Cartoon: Top Ten Reasons Americans Want Enormous Cars

Posted on May 14, 2025 by Ampersand

This cartoon is by me and Becky Hawkins. (The final panel, which I love, was all Becky’s idea.)

(I want it on the record that I did not, as a writer, request that Becky draw eight characters into the final panel! Becky chose to do that to herself.)

This cartoon doesn’t get at all into the policy reasons that cars in the U.S. have gotten so big. But our individual preferences have been shaped by the way federal policy shapes our car norms.

Legally, car companies can avoid stricter emission standards – and make higher profits – by selling bigger SUVs and trucks. As a result of this loophole, auto makers have spent decades on a nonstop campaign to convince us that huge cars are a necessity.

There are also tax reasons. Tariffs – which have been in the news a lot lately – are the reason we don’t have more smaller cars to buy.

In the early 1960s, Europe raised the ire of American officials by slapping a 50 percent tariff on chicken exported from the United States. In retaliation, the US enacted a 25 percent tax on pickup trucks imported from abroad. The dispute is long forgotten, but the “Chicken Tax” lives on.

Although the tariff was initially aimed at Germany’s immense auto industry (Volkswagen in particular), it also applies to pickups imported from newer automaking powers such as Japan and South Korea, where carmakers are often adept at building vehicles much smaller than those available to Americans.

The Chicken Tax (a name that is sure to confuse) makes it impossible to make a profit selling small foreign cars in America. So they don’t.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has eleven panels. The central panel says, in large friendly letters, “Top Ten Reasons Americans Want Enormous Cars.”

Panel 1

An angry woman gestures at a computer screen.

Woman: “Emissions” were made up by China to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive!

Panel 2

A cheerful man wearing a big, sparkling watch smiles as he explains.

Man: How else will strangers know I’ve got money to burn?

Panel 3

A woman lies on a sofa as if she’s getting therapy.

Woman on couch: My big car gives me a sense of security, power, and control, which I know is pathetic, which makes me feel weak, which makes me want an even bigger car.

Panel 4

A person is looking a bit up into space, crying with joy.

Person: Someday someone will ask me to move a piano and on that day I will be ready! It’s coming! Any day now…

Panel 5

Man smiling wryly: Because shooting bikers and pedestrians is illegal. … For now.

Panel 6

This is the center panel, and is dominated by the title: Top Ten Reasons Americans Want Enormous Cars.

Below that, a small girl flees in terror from a huge SUV.

SUV Driver: The higher the car, the closer to Heaven!

Panel 7

A man wearing a red baseball cap backwards pumps his fist in the air.

Man: If we don’t burn as many fossil fuels as fast as possible the woke DEI liberals win! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Panel 8

A cheerful guitarist on stage speaks to the audience.

Guitarist: If Jesus had a big truck the Romans would never have caught him!

Panel 9

A thin man is smiling and saluting at us. A U.S. flag, but with a swole arm instead of stars, is being projected onto him.

Man: It makes me a real man and a real American.

Panel 10

A woman in a business suit looks at us derisively.

Woman: A compact? What am I, five?

Panel 11

A harried looking woman driving seven women in an SUV.

Woman: Gotta keep my kids safe from all the giant cars people drive!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is a neglected cartoonists’ term for fun little details the cartoonist puts into the art.

Panel 1: A sticking-tongue-out emoji is on the coffee cup.

Panel 2: The man’s t-shirt says “Thorsteid Veblen was RIGHT.”

Panel 4: The person’s shirt says “I ❤️ Band.” They’ve got a full tattoo sleeve, showing a lighthouse, a bear, a sneaker, a bat, and piano keys. Becky explains:

I started with piano keys because this person wants to move a piano, so they probably like music (hence the I ❤️ band shirt). The other tattoos are a product of free association. I don’t have any tattoos, but I’d hypothetically get a Pittsburgh skyline on one calf and a Portland skyline on the other, since they’re both bridges-on-a-river cities that are important to me. My initial attempts to draw a legible skyline on a small cartoon character’s arm while on a deadline were unsuccessful. I tried drawing a bridge, but soon decided a lighthouse would be easier and just as effective. Bears are fun and great, so I drew a baby bear. Apparently bear bodies are easier to draw than bear faces, so after a few tries, I placed the tattoo where the face would be out of sight. I had a coworker who was known for wearing Converse All Stars, so much so that on his 60th birthday, the hostess gave away little sneaker keychains as party favors. A former housemate of mine had a vampire teeth tattoo, but I think I’ve drawn someone with that on a different cartoon, so I drew a bat instead.

