It Only Takes One Parent to Get All The Graphic Novels Removed From a School Library “All graphic novels in the school library’s collection were recalled after parent Tim Reiland took issue with the school letting his teenage daughter borrow Blankets, an autobiographical coming-of-age story by Craig Thompson about questioning blind faith in a fundamentalist Christian household.”
Parents raise concerns as Florida bans gender-affirming care for trans kids. “… you’re basically being told that your child shouldn’t be able to be who they are, and that it would be better if they didn’t exist in the way that you, medical professionals, and the child who is thriving, feel is best for the child.”
Rebuilding the Closet – An und für sich “The political strategy of the “closet” was to require those people who exist in the more liminal spaces to hide, then relentlessly stigmatize and persecute the people for whom conformity was simply never going to be an option.”
Stop Saying We Only Bailout the Rich “In wake of massive pandemic spending, it’s inaccurate economics – and it’s also dumb, terrible political messaging.”
Why Is The Latinx Debate So Fierce? “Whether the terms Latinx and Latine become widely adopted or not, both resist the urge to fall in line with the collective “o” in Latino and both enforce the idea that trans people do, in fact, exist in our communities.”
T rex had lips. (Maybe.) “A new study says the T. rex family looked more like lizards, with scaly lips covering and sealing their mouths when closed.” But some scientists disagree! This is an area of passionate debate, which I find delightful.
The vast majority of employees at Fox Corporation, the umbrella company for the conservative Fox News channel, are vaccinated against coronavirus and those who are not will be required to do daily testing, according to a memo sent out from bosses – despite some of its biggest screen stars questioning the vaccine.
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I think I wrote this cartoon about a year ago. But Fox’s disdain and deception of its audience has been in the news again this month (which is February 2023 as I write this).
The most prominent stars and highest-ranking executives at Fox News privately ridiculed claims of election fraud in the 2020 election, despite the right-wing channel allowing lies about the presidential contest to be promoted on its air, damning messages contained in a Thursday court filing revealed.
It’s become clear that Fox is afraid they’ll lose their audience if they don’t lie to them. Which is another reason that for-profit news may not be a great idea. If a primary goal is profit, and lying is necessary to maintain profits, then why wouldn’t a news station lie to its audience?
And the more they lie – the more that their audience grows to expect comforting lies – the less able FOX is to stop lying. Reporting the news isn’t their goal; not losing their audience to Newsmax is their goal.
But as bad as market-driven news is, government-dominated news can be even worse – just look at how the news works in Putin’s Russia, or in Viktor Orban’s Hungary. This may be one of those “all systems can be terrible” situations.
Do you have a news site that you think is fair and reliable? Feel free to post what it is in the comments.
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Becky: “My soundtrack for drawing this one was the audiobook Bellwether, by Connie Willis (which is a fun time!) and the first couple hours of Empire of Pain: the Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (which is not fun, but is interesting so far!).”
Barry: Wow, isn’t the art beautiful? I especially love panel one, with the details of the dimmed room surrounding the TV.
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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels. All four panels show the anchors of a conservative news show, a man and a woman, both of whom are well-dressed and have very carefully styled hair. They’re sitting at a news desk and talking to the camera, with a backdrop of a cityscape behind them. A chyron (text) runs across the bottom of the screen.
PANEL 1
We’re in a darkened living room. We can see a TV dinner, partly eaten, on a tray in the foreground; in the background is a TV, surrounded by a liquor cabinet on the left and a houseplant on a chest of drawers on the right. The TV is turned on, providing the only bright colors in the panel. The male anchor is making air quotes with his fingers, while the female anchor is holding out her hand in a “stop!” gesture.
MAN: Unelected government “doctors” say we need this “vaccine.” but what aren’t they saying?
We are now seeing just what’s on the TV screen. The male anchor has turned towards the female anchor and is speaking to her, one hand waving in a sort of “angry questioning” motion. The female anchor has folded her hands on the desk in front of her and is speaking directly to the camera.
MAN: Who knows what horrible side effects these experimental “vaccines” have?
WOMAN: Stay tuned! We’ll be back in just a minute!
