The Week in Cartoons, Annotated...

Whale heads, debatable decisions, chakras, 3/8 head socket sets, gutters, and more...

Well, it was another week in Crazy Trumptown, what with his brazen campaigning on sacred ground. Since he’s Jesus and all, I guess he’s thinks immune from criticism about his “appearance” at Arlington National Cemetery. We’ll get to that in a moment.

On to the cartoons.

Former President (God, I hate writing that, still) Donald Trump’s crack debate negotiating team managed to make sure that they played right into Vice President Kamala Harris’ loving arms.

I’ve always been of the opinion that Trump shouldn’t debate Harris, as he’s unarmed mentally, emotionally, and, well, on every other level. President Joe Biden was a different story; we all knew that Biden was slowing down, and it wasn’t his strong suit anyway—he’s great on breaking you-know-whats in the Senate, but maybe debating isn’t his first skill. Actually, he did really well against 2012 GOP nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (oh, for those days), but he’s an inside guy mostly. Fine.

You know, I know, and the American people know that Harris is, if nothing else, an experienced District Attorney, and, well, they are good at capping perps if they need to. That’s their job.

And Trump is a perp.

I would never feel sorry for Trump in any manner, but he’s going to get his white, pimply ass handed to him on national television on September 10, and my guess is he won’t show up for a second debate after this one.

For some reason, his guys decided that his mic should stay on, and this is precisely what Harris wants. She wants to be interrupted. She wants him to bloviate while she’s talking. She wants every chaotic second captured from his blithering purple lips while she stands there and cuts him a new one every three minutes.

I drew the cartoon for Smerconish first thing Monday morning (it all runs together now), and the fun little detail in this cartoon is the camera.

As a longtime cartoonist, technology changes. I used to marvel at a cartoonist from Alabama’s 1952 tv cameras (with multiple lenses), and I would, of course, mock him. A helpful tv person I know suggested I might want to look at a newer study camera, which I did. Mine weren’t all that far off, but they are definitely smaller.

I was a “celebrity” guest anchor on KGW-8 in Portland a few years ago, and it was just me and the anchor Laurel Porter (no one is nicer than Laurel), and she seemed to be in control of the cameras—they were robots. Cuts costs when you don’t have camera operators anymore. Anchoring is harder than it looks. I’m as glib as the next guy with nice hair, but sounding natural while reading a prompter is a real skill.

I feel like I’m getting a bit more comfortable drawing Harris. Not quite there yet, but closer. I’ll get there.

Next up:

I know most of you aren’t Chronicle subscribers, so I have to do one per week on local stuff in the Bay Area, which is kinda fun. I listen to KQED about half the time (and Cap Radio here the other half), and I watch all the SF tv stations or excerpts on YouTube. I was even on KRON the other day with Willie Brown. It is still surreal to me that I have a role in that media market. I still feel like some schmoe from Arden Hills, Minnesota.

I liked drawing this, because I got to draw to draw a hippie lady healer.

I was able to fully set the table on the blackboard for those of you who don’t have chakra healers in your local school district. Oddly, she’s from Sacramento, which is the most normal city in California. Look, I do yoga myself, so I am not above this sort of New Age stuff, but it seemed a bit much to me. Not to be an old jerk about it, but I’d be way more down with $315K for yoga, which actually helps.

I did two cartoons Monday. Do I like drawing two in a day? I do not. But this is my new life now, and one gets used to it. Two in a day was a vacation compared to this past Wednesday.

And now…

Bobby June-yuh decided to join the Insane Asylum officially last week, as we all predicted from the get-go.

I mean, he was getting advice from the pimply blotchy Steve Bannon, who used to be a very handsome guy, but booze will do that to you. He quit awhile back, but too late, apparently. Wouldn’t it be great if Bannon wasn’t a sociopath? Because he’s a very bright guy gone horribly wrong.

Bobby June-yuh let another Weird Moment drop: he cut the head off of a whale at Hyannisport. With a chainsaw. Then dragged it around.

No word if he ate it, like a dog.

Look, this man is traumatized by his childhood, no doubt. But don’t take us into the insane asylum with you. I mean, this guy called Trump “probably a sociopath”.

