telnaes updates Churchill: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to have a lifetime appointment on the US Supreme Court.


Mark Fiore, in one of his best to date, celebrates a war Americans finally can win -- by losing! (The war began, by the way, on January 20, 1981, probably the last time a President presented a request for a formal declaration of war to the Congress.)


Taiwan's Next Media Animation wonders what secrets Pope Benedict is taking to his early and lawyered-up retirement.


2013 Herblock Award winner Tom Tomorrow tells you the ugly truth today, or else he might have to tell you in twenty years!


Congratulations to p3 Sunday morning toon review regulars Tom Tomorrow and Jack Ohman, winner and runner-up respectively for the 2013 Herblock Award for political cartooning. (Portland artist and p3 regular Matt Bors was the 2012 award winner, by the way.)


The Society of Illustrators is hosting a retrospective of the work of p3 hero and founding Mad Magazine artist Harvey Kurtzman at the Museum of Illustration on NYC's Upper East Side.


If you've ever read a Donald Duck or Scrooge McDuck comic book, you've almost certainly seen the work of Don Rosa. Want to know why he got out of the business? Hint: There's a reason people in the business call his former employer “Duckau.”


Keith Knight has a simple plan to save the po(s)t office.


Tom the Dancing Bug reveals his Grand Unification Theory of Conservatism.


Red Meat's Ted Johnson explores the beverage/cleanliness interface -- with the missus.


The Comics Curmudgeon's memories of academia are more or less the same as mine.


As a tribute to “Family Guy” creator Seth McFarland's iffy appearance last weekend as host of the Oscars, here's one of the funniest parodies from a series that's done a lot of parody material over the years. Not safe for work. Not even remotely.

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here. 

(I originally planned to show “Fast and Furry-ous,” the 1949 premiere of the Roadrunner/Coyote team-up, directed by Chuck Jones, animated by Michael Maltese, with musical direction by Carl Stalling, but Time-Warner has apparently driven every copy of it off the internet, because, you know, if we embedded it here on p3 it would instantly crater the worldwide sales of their dozens and dozens of classic toon anthologies on DVD and Blu Ray. Luckily, parody is protected speech under the First Amendment. For now. So, Seth, about that Oscars performance: All is forgiven.)


The p3 Big Oregon Toon Block:

The p3 Sunday morning toon review regularly passes out awards and medals; here's Matt Bors making his contribution to the decorative cause.

Jesse Springer is losing his patience with you people!

Test your toon-captioning skills at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Sunday morning toons: Nuclear war couldn't destroy the Twinkie, but vulture capitalism might

Oddly, if there was a political cartoon marking the 49th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, I didn't see it. On to other matters.

Six CEO's -- some place-holders, some with no baking/food industry experience, some flat-out vulture capitalists brought in to strip and flip -- ran Hostess into the ground and took their bonuses, but they blamed it on the Bakers union. Wussies.

Also up this week: WalMart gets the frowny-face; Black Friday brings out our best; Israel and Palestine show that war is the ultimate extension of peace; Romney declines to dedicate the rest of his life to serving the country he so desperately wanted to lead; and right-wingers try desperately to prove that the Petraeus scandal leads to the Benghazi attack which must therefore lead to impeachment proceedings against Obama. You heard it here approximately first.

Also, you-know-Who celebrated his 49th broadcast anniversary.

Today's toons were selected, using Time Lord technology, from the week's pages at GoComics, McClatchyDC.com, Slate, Time, About.com, Daryl Cagle, and other fine sources.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Joel Pett, Chad Lowe, Jeff Stahler, Tom Toles, Bill Day, Matt Wuerker, Jen Sorensen, and Monte Wolverton. (Why is Monte Wolverton a regular, you ask? Apart from his wild-ass drafting, there's the former-Portland connection, the Mad Magazine connection, and the fact that every bad idea in California, which is his local beat now, ends up on the ballot in Oregon about five or ten years later.)

p3 Best of Show: Adam Zyglis.

p3 Going Galt (On Someone Else) Award: Joel Pett.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence (best when viewed in order presented): Jack Ohman, Joe Heller and Rob Tornoe.

p3 Legion of Merit (with Notches): John Cole.

p3 World Toon Review: Martyn Turner (Ireland), Kevin Kallaugher (England), Cameron Cardow (Canada), Rachel Gold (Austria) and Petar Pismestrovic (Austria).