PANEL 3
Our vantage point has pulled back. We’re now obviously in a TV studio; we can see cameras and microphones pointing at the two anchors, and the slightly-raised platform the anchor desk sits on. There’s a large bright green screen behind them, instead of a cityscape.
Two people in nurse’s scrubs, both wearing face masks, have come up to the desk. Both anchors have taken their jackets off, and he’s rolled up a sleeve (her blouse is sleeveless). The nurses are injecting medicine into their arms.
The male anchor is smiling cheerfully, while the female anchor speaks to her nurse with a concerned expression.
MAN: Thanks. Better safe than sorry, right?
WOMAN: How long until the booster after this one?
PANEL 4
We’re once again looking at them as they appear on a TV screen; the cityscape backdrop is back. They’re both looking angry and gesturing towards the screen with extreme foreshortening; he’s holding a finger up near the screen, and she’s pointing straight at the screen like Uncle Sam.
MAN: These “needle Nazis” are trying to force you to take their so-called “vaccine”!
WOMAN: DON’T LET THEM!
CHYRONS
What the chyrons (the crawl of text across the bottom of the TV screen) say. (The second line of each chyron is cut off on one or both sides of the screen, to simulate the words scrolling across the screen.)
Panel 1: EXPERTS: VACCINE WILL KILL POPE
…t’s gonna happen any day now we’re triple sure this time…
Panel 2: DELILAH INNOCENT!
…vaccine, not haircut, caused Samson to lose his streng…
There’s no Chyron in panel 3.
Panel 4: ARE VACCINES FULL OF LIVE ANTS?
…re not saying they are but we’re not saying they aren’t…
It occurs to me that maybe not all of my readers are so immersed in online right-wing culture that they’re familiar with the word “sheeple.” So, just in case: Merriam-Webster defines sheeple as “people who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced: people likened to sheep.”
I’ve got a treat for you today: Writer, artist, and comics scholar Frank M. Young, who colors around one-fourth of these cartoons (this one included) agreed to write a few words about his coloring process. And heeeeeere’s Frank!
I have been coloring Barry’s cartoons since the middle of 2020. I think I’ve done two dozen or so by now. Working with color is something that’s compelled me since my Crayola days and I do much observation of real life and how color always seems to fit together in manmade and natural settings.
My first coloring work in comics was in 2001, when artist David Lasky and I did our first sample pages for our graphic novel “The Carter Family: Don’t Forget This Song,” which we worked on for five years and Abrams ComicArts published in 2012. I fell in love with the process, which is fortunate, because it’s painstaking and demanding. It’s not a good fit for impatient temperaments. The devil is in the details and in how to balance all the graphic elements. I often do microscopic work that I know few people will ever notice–but it’s got to be there.
I have also colored the work of classic cartoonist Rube Goldberg, “New Yorker” cartoonist Harry Bliss, alt-comics creator Carol Lay and author-artist Cindy Copeland.
Barry’s cartoons are always a joy to color. Barry will often have ideas about the approach he’d like, and will give me information about the characters that’s never stated in the cartoons but helps me get a handle on who they are. I sometimes do the colors with a limited palette rather than representational hues. The content and setting of each cartoon suggests the approach I might take.
I sometimes start by choosing the colors for all characters, settings and backgrounds. Other times I’ll just wing it and see what happens. In either case, I make a new layer in Adobe Photoshop and get going. To place the colors, I use a “magic wand” selection tool, among other Photoshop tools, to traverse the area and fill it in. I color much brighter than the final versions you see. It helps me to better see how the colors contrast. A lot of coloring comes down to warm colors versus cooler tones. The color scheme for eash character has to harmonize. They also must stand out from the often-elaborate backgrounds so the reader gets what’s happening with ease.
The characters share their own layer; there’s a middle layer that is a mix of foreground and background images and then a final background base. On top of it all are layers of shadows and highlights. Those have become my favorite part of the coloring process. For the shadows, a layer of transparent gray is used, and I choose areas, based on Barry’s artwork, to give the images a sense of volume. It’s like magic to see those grey tones come into the image. These contours are complex and there’s some trial and error until I know they’re working right. It’s the same routine with the highlights. These elements support the drawings and complement what is already there.