Panel 5: Although the girl is getting away from the SUV, she’s lost a flip-flop, which is flying into the SUV’s grill.

Panel 11: So much detail here! This is one of those SUVs with three rows of seats. In the back-back, a toddler drawing hashmarks on the window with a red marker. A girl is shouting to be heard by another girl, who has headphones on.

In the middle row, a baby is playing with its foot, as babies do. Another girl with headphones is staring at an iPad. And a boy in the middle is shouting for the boy in the front passenger seat to pass him a bag of snacks, which the boy is doing.

Top Ten Reasons Americans Want Enormous Cars | Patreon

Posted in Capitalism, Cartooning & comics, Environmental issues | 8 Comments

Cartoon: Trump Voter

Posted on May 7, 2025 by Ampersand

Check out the timelapse drawing video for this cartoon!

This cartoon combines two things I don’t do often: A one-panel strip, and caricatures of real famous people.

Doing a one-panel strip just feels lazy to me, although rationally I know that’s not the case. So I tried to make up for it by putting a lot of details into the drawing.

The caricatures were what was really worrying me when I drew this strip. I’ve very rarely drawn Trump, and I’ve never drawn Musk or Vance before.

(You may be thinking that I’ve drawn caricatures of celebrities in little background gags before – and, in fact, in this cartoon. But background gags are different, because the strip won’t hinge on readers being able to recognize who they are. And if I’m having too much trouble drawing a celeb in chicken fat, I can just leave out that gag.)

I was pleasantly surprised by how easily Trump and Musk came. I don’t think J.D. Vance came out as well, but people recognizing him isn’t as important to the gag – plus hopefully the context of him being near Trump will help people work it out.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

The cartoon shows a giant Donald Trump stomping through a ruined landscape, holding a giant axe. Elon Musk grows from Trump’s side, doing a Nazi salute. A monstrously huge snake, with J.D. Vance’s head, slithers alongside Trump. A smoking ruin of a city is in the background; there are giant insects; the ground is littered with skulls, decapitated heads, burning or buried books.

Two people sit on the ground against a wall, hiding from Trump’s view. They are wearing ragged clothing. One of them says:

“You must admit, things would have been worse under Harris.”

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is obscure cartoonists’ lingo for little unimportant details in a cartoon.

The chicken fat in this cartoon includes:

An airplane is about to crash into the city.

A person has just jumped off a skyscraper in the background.

There is a giant spider and a giant cockroach in the background.

There are three gravestones, with “Free Press,” “Free Speech,” and “Free Bird” written on them.

A spy wearing sunglasses is watching from near the giant spider.

Mickey Mouse, smiling, is marching alongside Trump. But he doesn’t look well; his smile is desperate and nervous, one shoe is torn (as is one ear), a button is missing, and he has a bandaged stump in place of his right hand.

A broken mug on the wall says “life is good.”

A poster taped to the wall says: “NOTICE: FAILURE to report your woke friends and relatives for deportation makes YOU a woke traitor and you WILL be deported.”

Near the poster, a lone sock lies on the ground. I just find it neat when I see single shoes or socks lying on the ground.

An open can on the ground is labeled “Can of Suck. All Purpose.”

There’s a hole with three books buried in it. The books are entitled “Bury My Book At Wounded Knee” and “Title of Book.” On the spines, one says “Hi There!” and another says “Goodbye.”

A giant, content-looking rat sits on the wall drinking a cup of tea.

A newspaper lying nearby, “The Non Fake Times,” says “Science Says: Enormous Tea-Drinking Rats a Myth.” A subheadline says “Everything under Trump is perfect please don’t deport my children.”

There are three beheaded heads lying on the ground, in a little tribute to great facial hair: Groucho Mar, Abe Lincoln (oddly happy looking), and Ron Swanson. There’s also Iron Man’s hand lying on the ground nearby, because in the movies he has a great beard, too.

There’s a hole in the ground with a bare foot sticking out of it, and a sign that says “No Vacancy.”