Ann Telnaes has put together a tribute to political sex scandals beginning in the late 1990s -- who could that have been?


Mark Fiore presents Little Suzie Newsykins expressing thanks for the news that keeps our minds off the news. You'll never feel the same way about tracing around your hand again!


Taiwan's Next Media Animation presents Black Friday in the WalMart of Good and Evil.


Tom Tomorrow reflects on why some phallic objects and other phallic objects will never understand each other.


Tom the Dancing Bug presents one of my favorites from a long time: Ward, I'm not worried about the Beaver. And then Bill O'Reilly woke up and half of his pillow was missing!


Red Meat's Ted Johnson presents the deal in a nutshell. Honestly, didn't you figure where this was going anyway?


The Comics Curmudgeon tells you what no one else has the stones to tell you: Are you ready to kill? Kill in a way that leaves no trail back to you? Because that’s what it takes. That’s what it takes..


Celebrating the start of his 50th year on TV: Martha Jones and The Doctor (voiced by Freema Agyeman and  David Tennant)  have an animated adventure, “The Infinite Quest,” serialized by the BBC during the third season (2007) of the re-booted Doctor. It has the usual suspects as executive producers, including Russell T. Davies, but a different writing/production crew from the live-action series. Still, pretty fun. Here's Part 1 (YouTube will connect you to the remaining episodes):

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.

The p3 Big Oregon Toon Block:

Jack Ohman (no longer an Oregonian, strictly speaking, but grandfathered in here at p3) pays tribute to the American tradition that cannot die.

Matt Bors investigates the pain -- the very specific and localized pain -- of being a CEO in a world that has insufficiently rejected Obama.

Jesse Springer looks at the good news and the bad news -- or at least the good news -- from Oregon's budget picture:

Test your toon-captioning abilities at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Sunday afternoon toons: Shades of 2000

Shades of 2000: Tuesday's presidential election is probably now fated to go unresolved for weeks -- at least if the outcome depends on Ohio, where the Republican Secretary of State is doubling-down on resistance to a court order concerning how and whether provisional ballots will be counted, a move that's destined to make the count process hostage to a string of inevitible court appeals.

(And have I mentioned lately that one of Mitt Romney's main advisors is one of the original Brooks Brothers rioters, the thug who uttered the famous twelve words that stopped the 2000 Florida vote count?)

Of course, in some cases the Republicans, in true “smaller-government” fashion, have outsourced the hands-on work of vote suppression to independent contractor who simply throw completed voter registration forms in the dumpster for recycling. And you thought you'd never see Republicans go green. (Note that, by curbing voting at the registration level, they're also burnishing their “supply-siders” cred.)

All of which makes the elections office Clackamas County, Oregon, somewhat unusual by Republican standards, since rather than reducing opportunities for citizens (especially non-Republicans) to vote, a staffer has helpfully completed mail-in ballots on which some races were left blank by going back and marking the blanks for the Republican. Wasn't that thoughtful?

If this stuff was happening in any other country (of whose leader we didn't approve) (and preferably in the middle-east but not Israel), the Republicans would be the ones screaming to send in the Marines. Not to mention the fact that if these people were selling loose joints instead of stealing votes, they'd be serving three-to-five in one of our many fine private prisons right now.

Other topics this week: the Mouse who controls the Force, the many sides of Governor Christie, and life among the temporarily pro-FEMA. And p3 also proudly brings you a refresher course on the Electoral College . . . 'cause we're all probably gonna need it.