Sometimes a character’s demeanor suggests colors. In today’s cartoon, the opinionated guy at the bar has a provocative nature, so I gave him red hair. He reminded me of a red-headed fellow from high school who was outspoken and opinionated. The reds and yellows seemed natural for his personality.
The biggest challenge was the bar setting. I kept trying color combinations and none of them felt right. I finally decided to visit a seedy lounge near my house. I walked in, scoped out the color combinations in the place and got a bunch of surprised stares from the habitues of this suburban den. I noticed that the decor was brightly colored to offset the general gloom of the place. I made mental notes and zipped back home. Another decision was the time of day. I first tried a night-time look with dark windows. This was too murky. Mid-afternoon light gave me the look I wanted–everything in the room reads much better. When the images in the panels feel like a real place to me, I know I’ve got it.
When I think I’m done, I double-check everything. Sometimes I’ll catch things I missed, like shadows going in the wrong direction or uncolored parts of bodies or scenery. Or there might be a sloppy bit of digital painting I don’t like. Then I mute the colors, take a last look and if it feels right, I send it to Barry. He will sometimes ask for modifications–the goal is to get each cartoon looking its best and for my colors to support the hard work Barry has done in writing and drawing each piece.
I always enjoy getting a new cartoon and going through this process. I try to set challenges for myself and to learn something new each time. In this cartoon, the framed pictures of Muppets are painted in a 1970s-style of loose, scratchy color. I sampled a dozen different digital brushes before I found the right texture and did those colors in transparent tones that suggested a hasty watercolor painting. Those were fun to do and I hope anyone who notices the background stuff will enjoy seeing it. The message of each cartoon is most important and I enjoy the variety of places and faces that inhabit the point of them all.
A public thanks to Frank – both for writing that up for us, and for all the work he does on these cartoons.
For which, of course, Frank is paid. So thanks as well to all of you who are supporting my Patreon – I’m really proud that I can pay my collaborators the professional rates they deserve for their skills, and the reason I can do that is your support.
Extra thanks on the sidebar go to my mom, Toby Deutsch, who has been supporting these cartoons from the beginning (and honestly, since I first began drawing). Thanks mom!
This cartoon has four panels. The setting is a bar; there’s a bar counter, patrons, framed pictures on the wall, a big window with the word “BAR” painted on it (it looks backwards, because we’re seeing it from the inside). For those who look closely at the little details, we can see that the people in the framed pictures are characters from The Muppet Show: Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, and the Swedish Chef.
PANEL ONE
A red-headed man holding a beer is sitting at the bar ranting to a woman at the bar on his right. He’s dressed casually, in a ringer t-shirt. He doesn’t see that behind him, a man is walking up. The man is an anthropomorphic sheep, wearing a collared shirt and necktie with the collar unbuttoned and the necktie pulled down a bit, The Sheep speaks angrily, holding up an objecting forefinger.
REDHEAD: SHEEPLE! Liberals are SHEEPLE! They’re AFRAID to think for themselves!
SHEEPLE: HEY!
PANEL TWO
The redheaded man has turned to face the sheeple, and pulls back in total surprise. The sheeple continues to chew him out angrily.
REDHEAD: Oh! Um…
SHEEPLE: Stop spreading STEREOTYPES about SHEEPLE! I think whatever I want.
PANEL THREE
In a close-up shot of the sheeple, which was ridiculously fun for me to draw, abnd Frank told me it was fun for him to color too, the sheeple looks soulful and sad, rubbing his head with one palm.
SHEEPLE: It’s so EXHAUSTING, hearing the same bigoted NONSENSE about sheeple every day…
PANEL FOUR
The redheaded man is frantically apologizing. The Sheeple seems less mad – he’s no longer yelling – but he still looks angry, crossing his arms as he talks to the man.
The sheeple doesn’t see that, behind him, a chicken woman has approached. She’s wearing a dress with a pattern of eggs on it, and looks angry, with her arms akimbo.
REDHEAD: I didn’t MEAN–
SHEEPLE: Just because I’m a SHEEPLE doesn’t make me a CHICKEN!