The Trump Voter | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Elections and politics | 9 Comments

Cartoon: One Big Family

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Ampersand

Check out the timelapse drawing video for this cartoon!

No matter how nice an employer seems, or even how progressive a workplace is, you never really know what they think until their workers try to start a union.

In 2024, the ACLU was embroiled in a labor lawsuit – and ended up trying to destroy worker’s right across the country and all the gains labor made under the Biden administration. Matt Bruenig explains:

…the ACLU has decided to pay a fortune to management-side lawyer Kenneth Margolis to advance boutique legal theories arguing, not that the ACLU’s conduct respected Ms. Oh’s Section 7 rights, but rather that the NLRB, either because of the constitution or the ACLU’s arbitration policy, has no authority to enforce Ms. Oh’s rights. In the unlikely scenario where these theories succeed, the ACLU will strike a blow, not just against Ms. Oh, but every worker across the country and the labor movement more generally…. If this argument prevails, then it could potentially invalidate everything the Biden Board has done.

After an outcry, the ACLU backed off, and now says “The ACLU wholeheartedly supports labor unions, the right to organize and the National Labor Relations Board.” I’m glad they changed their mind – but why did they even consider embracing radical anti-labor legal theories in the first place?

And the answer is: Because for all the good it does, the ACLU is still a large employer, and the knee-jerk reaction of large employers is to try and stifle worker’s rights. Hamilton Nolan writes:

Even if we give the ACLU—an organization full of lawyers!—the full benefit of the doubt, it is quite revealing that its choice when faced with an employee labor rights complaint was to hire an attorney who himself felt comfortable advancing a legal argument with such sweeping possible consequences—and that the ACLU’s leadership was comfortable taking that argument to court, at least initially. The point here is that it is taken for granted that worker power is a force that must be opposed, and that eroding the structures that strengthen it would naturally be good for any employer.

The ACLU doesn’t stand alone; a lot of progressive businesses and nonprofits, such as Starbucks (which is faux-progressive) and Planned Parenthood (actually progressive) have engaged in union-busting.

The hypocrisy is galling. But it also makes a good cartoon! (I’m just trying to find a silver lining here).

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel under the bottom of the fourth panel.

PANEL 1

An executive type leans against his desk as he smiles and talks to us.

EXEC: At our company, nothing matters more than our employees!

PANEL 2

The same executive is now outdoors, holding a shovel next to a hole for a tree that’s to be planted.

EXEC: Treating every worker as a partner in the company isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s good business!

PANEL 3

The executive, still grinning and talking to us, is now in a corporate mailroom. A worker with a nametag stands next to him, smiling, and he has an avuncular hand on her shoulder.

EXEC: From board members like me to the folks in the mailroom, we’re all one big family.

PANEL 4

The worker, still smiling, has turned to talk to the exec. He smiles at her, but it’s sadistic looking.

WORKER: That’s great to hear! Because we’ve decided to start a union!

EXEC: Go jump in a meat grinder.

TINY KICKER PANEL AT THE BOTTOM

The exec talks to Barry the cartoonist.

EXEC: What I meant was, nothing matters more than our employees… knowing their place.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is yea olde cartoonists’ term for unimportant details hidden in a cartoon.

PANEL 1 – There are framed portraits of Daddy Warbucks and The Monopoly Man on the wall. There’s a corpse hidden behind the desk. The mug on the desk says “I ♥ $.” The front of the desk has two panels with fancy embedded art, the left panel showing a dog with a halo, and the right panel showing a cat with devil horns.

PANEL 2 – While the Exec’s shovel is perfectly clean, there’s a sweaty worker in the background with a dirt-covered shover. Albert Einstein is inside the hole in the tree. There’s a realistic duck near the hole, but it’s wearing Uncle Scrooge’s glasses and top hat. An evil bunny is on the right of the panel, smoking a cig and carrying a knife.

PANEL 3 – The shelves on the left contain a live rat, a human hand (or maybe it’s Thing from the Addams Family), a mug with a picture of a cracking egg, an eyeball, and a book with the title “Background.” The shelves on the right contain a decapitated head (who looks unhappy) and a box with a “this way up” arrow pointed down.