Today's toons will be presented to you free of charge, without presentation of state-issued photo ID, without the payment of any sort of poll tax, and without the need for you to pass any sort of literacy test (although you may find the latter skill useful below), from the week's pages at GoComics, McClatchyDC.com, Slate, Time, About.com, Daryl Cagle, and other fine sources.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Kevin Siers, Joel Pett, Mike Peters, Chris Weyant, Steve Sack, Clay Bennett, Daryl Cagle, Joe Heller, Jen Sorensen, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Nick Anderson.

p3 Legion of Merit: Gary Markstein.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (tie): Steve Breen, Nate Beeler, Lee Judge, and Rob Tornoe.

p3 Failure to Green-Light Award: Jim Morin.

p3 Fowl-Weather Friend Award: Kevin Siers.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence (Part 1): Jeff Stahler and Rick McKee.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence (Part 2): John Cole and Joel Pett.

p3 Croix de Guerre, with Bloomers: Bill Day. (“She's French, you know.”)

p3 World Toon Review: Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Cameron Cardow (Canada), Rachel Gold (Austria), Martin Sutovec (Slovakia), and Ingrid Rice (Canada),


Ann Telnaes raises the possibility that Mitt Romney might be all wet.


Mark Fiore passes along this important message from EPSAS.


Taiwan's Next Media Animation proudly presents Star Wars VII: The Revenge of the Franchise. (And pay close attention: Han really did shoot first!)


Via Comic Riffs, check out the 21 feature-film animations nominated for the 2012 Academy Awards.


In which the blogger reveals his secret life-long ambition to be one of “The Usual Gang of Idiots:” Happy 60th Birthday, MAD Magazine!


Tom Tomorrow invites you to watch as Mittdrake gestures hypnotically. (And remember, they're called “illusions.” “Tricks” are something whores do for money.)


Keith Knight shares one thing he loves about this country.


Tom the Dancing Bug presents those amazing heroes out to do some good.


Red Meat presents The Old Cowboy, wonderin' if he's a mite touched. Naaah.


The Comics Curmudgeon also noticed -- and was disturbed by -- the very same thing I noticed and was disturbed by in today's Luann strip.


The most important college without a football team: The Electoral College episode of ABC's Schoolhouse Rock first aired in 2002, featuring the title song “I'm Gonna Send Your Vote to College,” written by George R. Newall and Bob Dorough, and sung buy the inimitible Voice of Schoolhouse Rock, Jack Sheldon (with Dorough). Newall once reflected, with amusement and amazement: "More kids saw Schoolhouse Rock than ever watched Sesame Street […] and the big irony is that it was all done by a bunch of ad guys in their spare time."

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.

The p3 Big Oregon Toon Block may soon be getting slightly less big, but not yet:

Jack Ohman announced on Facebook at 10:51am Monday that he was parting ways with the Oregonian, the latest in a steady drip-drip-drip of talent leaving the only state-wide daily Oregon has left. By the end of the week the week his fans got word he had landed safely at the Sacramento Bee. Here's his final toon for the O. (So far, I've heard no word of a replacement at the Oregonian for Ohman, but the smart money says he won't be replaced, probably because it would involve the O spending, you know, smart money.) Good luck at the Bee, Jack.

Matt Bors raises a question I've always wondered about, as well.

After two years of the Oregon House being split 30-30 between the two parties, Jesse Springer looks ahead to the likely tie-breaker this week:

How strong is the toon-captioning Force in you? Find out at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Sunday morning toons: Theory and practice

The anti-intellectualism behind those who want to ban books -- that's the theory. The shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai -- that's the practice.

The institutional misogyny of just about every world religion, to say nothing of the current Republican Party -- that's the theory. The slick corporate misogyny of Mitt Romney's binders, and the crude and obvious misogyny of Todd Akin and Joe Walsh -- those are the practice.

Feh.

This week, in addition to the fearsome prospect of women's freedom to think and control their own bodies, we've got the prospect of the final presidential debate and the end of several enduring American institutions.