Not every American is like this, or even most Americans. But it’s a type of person I’ve met, and probably you’ve met them as well – people who just believe that someday they’ll be rich, as if it’s part of a natural life course. It’s an expectation that underlies all of their life plans, and – I think – can make it harder for people to appreciate what they do have. (Or to realize that we need social support systems for the vast majority of us who will never be billionaires.)
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I love strips where I get to draw the same character at different ages. (One of my favorite strips I’ve done features myself drawn at different ages.) It’s a fun challenge for me, and one that concentrates more on character drawing – my comfort zone – than on environments.
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This is a cartoon that I really think Frank Young’s colors add a lot to. Especially in the final panel – all those shadows on the ground are Frank’s work, and they make that panel much more evocative. I love it when collaborators surprise me like that.
When Frank first began doing colors on my strips (he colors about one strip a month for me), I asked him to emulate my approach to coloring (which involves fewer and less realistic colors).. But over time, I’ve come to trust Frank more and that gives him more freedom to color in his own style. (Or maybe it’s a mix of my style and his – I suspect Frank’s using flatter colors on my work, knowing that’s my preference, than he might on someone else’s work or his own.)
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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels.
PANEL ONE
A teenager is sitting in a diner booth, smiling and talking directly to the reader. He has messy red hair and a brightly striped t-shirt. There’s a plate of food on the table in front of him, and a sign taped to the wall behind him says “Wanted: Background gag writer – low pay.”
REDHEAD: Someday I’ll invent something BIG! Like a cure for cancer or an app everyone uses… And then I’ll be so RICH!
PANEL TWO
A smiling adult man – somewhere in his thirties or forties, probably – stands in what looks like part of work building of some sort, probably an office, and speaks directly to the reader.
He’s an older version of the teen in panel one – he’s still got the red hair and round face, but now the hair is neatly combed in a part, and he’s got a van dyke beard and mustache. He’s wearing an izod shirt with a sedate stripe.
We can see an elevator in the background, and a water cooler next to him. (There’s a goldfish swimming in the water cooler).
REDHEAD: Or maybe I’ll win the lottery… people win every day! Or a rich relative I don’t know about will die leaving me BILLIONS!
PANEL THREE
The same red-haired man speaks to us again, but now he’s a senior citizen – he’s bald on top and his face is much more wrinkled. He’s wearing a button-up sweater open over a collared shirt, and he’s carrying a cane. He’s still smiling.
He appears to be at home – there’s a floral-patterned armchair behind him, and a decorative vase on a little table in front of a window. Outside the window is a tree and also a suspicious looking man wearing an old-fashioned hat and hiding behind a bush. (The suspicious looking man has no importance at all to this cartoon). There’s a framed photo of Albert the Alligator from “Pogo” on the wall.
REDHEAD: Lots of people get rich! Sooner or later it’s BOUND to be MY turn! And THEN the life I deserve will begin!
PANEL FOUR
We’re looking at a graveyard. A gravestone front and center says “R.I.P.” on it, and a thought balloon is coming from the grave.
THOUGHT FROM GRAVE: Any day now…
That’s the end of the comic strip, but there are some irrelevant details carved on headstones. The main headstone, under the big “R.I.P.” letters, says in much smaller letters: “Blah blah blah no one reads this.” A gravestone further in the background says “Hi There. I am past my expiration date.” Another one says “Dead Tired” and another one says “Here Lies Melvin.”
This cartoon belongs to a particular subcategory of my cartoons – what I think of as the This Appeals To My Particular Sense Of Humor And I Have To Draw It To Find Out If Anyone Else Will Find It Humorous category.
The cartoons in this category are often ones I’m especially fond of. And usually, at least some of my readers find them funny, too. But some of the time, the cartoons just get no response other than what I imagine is an embarrassed quiet. I imagine my audience sitting silently in a metaphorical auditorium, not wishing to hurt my feelings but not knowing what to say. There is an occasional cough.
…There is no need to be cute or funny; don’t say your pronouns are “princess” and “in charge.” You may get a laugh, but is the cost — the alienation, discomfort or frustration of vulnerable people — worth it? A cisgender person who claims that their pronouns are “dance mom” and “brat” is suggesting that they are not interested in how fraught this matter can be for trans and non-binary people.