There are two posters on the wall. The first says “DIVERSITY is against company policy. Report any seen to management. All hail Trump.” The second has an illustration of a Kiwi, and the words “NOTICE. Do not accidently mail yourself to New Zealand. They’re on to that trick.”

PANEL 4 – The shelves on the left now contain a goldfish in a bowl, who is smoking a cig. A little birthday cupcake with a lit candle. And the mug’s picture now shows a hatched egg with a baby bird. The shelf on the left now has a human skull where the decapitated head was, and the arrow on the box is labeled “down” but is pointing up.

The first poster says “NOTICE. Hey you! The person bothering to read the tiny background text. You are awesome! You’re smart and swell and everyone agrees you smell good.” The second poster has an illustration of a smiling, friendly looking sun. The words say “I WORK AT THE INSPIRATIONAL POSTER FACTORY,” then in smaller print “where every day we pray today will be the day the sun explodes.”

One Big Family | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Union Issues | 1 Comment

Cartoon: Left Handitude Is On The Rise!

Posted on May 2, 2025 by Ampersand

The guest artist for this strip is Naomi Rubin! Naomi is a longtime friend of mine and a wonderful cartoonist. Her work is much more influenced by Japanese comics than mine or Becky’s, which provides a neat visual change of pace.

This graph from The Washington Post (which I swiped for the newspaper in panel 2) shows the story of the explosion in left handedness:

Julia Serano, whose writing is essential, commented:

During the twentieth century, in many Western countries, there was a precipitous rise in left-handedness. For instance, in Australia, the prevalence of left-handed people increased from 2.0 percent to a whopping 13.2 percent! Apparently, a social contagion swept through these nations, and children suddenly began feeling peer pressure to experiment with handedness and to adopt left-handed identities. Then, the left-handed deviants began pushing their “left-hander agenda” in order to recruit . . . oh, wait, sorry, that’s not what happened at all.

In actuality, left-handedness (like being transgender) is a part of human variation — both are pan-cultural trans-historical phenomena. In the case of left-handedness, roughly 10 to 12 percent of children inexplicably express this tendency from as early as infancy. In the beginning of the twentieth century, there was intense stigma targeting left-handedness, which led parents and schools to force all children to be right-handed, often against their intrinsic preferences (this still happens in many places). But eventually, there was a realization that this stigma was unnecessary and unfair, and people started letting children decide for themselves which hands to use. In other words, there wasn’t really a rise in left-handedness so much as there was a rise in left-handed acceptance.

The increasing numbers of people identifying as trans is, to a great extent, a result growing acceptance of trans identities. (Although that’s probably not the entire story). The moral panic we’re seeing over this is just as foolish as panicking over the existence of lefties would be.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. All the panels show a 1950s or 1960s married couple at breakfast at their kitchen table; the husband is reading a newspaper.

PANEL 1

A big caption at the top says “1955.”

HUSBAND: Oh no!

WIFE: What’s wrong?

HUSBAND: Left Handitude is on the rise!

PANEL 2

The husband holds up the newspaper, which has a graph showing rapidly increasing left-handedness.

HUSBAND: Look at this! When I was a kid in the twenties, you hardly ever met a left hander! Now five times as many self-identify as (choke! gasp!) leftwardsly!

PANEL 3

A close-up of the husband, looking disturbed and suspicous.

HUSBAND: What could be causing this unnatural increase? It must be a social contagion! Or sinistrous adults grooming naive youth with their sick southpaw ideology!

PANEL 4

The wife has a hand on her chin, looking thoughtful; the husband makes a dismissive gesture.

WIFE: Maybe it’s because we stopped whipping kids who write with their left hand?

HUSBAND: Don’t be ridiculous.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

PANEL 1 – The character Link from Legend of Zelda is sitting on a shelf. Link is known to be left-handed.

There’s a phrenology head sculpture on a lower shelf.

The back of the newspaper says “IKE IN LEFTY SCANDAL!”

PANEL 2 – The newspaper is called “Right-Washed Tribune,” with the tag line “Right News Writing For Rightly Right-Thinking Righties.” The main story is “Leftism Epidemic! President Calls for Widespread Panic.” Another story is “Has Leftism Gone Too Far? Six Normal-Handed Writers Opine.” Another story: “Study: Left Handed Scissors More Stabby.” And finally, in the smallest print: “Cartoonist blames text too tiny to read on left handed typesetters.”