Today's toons were salvaged from a trash bin in Virginia where GOP operatives had dumped them, from the week's pages at GoComics, McClatchyDC.com, Slate, Time, About.com, Daryl Cagle, and other fine sources.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Joel Pett, Pat Bagley, Steve Sack, Chris Weyant, Randy Bish, Nate Beeler, Adam Zyglis, Matt Wuerker, Joe Heller, Jen Sorensen, J. D. Crowe, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Legion of Merit: Nick Anderson.

p3 Best of Show: R. J. Matson.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (tie): John Darkow and Pat Bagley.

p3 Alternate Reality Medal: Joel Pett.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence: Mike Luckovich and Nate Beeler.

p3 World Toon Review: Cam Cardow (Canada), Rachel Gold (Austria), Paresh Nath (India), and Ingrid Rice (Canada),

Tribute to Malala Yousafzai, including such familiar faces at p3 as Steve Breen, Adam Zyglis, Cal Grondahl, and Bill Day.


Ann Telnaes reminds us of another Romney binder.


Mark Fiore predicts the sad, but probably inevitible future of electioneering.


Taiwan's Next Media Animation documents the first of several American institutions to go down the drain this week.

Unfortunately, I misjudged you. You are just a stupid policeman -- whose luck has run out. Here at p3 we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of Dr. No, the first James Bond film (although the sixth James Bond novel). The popularity of the film inspired a Classics Illustrated comic version of the story in the UK, indebted more directly to the film than the book. (Click to enlarge)

(And the success of the UK comic inspired an American version that was seriously bowdlerized.)

Dr. No is also noteworthy for having the longest, most boring theatrical trailer not just in the history of the Bond franchise, but perhaps in the history of cinema itself. I'm sure the trailer for "The Sorrow and the Pity" -- if there was one -- must have cut to the chase a lot sooner than this one.

Meanwhile, Joseph Wiseman's portrayal of Dr. No is enjoying a brief -- a very brief -- revival in the extended Heineken advertisement linking the beer to the upcoming Bond film “Skyfall” (watch for him at the 00:54 mark, and don't blink!):

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here. 

(Wiseman himself died in 2009. Mike Myers fans around the world mourned.)


Dilbert and Romney: Scott Adams pretty well played out his hand around here at p3 quite some time ago, so neither the fact that he's endorsing Romney (and exactly what voting block will that unleash upon the polls?) nor the reason why is terribly interesting. Like the demise of the print Newsweek, it's simply noteworthy as the final implosion of something that last caught the zeitgeist about 20 years ago.


Please don't let my niece grow up to be a Disney princess! Please?


”Gently aging” Superman: Here's a page of beautiful art from DC's revival of All Star Comics in the late 1970s. It's remarkable to realize that shadowy tribute to the black-and-white golden-age strips of a couple generations earlier was actually published (#64 Jan-Feb 1977) only a year or so before the brightly-colored, borderline-camp “Superman: The Movie.” It's even more remarkable to consider that the artist is the same Wally Wood who created this legendary parody for issue #4 of Mad Magazine in 1953. Seriously. You can look it up.


Diversity in the GOP, Part 1: Tom Tomorrow plots the future of the GOP base.


Diversity in the GOP, Part 2: Keith Knight debunks the myth that there's no diversity in the Republican Party.


And speaking of distinguished alumni of the Evil Medical School, Tom the Dancing Bug Billy Dare, Boy Adventurer tracks his nemesis from an unlikely clue!


Red Meat's Bug-Eyed Earl has his plan in place.


Try Duck: The Food Supreme! “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur” (1939) is the first DD story directed by Chuck Jones, who would, in the early 1950s, reinvent Daffy's character (and modify his look), thereby landing the duck on two of the 50 greatest cartoons of all time. Daffy's voice is done by Portland's own Mel Blanc (Casper the Caveman's Jack Bennyesque voice is provided by 40s and 50s all-arounder Jack Lescoulie.) The manic score is by musical director Carl Stalling. (I'm pretty sure that several of the duck billboard slogans are references to famous advertising campaigns of the time, although the only one I can name off the top of my head is “the pause that refreshes,” taken from Coca-Cola ads of the time. And "Wheaties: Breakfast of Champions," of course.)