…Taking pronouns seriously signals that you’ve thought about what trans and gender-nonconforming people face. That doesn’t automatically make you an ally … But it does mean you’re at least trying to demonstrate basic respect.
It’s possible for cis people to make pronoun jokes totally innocently – maybe they’re not very hooked into the current political culture, and they don’t realize that pronoun jokes have been weaponized by the right as a way of saying “fuck trans people.” But we should learn better, because whether or not we all realize it, these jokes have been weaponized and come off as deliberate disrespect.
And for many, it’s not so innocent. For right-wingers, pronoun jokes aren’t about being “cute or funny”; they’re a form of virtue signaling (for the peculiar form of contempt that right-wingers erroneously consider virtuous). A pronoun joke is a way they recognize each other. It’s a way of saying “I’m with you, I’m in the in-group, I hate all the same people you hate.”
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Drawing this one was so fun! The simplicity of the visuals (just one dude standing on a suburban sidewalk) let me concentrate on making clean and lively lines, and the figure drawing doesn’t look stiff to me. This is the sort of detail that I don’t expect anyone but me to pay attention to, but I think his mouth came out really well in this cartoon.
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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels. Each of the panel shows the same man, a conservatively-dressed guy with short hair combed in part, wearing a polo shirt and gray slacks, standing on a suburban sidewalk.
PANEL 1
The man stands looking directly at the reader, smiling, his arms crossed.
CAPTION: Right-Winger.
PANEL 2
The man is now bursting with anger, raising a fist into the air and mouth open hugely as he yells.
CAPTION: Right-winger shit-slinger.
MAN (yelling): Stolen election! Groomers! Hunter Biden’s Laptop!
PANEL 3
In a closer shot, the man is smirking as he speaks more softly directly to the reader. I did my very best to draw him with what’s referred to as “a punchable face.”
CAPTION: Right-winger shit-slinger with a zinger.
MAN: My pronouns are screw and you!
PANEL 4
The camera has pulled back again. The man is thinking very hard, sweating, one hand on his chin, looking up into the air, frowning with effort.
CAPTION: Right-winger shit-slinger trying to think of a zinger that isn’t that stupid pronoun shit for the 1000000th time.
This cartoon is a collaboration between Becky Hawkins and I.
Sadly, but I’m sure to the surprise of no one reading this, each of the first three panels refers to a real-life news story in which angry men got violent because they hit on women they didn’t know and got turned down.
Becky’s comments:
Sometimes I stress out about character design when I draw political cartoons. I want to draw hairstyles and clothes that look current enough, but that won’t look super dated right away. Every once in awhile, my Twitter feed makes fun of cartoonists who draw everyone in fashion that was trendy when they were in high school (aka a couple of decades off). For this character’s hair, I did my trick of “open Facebook and draw the first hairstyle I see.”
In panel one, Barry’s script said she was folding laundry, but didn’t say anything about the setting. At first I was going to set it in a basement laundry area, like the one I’d done laundry in earlier that day. Then I thought about drawing a newer washer/dryer unit squeezed into an apartment hallway or closet. But I think that a laundromat fits better with the public spaces in panels 2-3. Also, I have irritating memories of the TV blaring in the laundromat near the Brooklyn apartment I once lived in. Having the words in panel 1 come from the TV also illustrates that this woman isn’t choosing to consume “true crime” stories 24/7, as you might assume if all the stories came from personal headphones and speakers. I’ve drawn a laundromat before in this cartoon, so I made sure the woman’s pose and the camera angle were different.
I was patting myself on the back for bringing my rich personal experience to the New York scenes, until Barry gave this feedback:
Barry: I think it would be a good idea if there was a suggestion of dirtiness or grit or something on the floor in panel 1. Or shadows being cast. Right now it looks a little like a blank field.
Becky: Crap! I forgot to make NY gritty!
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels. Every panel focuses on the same central character, a red-haired woman with her hair in a bob, but each panel shows a different scene.
PANEL 1
The woman is in a public laundromat, picking up something out of one of the rolling baskets they have. She’s wearing dark gray leggings and a long blue shirt. We can see rows of washing machines or driers with round windowed doors on the front, and a table with some folded laundry on it. There’s a TV on the wall, showing a reporter speaking. The woman is looking at the TV with mild alarm – she has a “!” floating over her head.