PANEL 3 – There’s a pattern of left hands holding pencils in the background.

PANEL 4 – A Scottish Fold (which Naomi informs me is a breed of cat) is lying on the table, reading a copy of “Cat Fancy,” with the story “My human was a left hander! Fuzzle Winkles explains her secret pain.”

A picture on the wall is the “Flamel” symbol from Full Metal Alchemist.

Another picture is Ned Flanders from The Simpsons (famously left handed). His left hand is mysteriously moving in front of the picture frame.

A self-portrait of Naomi as a jack ‘o lantern is peering in the window.

The newspaper the husband is reading now says “Readers go blind straining to read tiny upside down text. Might it be a lefty plot?”

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues | 5 Comments

Cartoon: The Myth of Plastic Recycling

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Ampersand

This cartoon was written by me and drawn by Becky Hawkins.

Becky’s drawing soundtrack for this cartoon was the audiobook of Woodworking by Emily St. James. The audiobook is a three-for-one enjoyable experience of trans artistry since there are two voice actors, L Morgan Lee and Saoirse Ní Shúilleabháin, performing the hell out of Emily’s novel.

I have no reason to think that Big Plastic Inc employs goons whose job is to murder inconvenient researchers and make sure the bodies are never found. (And if I did know anything about that, I’d claim I didn’t, because I’d hate for the goons to come after me).

(Any plastic industry murderous goons reading this: This cartoon was Becky’s idea, not mine! Honest! I didn’t want to do it but she threatened me!)

But although I made that part up (and also the part about this cartoon being Becky’s idea), otherwise this cartoon is pretty much straight reporting.

From a CBS news story:

Davis Allen, an investigative researcher with the Center for Climate Integrity, said the industry didn’t need for recycling to work: “They needed people to believe that it was working,” he said.

A new report, called “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling,” accuses the plastics industry of a decades-long campaign “…to mislead the public about the viability of plastic recycling,” despite knowing the “technical and economic limitations that make plastics unrecyclable” at a large scale.

“They couldn’t ever lie about the existence of plastic waste,” said Allen. “But they created a lie about how we could solve it, and that was recycling.” […]

“The plastics industry understands that selling recycling sells plastic, and they’ll say pretty much whatever they need to say to continue doing that.”

As Popular Science points out, this is about plastic specifically, not about all recycling.

This may be a tough pill to swallow for those who grew up hearing about the virtues of plastic in ad campaigns (see: “plastics make it possible”). However, statistically, most plastic is either landfilled or burned—just about 9 percent is ever recycled, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an intergovernmental group.

Crucially, the Center for Climate Integrity’s report is about plastic recycling—not all recycling. Other materials, such as paper and glass, statistically fare better when you toss them in the recycling bin. More than 68 percent of paper and paperboard was recycled in the U.S., according to 2018 EPA data, while glass has a recycling rate of about 31.3 percent. *

The same article has some advice on steps we can take as individuals:

Recycle your bottles and jugs: Overall, the EPA found in 2018 that just 8.7 percent of plastics were recycled in the U.S. Yet, certain types of plastic containers—soda and water bottles (PET 1) and milk jugs (HDPE 2) in particular—have a higher likelihood of being recycled. As for the other stuff, the “vast, vast majority of plastic packaging that we use has no chance of being recycled,” said Allen.  …

Try to use less plastic: You could also try your best to avoid single-use plastics. Allen said in a call with PopSci that he avoids them as much as possible, and carries around a reusable water bottle with him. Still, the researcher argues that consumers should resist the urge to shift the blame onto themselves. “None of us have the option of avoiding plastic, and that’s by design,” he said. “That was the industry’s goal when they began pushing disposable plastics in the 1950s and 1960s, and it’s remained their goal ever since,” Allen added.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. There’s also a tiny “kicker” panel under the strip.

PANEL 1

A researcher wearing a white lab coat and carrying a thick bound report walks into an executive’s office. The executive is sitting with his feet on a big desk.

RESEARCHER: Here’s my report on plastic recycling… I’m afraid it’s bad news. Recycling plastic just won’t work.

PANEL 2

A close up of the researcher, who looks very nervous.

