The Week in Cartoons, Annotated, Again...

Another week in the mental hospital.

After watching the 100 minute long, free-association, Castro-level Trump Spew before a joint session of Congress, my mind imploded. I had to write a deadline piece for the Chronicle about it that night, and it took hours for me to wind down after. I thought about using a ball peen hammer (directly) on my forehead, but I only had a claw hammer. So I just stared at my fly fishing videos after (I like Wilderness with Amani and Tenkara Addict, for you fly fishermen out there).

Anyway, let’s look at the cartoons.

Here’s the Smerconish cartoon:

I was playing catch-up on the Zelenskyy story, obviously. So I did this for Smerc first.

I spent quite a bit of time looking at Russian military uniforms. These aren’t exact exact, but close enough for a cartoon. And horseshoes. But not hand grenades, which I wanted to swallow after I watched this craven Kabuki theater where they didn’t give the brave Zelenskyy a copy of the script.

I had to be carful not to wing it on the Ukraine symbol on Zelenkskyy’s pullover. Naturally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s new boyfriend, some idiot television correspondent for One America, asked Zelenskyy why he wasn’t wearing a suit. You know, propriety in the sacred Oval Office and all. Musk’s kid can wipe his nose on the Resolute Desk, but don’t come in here without a suit!

You know, what Elon does. He really does look like tech support when I see him in the Oval.

Oh. Speaking of her boyfriend, here’s a real Georgia family values shot of the two lovebirds. Yes, I may have altered her eyes. You guess whether I widened them, or not

.Or perhaps this is more accurate:

Now we know why MTG says all that crazy stuff. She’s shitfaced on martinis.

Back to the cartoon: I had seen a lot of really great Zelenskyy cartoons come out prior to mine, so I was a little behind the ol’ eight ball. When you’re the 28th cartoonist in line, you have to make sure that what you do isn’t like The Others. I think this turned out fine. I threw in the golf trophies, because there was a bunch of gold stuff on the mantel. I have no idea what they were, but I cannot rule out golf trophies—self-awarded of course. It’s like Michael Scott in The Office buying himself a World’s Best Boss coffee mug.

Michael Scott is endearing, at least.

Next, another Zelenskyy cartoon, drawn the same day:

A little simpler.

I hate drawing things too quickly, because I kind of forgot to add Putin’s right hand. No one noticed, and you know I’m going to call myself out in front of you anyway, just so I have something to write about that isn’t self-congratulatory.

Piles of bodies is sadly a routine chore around here and with my colleagues. The trick is to convey the scene without being overly-gross about it, although this is precisely what these people are doing. I went with a quicker, looser look, and used the spray tool again. I think the caricatures worked pretty well, but I detest drawing Putin, because he’s so weird-looking—like a 1950s movie Martian. Just add antennae.

The mark of a solid caricaturist is that they can hit the likeness of a more-conventional looking person easier, and when the truly already-distorted features character arrives on the scene, well, it’s tough to caricature a caricature. So sometimes I miss the mark. I saw a lot of bad Nixons during the 1970s, but no one complained. Nixon was self-caracaturing.

Here’s another from the Zelenskyy meeting:

Seeing Secretary of State Marco Rubio fade into the sofa (that Vance had probably just used for a date) was painful. You know he knows this is all bullshit, and to think one would be willing to debase himself in this manner, even in politics, is horrifying. Both he and Vicevance had the initial correct take on Trump, and now are forced to pretend they didn’t, is an excellent summation of their character. I believe the word is prostitution. Actually, prostitutes are intellectually honest, so apologies to the world’s oldest profession.

Yeah, I threw in the Hindenburg. This is what we do. I have done many Hindenburgs, as have my colleagues. I also forgot to fill in the flag pins. Oh, well.

I wasn’t all that happy with the Rubio, either.

I liked the Vance.

I posted this line —”America is back…wards”—on BlueSky the other day to kind of focus-group it. I do that quite a bit, since I work by myself. Seemed to go over OK, so I just went ahead and drew this. This is the third version of this, if you can believe it.

Here’s a surviving earlier version:

Spot the difference, Puzzle Kids!

Yeah, SEIL isn’t correct, is it? No. No, it is not.

Embarrassing.

American Journalism Hero and my editor at the Chronicle Pete Wevurski texted me, noting that this was all wrong, as did my buddy Charlie Meyerson at Chicago Public Square, a great Chicago news round-up on Substack. Charlie even flopped it for me in Photoshop so I could see that it was wrong.

Drawing letters backwards is something I usually do in bar scenes, cafes, and other large window public establishments. “RAB” is easy, for example. I looked at the first version of this 15 times, and my somewhat tired mind (as I mentioned, I was up late the night before, analyzing this drivel for the Chronicle) told me, no, SEIL is correct. Anyway, it wasn’t, so I had to sub in a new version several times on social, and on Substack, and, most embarrassingly, I had to do this in several separate emails to my syndicate clients. Oy.

People liked Mike Johnson as a bobblehead, so I will keep that going for as long as Mike Johnson is speaker.

Next up:

This was probably my favorite cartoon of the week.

I love drawing Gov. Newsom, and was also able to throw in Don Jr., Bannon, Patel, Kirk, and Dr. Strangemusk’s errant arm. I had been chewing on this subject for a week. The moment I heard about GovGav’s pod, I knew I had to do it. What I didn't figure is that he’d make news on trans athletes.

This is a moment where Newsom took some bad consultant advice. It was so bad, I thought he might have misspoken, because Gov. Newsom has been OK on trans rights in the past.

Now, not so much.

That little statement isn’t just going to hurt him with trans people, it just adds ammo to Newsom’s detractors in the Democratic Party. I like Newsom a lot, and I just do not understand this one.

Maybe he’s not running, and that is a distinct possibility.

There are 10 NCAA trans athletes out of 500,000, I read the other day. In the words of MLK Jr., “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

Finally, who doesn’t love Nutria Humor (C)?

This was my local Chronicle cartoon. California Department of Fish and Wildlife suggested that the exploding nutria population here could be solved by taking a culinary approach to the problem.

Naturally, CDFW noted that nutria tasted like turkey or rabbit. Maybe they’re right, but have you ever seen a nutria in person, or in nutria? Wow, God, no, I ain’t eating one of them thangs. We got class here in California.

I enjoy doing these multi-panel cartoons, and I like drawing funny animals. Nutria here has emerged as a fun topic for me, and I will keep doing nutria gags (that’s what you do when you eat one).

Have a great Sunday. I’ll be here, helping my buddy redo my bathroom floors and putting in a toilet. Very relaxing.

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Hey, People of YB!: Thanks for the great feedback on my last two columns. Many people weighed in on the R.G. piece, saying their dad was like that, or their uncle. I miss him and all of them terribly. If you dig what I’m doing, consider a subscription upgrade to paid. If not , enjoy anyway. I’m bagging it for the rest of the day, after the toilet stuff.—J.