TV: …shot by a co-worker after she repeatedly turned him down…
PANEL 2
The woman is now sitting near the corner seat of a New York City subway car. A man is standing near to her, leaning forward to peer at a subway map on the wall. The woman is wearing some nice-looking brown boots, jeans, and a brown leather jacket. She’s leaning away from the map-reader a bit. She’s balancing her backpack on her lap with one hand, and holding up her phone to read it in her other hand.
PHONE: …when the woman ignored his advances, police say he dragged her off the subway and…
PANEL 3
The woman is walking along a city sidewalk. It looks like NYC again – we can see, across the street, fire exits over a sushi restaurant. A bike delivery person pedals by, wearing a big blocky backpack that says “SNAX” on it. Across the street, a man in a white tee shirt is turning and calling something; he’s smiling.
The woman doesn’t seem to hear him. She’s wide-eyed now, listening to her phone through earbuds. She’s wearing jeans, brown high-top sneakers, and a red plaid shirt.
PHONE: …five year old boy was thrown off a third floor balcony at Mall of America. The man was angry because multiple women at the mall had turned him down…
PANEL 4
The woman now appears to be at home, in her kitchen; she’s sitting at a table, leaning on one hand and looking attentive but also tired. She’s wearing a blue tee shirt. On the other side of the table, a blonde man with a full beard – probably a husband or boyfriend – is grinning as he waves a hand dismissively.
MAN: If someone hits on you, just tell him “no.” What’s so frightening?
Against Transphobic “Moral Flounce” Behavior -Kate Manne “And while cis girls are refused abortion care, even in the case of a ten year-old girl currently carrying her rapist’s fetus in Ohio, trans girls (among others) face potential removal from their families by the state if they receive trans-affirming care in Texas. In all of these cases, there is a common plight: a basic refusal to recognize that somebody’s body is for them and nobody else, and they should have moral jurisdiction over what it does, how it functions, and what it looks like, wherever possible.”
The Exceptionally American Problem of Rising Roadway Deaths – The New York Times (and an alternate link) There are proven solutions that could keep us from needlessly killing pedestrians and cyclists. But (although the article doesn’t discuss this) it’s important that this be a below-the-radar issue. Because the more this becomes a culture war issue, the more Republicans will resist simple, lifesaving policies that we know work.
The Stripper’s Dilemma — Queer Majority“ Most authorities on the matter tend to agree that strippers in the United States should be considered employees, but clubs, for a variety of reasons, often mislead dancers into thinking the decision is up to them. On the one hand, it seems that strippers would significantly benefit from proper classification; however, a closer examination reveals that the question of whether or not they should fight for their labor rights is more complex than it seems.”
The Upside Down Debate on Broad Sanctions “Sanctions advocates are given the benefit of the doubt that their preferred coercive measures are beneficial until it can be proven that they are not, but the burden of proof should always be on those supporting economic warfare against an entire population.”
Anti-Trans “Grooming” and “Social Contagion” Claims Explained | by Julia Serano | Nov, 2022 | Medium “What this essay is about is why, despite an infinite number of potential negativity-bias-driven explanations for our existence, today’s anti-trans movements seem to have coalesced around two main imagined causes of transness: “social contagion” and “grooming.” While these may seem on the surface to be very different claims, anti-trans (and increasingly anti-LGBTQ+) campaigners tend to invoke them interchangeably. Here, I will show that they are essentially the same charge.”
It’s Not Filter Bubbles That Are Driving Us Apart – The Atlantic “…It is not isolation from opposing views that drives polarization but precisely the fact that digital media bring us to interact outside our local bubble.” … “Our main problem, as Törnberg conceives it, is not that we spend too long listening to the comforting voices on our own side, but rather that we’re too attentive to the loudest, most enraged, and most unhinged voices on the other side.” Of course, this raises the question of what to make of it when one of those “loudest… most unhinged voices” is ex-President Trump’s.
Against Deference Politics: Or, The Importance Of Building Shit “Deference politics” meaning ” It’s the call to ‘listen to the most affected’ and ‘center the most marginalized’ and ‘stay in your lane.'” I have some criticisms (and left a comment about some of them), but still found this interesting.