RESEARCHER: Recycling plastic costs so much that recycled plastic will never compete with new plastic. The only thing it might do is deceive the public into thinking there’s no problem.

PANEL 3

The executive is now holding the report. Behind the researcher, two toughs are creeping up, one raising a bludgeoning tool up to hit the researcher, the other holding out a sack big enough to hide a body.

RESEARCHER: To avoid an ecological crisis, we have to stop making so much plastic.

EXECUTIVE: I see. By the way, is this the only copy of the report?

RESEARCHER: Yes, why?

PANEL 4

CAPTION: And so, for the next fifty years…

A spokesmodel woman stands in front of cameras, next to a table overflowing with plastic products.

SPOKESMODEL: Use all the plastic you want! We’ll recycle!

TINY KICKER PANEL

The spokesmodel yells at Barry.

SPOKESMODEL: Use somewhat less plastic? You want us to live like cavemen?

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is obsolete cartoonists’ jargon for unimportant but fun details.

PANEL 1 – A framed graph on the wall seems to show profits moving up. The caption under the graph says “Sales of profit/loss charts up 47%”

PANEL 2 – One of the pens in the researcher’s breast pocket is actually a little test tube containing bubbling green liquid.

PANEL 4 – The backdrop says “Plastic: It’s what’s for dinner.” A little toy plastic car is being driven by a plastic kitten and unicorn. A label of a large bottle says “5 GAL background details.”

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Environmental issues | 3 Comments

Cartoon: Moving Out

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Ampersand

There’s a timelapse drawing video for this cartoon – check it out!

For my entire life – and much longer than that – conservatives have been anti-Russia. In the 1980s, if a conservative talked about “the evil empire,” you didn’t need to ask which country they meant. (Unless they were a big Star Wars fan, I guess).

Conservatives have never been big fans of import taxes (aka tariffs), let alone demanding high tariffs – that high taxes harm the economy was practically a foundational belief. And the idea of annexing Canada was simply not on the radar.

How things have changed. It appears that Republicans are happy to jettison any of their prior beliefs, if it’s for a strongman who is demonizing the other – whether that other be immigrants, trans people, pro-Palestinian protestors, feminists, diversity, or whoever else is today’s target of choice.

So that was the impetus behind this cartoon. Well, that, and also it’s fun for me to draw cartoony anthropomorphic brains.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels. Each panel shows a conversation between two men, one a young guy wearing a t-shirt, the other a middle-aged executive-looking man wearing a suit.

PANEL 1

Younger guy looks thoughtful as the older guy cheerfully makes a sales pitch.

OLDER: We’re cutting Medicaid, raising import taxes, huge tax cuts for billionaires, and Russia’s now our bestie. Also, we want to annex Canada.

PANEL 2

Younger holds up his palms, rejecting Older guy’s ideas. Older guy is smiling.

YOUNGER: But I don’t want any of that!

OLDER: We’ll also give you a couple of minorities to blame everything on and we’ll treat them like shit!

PANEL 3

A close shot of the Younger guy shows him looking thoughtful and a little blank. A panel on the side of his head opens.

PANEL 4

The panel opens further; we can now see it’s being opened by the Younger guy’s brain, which has eyes and limbs, and is squeezing out the opening.

PANEL 5

The brain jumps away, leaving an empty head behind.

PANEL 6

The Younger guy, an open panel still showing his empty head, is standing robotically and speaking too loudly. The Older guy smiles smugly.

YOUNGER: YOU HAVE MY SUPPORT!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is obsolete cartoonists’ slang for little details that are unimportant but fun.

Panel 1 – Younger guy’s t-shirt shows a big capital “T,” with hands coming out the “sleeves” and a collar drawn on top. In small print below the T it says “(get it?)”. A booklet lying on the sidewalk is entitled “How To Litter” with burst lettering saying “easy!” “fun” and “low cal!”

Panel 2 – The t-shirt now shows a chicken, with a thought balloon saying “Don’t call me fat.”

Panel 3 – The t-shirt now says “Lincoln Faked His Death.”

Panel 6 – The t-shirt now says “Down with Eastasia,” but “Eastasia” is crossed out and “Eurasia” written in.