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The p3 Big Oregon Toon Block:

Jack Ohman notes the importance of the Boy Scout motto.

Everyone has a cause; Matt Bors has his.

Jesse Springer has some good advice: Don't open your door to Eighty-four!

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

Sunday morning toons: Mitt Romney's worst week ever, so far

(Updated below.)

The Boca Raton video was bad, but the Univision appearance in the spray-on tan was probably worse.

Oh yeah, and something about another iPhone?

Today's toons were taken completely out of context, off a secretly-recorded video, from the week's pages at GoComics, McClatchyDC.com, Slate, Time, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Joel Pett, Steve Sack, R. J. Matson, Chad Lowe, Jimmy Margulies, Jeff Danziger, Rob Tornoe, Jeff Parker, Jen Sorenson, Signe Wilkenson, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (tie): Kevin Siers and Mike Luckovich.

p3 Zen Koan Award (Part 1): Jim Morin.

p3 Zen Koan Award (Part 2): Randy Bish.

p3 “Putting the 'Jesus' in 'Exigesis'" Medal: Mike Luckovich.

p3 World Toon Review: Ingrid Rice (Canada), Sergei Tunin (Russia), Cam Cardow (Canada), and Petar Pismestrovic (Austria). Special musical tribute to PP.


Ann Telnaes inspects some dirty laundry.


Mark Fiore brings the intercultural challenge: Why do they hate us? Stay for the end credits.


Taiwan's Next Media Animation reveals a sad, sad story. Can Monica's “tell-all” have more salacious details than the Starr Report? (For my own small connection to l'affaire Lewinski, go here.)

(Update: I misspoke. I actually have a second small connection to l'affaire Lewinski.)


I used to teach my students that if something can get you killed, it's real. I was talking about the power of language, but Scott Stantis is talking about the power of cartoons.


The Tooth is Out There: Hats off to Heather, who found Mad Magazine #358 (June 1997) while cleaning the house (or so she claims), and smacked it down on the counter for me. Now I have to go home and dig out my copy of Rolling Stone #754 (February 1997) as a gesture of appreciation.


Tom Tomorrow hears the sound of crickets chirping in the distance.


Keith Knight asks a simple question -- with a four-letter word answer.


Tom the Dancing Bug brings us the latest self-reflexive adventure of God-Man, the omnipotent super-hero.


Red Meat's Ted Johnson waits until the family's in bed before indulging in porn.


Why in heaven's name did I enjoy this? Clutch Cargo (and Space Angel) were short cliff-hanger stories dreadfully -- I would go so far as to say creepily -- animated by a process called Syncro-Vox, by which the charcters' mouths were overlaid with matted live animation, but the rest of the animation was about one photocopy every five seconds. One mark of the low-budget animation is the extent that it relies on narration to keep the story going. (On the other hand, on the DVD of “The Incredibles” there's a loving two-episode tribute to the Syncro-Vox stories starring Mr. Incredible and Frozone So, you know, it's not just me.)

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The p3 Big Oregon Toon Block:

Jack Ohman warns Portland of the danger from people showing active aggression or who are actively resisting.

Matt Bors reveals Obama's jobs program. Take that, Mitt!

Jesse Springer takes a pessimistic view of the future of marijuana laws in Oregon:

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

Sunday morning toons: 9/11 and all that

(Acknowledgement to W. C. Sellars and R. J. Yeatman, Richard Minadeo, Robert Royal, and a sufficiently long list of authors over the years that we feel no particular sense of guilt for re-appropriating their gimmick for the title here.)

I'm predicting that in ten years -- tops -- September 11th will be just another day when you can get a deal on home appliances.

Seriously. That's how comfortable we've gotten with it.

It only took eleven years for the Republican Party to go from (a) insisting that insufficient willingness to roll over for their neo-con/national-security agenda was proof that their enemies were insufficiently respectful of the memory of that tragic day to (b) fielding a presidential nominee who sees it as a nothing more than this week's excuse to bait the incumbent president.

I'm telling you it's just a matter of time until, if you didn't get the deal you wanted on an HD TV over Labor Day weekend, you won't have to wait until Black Friday anymore.