James O’Keefe ‘Outright Cruel’ to Project Veritas Employees: Internal Memo I think being cruel is bad, but if you think being cruel is bad, why work for Project Veritas? Seems hypocritical. Also, apparently he’s been spending lots of Veritas’ money on his musical theater projects, which is honestly the only likable thing I’ve ever heard about James O’Keefe.
Please support these cartoons on Patreon! I make a living off of lots of people supporting the cartoons, mostly with $1 or $2 pledges, and I think that’s really awesome.
This cartoon is pretty autobiographical for me, enough so that I’ve drawn myself into it. (And it’s kind of fun to draw my 1990s self. I miss that hair!)
I’ve had evangelical Christian friends for most of my life. The Evangelical Christians I’ve known, as a group, are chatty and friendly. A whole bunch of them enjoy discussing ideas and musicals, which makes them an ideal friends group for me, if they’re willing to be friendly with an atheist Jew and not try to convert.
But there’s always that lurking question – are they going to turn out to have attitudes I can’t tolerate in a friend? Are they hateful towards LGBT people? My awareness of that issue is always hovering over me anytime I meet an evangelical.
And nowadays, that same awareness hovers when I meet a radical feminist.
I don’t mean to say that all radical feminists are transphobes – that’s obviously not the case. Similarly, not all Christians are transphobes, or homophobes. (And plenty of lgbt people are themselves Christians).
But there’s a significant correlation there. The possibility of someone being a homophobe, or a transphobe, is much higher if that person is an avowed Christian. And, nowadays, the possibility of being a transphobe is much higher if a person is an avowed radical feminist.
It’s a really sucky change, and one that I hope isn’t permanent.
This one was more fun to draw than I expected. I didn’t want any big body language or any big changes in layout from panel to panel – but I also didn’t want it to look like I photocopied the same panel four times. So the challenge was to provide enough visual variety so that the cartoon is pleasing to look at even though it is, basically, the same panel four times in a row.
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels. Every panel shows a caricature of me, Barry, meeting a different person in each panel.
PANEL ONE
CAPTION: Meeting a Christian, 1990
Barry – a fat guy with glasses and long, big, curly hair – is shaking hands with a somewhat conservatively dressed (long sleeves, long skirt) woman with long, straight blonde hair. She’s wearing a necklace with a cross on it and is carrying a purse. Both people are smiling.
BARRY (thought balloon): A Christian? Hope she’s not a homophobe.
PANEL TWO
CAPTION: Meeting a Radical Feminist, 1990
Barry, looking the same as in panel 1 but wearing a different outfit, is making a small wave towards a woman with short hair and a buttoned-up shirt. Barry has a backpack and the woman is carrying a book.
BARRY (thought balloon): A radical feminist? Cool!
PANEL THREE
CAPTION: Meeting a Christian Today
Barry now has much less hair, tied back in a tiny little ponytail, and his beard is shorter and more salt-and-pepper than black. He'[s listening to cheerful-looking man with a full beard. The man is carrying a cell phone.
BARRY (thought): A Christian? I hope he’s not a transphobe.
PANEL FOUR
CAPTION: Meeting a Radical Feminist Today
Barry, looking the same age as in panel three, is facing a woman who is wearing a blazer over a striped shirt and is carrying an umbrella. She has short, slightly spiky hair on top, buzzed on the sides.
BARRY (thought balloon): A radical feminist? Hope she’s not a transphobe.
This cartoon is drawn by Becky Hawkins. I had no idea she was going to do the flaming eyes in panel 2, but I laughed aloud when I saw the sketch. :-)
For my entire life – or at least, my entire life that I’ve been paying much attention to politics, so really my entire life minus nearly the first twenty years – I’ve heard the story about how William F. Buckley and the National Review kicked the extremist John Birch Society out of conservatism.
But it’s a myth – a myth that Buckley himself spread frequently. It’s true that Buckley wrote two op-eds that were politely critical of Birch Society founder Robert Welch Jr. in 1961 and 1962.
