The Week in Cartoons, Annotated by Trump's interior designer...

So Klassy (C)...

Well.

Between the news that Trump wants to rename the Kennedy Center for himself (but he’s not a narcissist! Honest!) and wanting to rename the Department of Defense the “Department of War”, I still haven’t been able to put pen to paper on those doozies, and it’s only midafternoon.

Let’s look at what I did over the past week.

Alaska seems so very long ago, already, am I right?

Yes. I am right.

The news cycle spins like a gyroscope these days. I should publish a list of Stories I Didn’t Get Around to Because Something Else More Horrendous Popped Up.

It would be a multi-volume set, trust me. And you can trust me, unlike the current president of the United States, who seems to plotting new ways to kill us all, what with his foreign policy, vaccine policy, airline policy, FEMA policy, and every other policy that reminds him of Barack Obama.

Trump’s shameless supplication (such a pleasant euphemism) to Vladimir “Ride On My Horse, Baby” Putin with a red carpet is so abjectly embarrassing and demeaning to the flaming wreckage of what’s left of the United States, I just want to defect to Mars, Venus, the moon, or anyplace not in his purview.

I also see that he wants flag burners to spend a year in jail.

Presumably that doesn't include his J6 fellow felons, who did everything to desecrate the flag on the capitol steps lo these many (four) years ago. Oh, and Trump routinely signs the flag—and hugs it on stage, and God only knows what else he does while he’s wrapping himself in it.

Anyway, the cartoon. I totally freehanded the jets. They’re slight off, but pretty close. I have drawn so many jets, particularly these types of jets, I can pretty much bang them out from any angle. I may get the flaps wrong once in awhile, but if you’re checking my flaps art, I want you to start checking the locks and smelling for gas.

You know, like I do.

I see virtually no progress on the Ukraine front, I am sorry to say, and I do not see further progress, inasmuch as Trump seems to think his “friendship” with Putin is meaningful.

It is not, it has never been, and it never will be. As both Trump and Putin are sociopaths (mutual assured destruction diagnoses), there won’t be any movement until Ukraine or Russia prevails.

We could prevail, of course, if we didn’t have Trump as president. But we do.

Next?

Here’s a rather colorful panel, featuring all the medals and decorations that one would bestow on this silly man child. I like to do so-called “Easter Eggs” in my cartoons, and I threw a could have little bits of tid on the the bookcase, which was also defaced by gold paint rather recently. I just want to projectile barf every time I see the what’s left of the Oval Office now.

Gold is a nice accent, but it’s completely hideous when it’s overwhelming. My main issue with Trump, besides every single policy he has proposed and every single word he has every uttered, is his utter and abject tackiness. God knows what the Lincoln Bedroom toilet looks like.

Alert Readers Looking for Easter Eggs will note the yellow “P” in Kompromat.

Heh.

Anyway, I kinda struggle with Zelenskyy once in awhile, and sometimes need to go into his face on Photoshop to straighten him out.

I did dig his suit, though. I want one. Very San Francisco.

Next up:

Honestly, I banged this out in about 45 minutes, but it didn’t require a lot of artwork.

If you are laboring under the now-false premise that we are not in an authoritarian state, you really need to step back from the vehicle.

Trump is now:

1. Undermining elections by questioning voting systems (Oregon has had vote-by-mail for decades, and California had had it as long as I’ve lived here. They way Trump wants to vote (paper ballots) was mostly ditched decades ago. See also; Texas and Illinois ballot box stuffing or theft, 1960. That is the least useful system now. We used to have “Viva Voce” voting in the United States 200 years ago, which meant you would stand up in the public square and publicly announce your choices. Maybe don’t tell Trump about that.

2. Putting up lots of gold in his office and jackhammering the White House.

3. Deploying troops in cities (Black only).

4. Redistricting bullshit.

5. I really don’t need to go on here, do I?

6. No. I do not.

Anyway, I did this drawing with a Flair Pen and called it good.

Next on the stage:

This was kind of a labor of love.

I grew up going to the Smithsonian dozens of times as a child and adult. To think this creep wants to completely alter history (Number 7 on the above list) is anathema, and yet the firehose of his police and political crimes runs at such high pressure, this was a minor story last week. But hey. This is also an authoritarian strategy as well; flood the zone with lies and trivia (Number 8).

In this cartoon, I removed an original slavery reference because one of my part-time editors who lives in my house suggested that my joke about a slave ship being a rebranded 1830 Uber (in Trump’s benign view) was a bit much. Again, listen to my editors. Or try to.

The editor/cartoonist relationship is interesting. If I write a column for an editor, they can knock my head off and I’m OK with that. That’s their job. Editing a cartoon is trickier because they don’t know how to draw one. That’s OK. My editing relationships at the Chronicle has been excellent, and they always raise thoughtful points. That has not always been the case in former venues where I plied my craft.

That’s about a 10,000 word essay I don’t have time to execute today. Or maybe ever.

Mostly, however, I have worked with really smart, talented editors who saved me from myself a time or three. That’s their main role: they stop you from walking off a cliff. Some have been great at additions or tweaks: Dan Morain, Stu Leavenworth, and Pete Wevurski were particularly adept at this. Bob Caldwell was also very good at helping me not destroy my career. A good editor makes you want to excel, while making sure you don’t lose them 125,000 subscribers.

Next? This:

The Comms Shop over at the Office of the Governor of California have been very successfully entering the world of satire recently, and nothing lights up a dictator like being teased or satirized (Number 9). I called A Guy I Know in Newsom’s office a few days ago to get a read-out on how they were doing all these dead-on tweet parodies and memes. He declined to go on the record. Naturally, every other media outlet found out who was writing this stuff (I honor my commitments, so I won’t name them), and I suggested that person get a substantial raise.

I have read a lot of parodies, and Newsom’s Trolling Tweets are up with the best material I have seen from the 1970s National Lampoon era, period. Frankly, my little effort here doesn’t hold a candle to what Newsom’s people are doing. But hey, we have to make deadlines in San Francisco, so I made a run at it. Turned out OK, but not as good as Gavin’s. I invite Gavin’s comms team to write my editorial cartoons going forward.

Have a great week!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

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Hey, YBs! : Another action-packed day of fun, per usual. Yes, I did catch a rainbow trout the other day. It was respectable. Anyway, off to whatever I’m doing next. I have no idea, probably because I need to eat something. Catch you shortly, and I have a cartoon coming up for you in a minute. —J.