Today's toons were chosen from the week's pages at GoComics, McClatchyDC.com, Slate, Time, About.com, Daryl Cagle, and elsewhere:

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Ted Rall, Gary Varvel, Pat Oliphant, Chad Lowe, R. J. Matson, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Lee Judge.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence: Jim Morin and Kevin Siers.

p3 Legion of Extreme Merit: Tom Toles.

p3 World Toon Review: Heng (Singapore), Roar Hagen (Norway), and Cam Cardow (Canada).


Ann Telnaes reminds us: Strictly speaking, it's not called a “stumble.”


Mark Fiore celebrates the government jobs program of the future -- be sure to stay for the final tag line.


Taiwan's Next Media Animation gives next year's remake of “Carrie” the full NMA treatment.


Okay, three things: First, Facebook was foolish to cancel The New Yorker's FB account over a fairly funny Mick Stevens cartoon set in the Garden of Eden, putatively on the grounds that Eve's nipples were visible. Second, Stevens was exactly right about this:

“When something is as ridiculous as the misguided Facebook guidelines, the most effective remedy is ridicule,” Mankoff tells Comic Riffs. “Huge organizations such as Facebook are deaf to argumentation but derisive laughter makes their ears perk up.”

And third, now that “nipplegate” has passed from being a one-off reference to Janet Jackson's 2004 Superbowl flub to another crutch for lazy commentators, can we all agree that, after almost 40 years, the “-gate” gimmick has been done to something beyond death and should never be used again? Next time a tempest like hand-drawn nipples brews up in a teacup like Facebook, let's forthrightly call it what it is: A foofaraw.

Oh, and hey Facebook: Here's Eugène Delacroix's “Liberty Leading the People, 28 July 1830.” Wanna do something about it? I didn't think so.

I've tried since Wednesday afternoon to come up with a suitably knowledgeable-yet-ironic lead-in to this bit, but I've come up blank. So here: The time Superman disarmed a bomb by disco dancing. Deal with it.


Cartoon Riffs puts the tough question to some of America's top political cartoonists: Regardless of your personal political preferences, would Romney's election or Obama's re-election make your job easier for the next four years? The answers will utterly astonish you!


In the fifties (that would be the 1950s), America's moral scolds devoted a lot of their energy to worrying that “sick humor” (like MAD Magazine,, the musical satire and parodies of Tom Lehrer, and so on) would rot the brains of America's youth. Well, we survived. And the moral scolds lost. Heh.


p3 regulars Kevin Kallaugher and Patrick Chappatte discuss the freedom to be insulting.


Tom Tomorrow pays tribute to the tough questions, the expert insights, and the real reasons that make for hard-hitting convention coverage.


Keith Knight presents a special War-Zone edition of Life's Little Victories. Yes!


Tom the Dancing Bug reviews some of the reasons no one ever called the current GOP nominee a jolly old elf.


Red Meat's Ted Johnson and his son discuss the reason some people forsake science for the comforts of superstition.


Wild turkey surprise! “Bedeviled Rabbit,” directed in 1957 by Robert McKimson (who created the Tasmanian Devil character and also had charge of several Foghorn Leghorn and Porky Pig shorts from the same general time frame), is one of my favorite TD toons. You can notice that the stylized, abstract forest backgrounds by background artist Richard H. Thomas showed some of the experimentation that WB artists were engaging in to get around the lower production budgets that started in the early 1950s. Both the rolling-pin gag and the Wild Turkey Surprise gag were shortened sometimes for TV distribution, but the general level of violence was never changed much. Go figure. And if the complete diet of the Tasmanian Devil went by too quickly for you to catch, go here.

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The p3 Big Oregon Toon Block:

Jack Ohman observes that there are lies, damned lies -- and one more thing.

Matt Bors gazes in awe at the many powers of Paul Ryan.

Jesse Springer celebrates freedom of expression as the basis of healthy exchange of ideas between cultures and nations:

Test your toon-captioning powers at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)