Buckley wrote two editorials, in April 1961 and February 1962, criticizing Welch. The first gently critiqued Welch’s practice of citing communist subversion when there was none and concluded by saying “I hope the Society thrives” despite its bungling leader. The February 1962 editorial, entitled “The Question of Robert Welch,” was more biting. Buckley wrote that Welch’s conspiracy theories made him a man “far removed from common sense.” In an effort to not offend the Birchers as a whole, however, Buckley inaccurately portrayed Welch as an aberration from the society he led.
Buckley even tried to maintain his friendship with Welch. Shortly after the 1962 editorial, he wrote Welch, “I am very anxious to keep current on your thinking and the society’s activities, and would be grateful if you would look into this. If our subscription has expired, I should be only too happy to look to renew it.”
This was the totality of Buckley’s supposed purge. In later years, Buckley recast these two editorials as lethal salvos that drove the John Birch Society from the conservative movement.
Far from ending the Birchers’ influence, the op-eds had basically no effect at all. In 1964, Barry Goldwater, who represented the extreme right of the GOP, captured the presidential nomination. Goldwater publicly distanced himself from the Birchers – but his rise was alongside theirs. The Birchers, not Buckley, were ascendant. And the extreme right remained influential within the Republicans in all the decades since – culminating with the rise of Donald Trump.
And while that’s all terrible, I somehow find Buckley’s self-aggrandizing myth very funny. Which is pretty much all the excuse I need to do a cartoon. (I wonder how long it’s been since the last political cartoon about the John Birch Society was drawn? Probably quite a while.)
Buckley’s “moderate” conservatism included a lot of racism – including his opinion that voter suppression and even some violence was justified to maintain the rule of the white race in the South. Like many conservatives, over the years Buckley learned to express that in more acceptable ways, by talking about state’s rights instead of white supremacy.
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel under the bottom of the cartoon.
PANEL ONE
The top of this panel has a huge caption, in “vintage” style lettering, that says 1962.
Below that an older man, with a bald head and white hair sticking out on the sides, and wearing an old-fashioned brown suit with a yellow bow-tie, is pressing his hands and face against the audience-facing side of the panel, as if he’s pressing against a sheet of clear glass. His eyes are bulging and mismatched in size and he’s talking aggressively at the readers. We’ll call him “Bircher.”
BIRCHER: President Eisenhower is secretly in the pay of COMMIES!
BIRCHER: A shadowy America-hating CABAL controls the CIA AND the schools!
PANEL TWO
Bircher is now in full on rant mode, his yelling mouth HUGE, his head turning red, flames literally coming out of his eyes. Behind him, William F. Buckley Jr walks up, a corrective forefinger raised; Buckley raises his voice but remains calm.
BIRCHER: Teachers are recruiting YOUR kids into COMMUNISM SATANISM and SEXUAL PERVERSION!
BUCKLEY: HALT, John Birch Society! I, William F Buckley Jr, DENOUNCE you.
PANEL THREE
Bircher falls to his knees, weeping. Buckley dramatically points, arms straight, in an unmistakable “get out of here” gesture.
BIRCHER: I’ve been denounced? NOOOOO!
BUCKLEY: BEGONE! Trouble conservatism’s respectability NO LONGER!
PANEL FOUR
Bircher walks out of the panel with a bent over I’m-so-sad posture. Buckley, looking smug and self-satisfied, walks away in the other direction, doing the “brushing dust off my palms after doing some work” gesture.
BUCKLEY: Now the conservative movement will NEVER AGAIN be ruled by CONSPIRACY MONGERS and IRRATIONALISTS!
TINY KICKER PANEL UNDER THE BOTTOM OF THE CARTOON
Buckley, smiling, talks directly to the viewer.
BUCKLEY: Finally conservatives can focus on RATIONAL goals… Like protecting the white race from negros!
So the WordPress plug-in we’ve been using for years for the “Recent Comments” function on the sidebar… no longer works. There’s a conflict between the server and that plugin.
And, in fact, most similar plugins, as far as I’ve been able to find.
I’m hoping to get the conflict resolved and be able to return to our previous recent comments plugin. Meanwhile, I’ve added one that has the advantage of actually working with this server, but the disadvantage of… well, it kind of sucks.
We hope normalicy can be restored soon. Thanks for your patience, Alasians.
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