Probably?

Now we have Bobby June-yuh, yet another GOP Trumpie sociopath, endorsing a sociopath, along with his sociopath running mate sofa seducer.

OK, let’s move on.

This was fun to draw.

Note I screwed up the hood and how it would fit on the front of the truck. Oh, well, I work on deadline.

Gov. Tim Walz is now famous for his practical handyman pro-tips. He did an interview the other day talking about the critical important of proper Minnesota gutter maintenance. My brother, living in Melrose, Minnesota, would say something similar. Gutters are key. And Ford headlight harnesses are cheap, as Walz pointed out in 2018. But don’t worry. You just go on down to Menards there and get a new doohickey, and, aw geez, maybe get some new weedeater nylon line. Would it kill ya to get three? Those things break on yer tougher weeds, ya know.

I rolled the JD Vance Donut Incident in there, too.

I have a tool belt just like Walz’s as well. It’s that color, and everyone needs a solid socket set. Mine is spread through four drawers, of course. I probably have three socket sets that have mated in my kitchen and taken over the black electrical tape.

My other screw-up/fix was that I was writing this a little faster than I wanted to, and I used “threads” instead of bolts. An eagle-eyed editor at Tribune, who no doubt has three socket sets, noted that it would be probably more proper to say “bolts”, so I changed it.

Next…

Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery, where his bone spurs will prevent his interment, caused two of aides to shove an ANC employee aside who objected to the MAGA team’s shooting campaign photos, which is against Arlington policy, and, frankly, any respectful, sane person’s sense of decorum.

Decorum isn’t in the Trump playbook.

There are signs all over Arlington that say, '“Silence and Respect”.

Trump don’t do silence, nor does he do respect.

For someone who professes to be pro-military, Trump has gone out of his way to piss off the military. At Normandy, he called our war dead “suckers and losers,” per his former Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly, who lost his Army captain son in Afghanistan. Note Trump’s Brave Gun-owning sons didn’t want to muss their hair with actual military service, either.

This incident was yet another eye-roller, and Trump once again demonstrated he has no sense of propriety. Surprise.

I have been to Arlington many times, do I was able to draw this angle pretty much from memory. If you haven’t been to Arlington, it’s a truly humbling experience that always leaves me feeling emotional and grateful, like any sane person should feel.

Again, Trump isn’t sane.

Finally…

I’ve really been leaning on the narrative about the South Africans and Silicon Valley for the Chronicle, who have their boy as the GOPVP nominee. This is all gone horribly wrong.

Watching Gus Walz and his emotional reaction to his dad on the podium at the DNC inspired this paternity cartoon about Vance’s fellow political couch surfers, trying to manipulate politics through their childhood ideal of South Africa. Hey guys, you know Mandela became president there later, right, because the Botha regime was flat racist.

Nevertheless, these sick bastards persisted.

Imagine selling your country out because you want bitcoin. It’s easy if you try. Musk, a government welfare queen if there ever was one, is particularly odious. Peter Thiel, a sick freak (my daughter’s fave epithet), is a proponent of transfusing teen blood for his own youthful aspirations. Oh, and he shut down Gawker because they said he was gay, which he is. Sacks is comparatively unknown, so I want to push him out front. He gave a truly boring GOP convention/bund rally speech about foreign policy, and sees himself as Great Visionary, in the way that all of these megalomaniacs do.

I enjoyed drawing the mascara, mostly because anyone who is a regular Maybelline guy, should be a little easier on trans people. Just sayin’.

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JACKNOTE: I’ll be celebrating the Big 6-4 on Sunday, and it will be a time for sober reflection and gratitude about what I’m doing going forward. So far, Substack has cheered me up enormously, thanks to you folks. If you can throw a paid subscription into my hat while I play my violin, that would be the best birthday present of all, if you were wondering what to get me. Oddly, it’s $6.66 per month at an $80 annual subscription, which amuses me. I golfed yesterday (41, not bad) and will fish today in celebration of my ability to walk upright and continue to create these columns for you. Have a great weekend. I'll post tomorrow to amuse you and me. I can’t clean house all day. —J