Moving Out | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc. | 5 Comments

Cartoon: Respecting the Decision

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Ampersand

 

This cartoon was co-written by me and Grace, drawn by me, and colored by Frank Young.

Check out the timelapse drawing video for this cartoon! This one is fun because it includes Frank Young’s coloring process.

In 2019, Elisa Shupe, who at the time was detransitioning, was courted by the right-wing Christian group Family Policy Alliance. Spencer MacNaughton and Hope Pisoni report:

With an all-expenses-paid visit that included lodging at the five-star Ritz Carlton hotel, Shupe says she and her spouse received “rock star treatment” from Family Policy Alliance (FPA), the conservative Christian lobbying group hosting the event, who invited her to speak about her detransition.

Shupe, “attributes her decision to detransition… to a lack of family acceptance and her struggle with borderline personality disorder” – became a mouthpiece for the FPA’s anti-trans views and a witness they’d trot out to support anti-trans legislation. She became, in effect, an anti-trans activist – and her hands were held at every stage by anti-trans professionals who told her where to go and what to say.

Multiple of Shupe’s op-eds were written in collaboration with ADF. In one email, Roger Brooks, a senior counsel with the group, asked her to write an op-ed in support of the group’s lawsuit to overturn New York City’s ban on conversion therapy for gay and trans people. In the email, he offered points to raise in the proposed story, including that she was “horribly lied to and cheated” by doctors facilitating her transition. He also offered her writing support from ADF employees “familiar with the length and style that appeals to op-ed page editors.” Alliance Defending Freedom did not respond to a request for comment.

Shupe says that Bob Sullivan, an attorney who frequently liaised with ADF and planned to represent her in a medical malpractice lawsuit, helped craft her persona as a victim. In one email advising her on a potential autobiography, he said her story “could be modified to make it a quick-hitting intro into [her] nightmare of gender dysphoria.” He also discussed how they should strategically time the possible autobiography’s release “according to any litigation we pursue.”

(Sullivan says this was taken out of context.)

Unsurprisingly, Shupe was no longer welcome when she decided to transition after all.

Shupe faced a difficult journey after leaving this right-wing ecosystem. She says she has been harassed by her former right-wing allies and has had difficulty receiving medical care because of doctors’ fear of a media storm. …

MacKinnon says the weaponization of detransitioner stories by the far-right not only hurts trans people, but also detransitioners, making it harder for both groups to find the care that they need.

It is inevitable that people will detransition – no medical treatment has a 100% satisfaction rate. But 94% of trans people report being more satisfied with their life after transitioning.

People who detransition should have the help they need, and be treated with compassion. But they should not be taken as a reason to deny trans people medical and other help.

It’s also important to know that detransitioners aren’t a group mass-mind with a single story and motivation. People can detransition for a wide variety of reasons, including a lack of support and resources. From Transvitae:

Detransitioning is a nuanced and deeply personal process. While some individuals detransition because they were misdiagnosed or because they realize they are not transgender, many others do so due to external factors—social rejection, lack of access to proper medical care, family pressure, or discrimination. And, crucially, many who detransition do not regret transitioning but rather regret the circumstances that forced them to stop.

However, as I have witnessed in my work within the community, the Republicans and right-wing organizations hosting these events are not interested in this complexity. They have cherry-picked a small group of detransitioners—many of whom are professional activists funded by anti-LGBTQ+ groups—to push a narrative that gender-affirming care is dangerous, unnecessary, and should be banned for everyone.

People who transition – including the small minority who go on to detransition – need support and access to care. But what conservatives offer detransitioners is extremely conditional support that’s entirely dependent on willingness to be used as tools against trans people.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, all showing two people standing on a mini stage in a public park. A small crowd is watching them. The first speaker is a grinning woman in a business suit. The second speaker, “John,” is bald with short hair on the sides, wearing a t-shirt and slacks. John looks nervous and unhappy.

PANEL 1

WOMAN: This is John. John used to be “trans” and called himself “Joan,” but he knows better now.

JOHN: It’s just been really difficult for me…

PANEL 2

WOMAN: The trans cult puts so much pressure on people to transition these days! But John knows his own mind!

JOHN: I got so much blowback when I transitioned… It’s hard not to let that pressure get to me.

PANEL 3

The woman keeps talking with a pious expression. “John” – now Joan – is suddenly very happy, spreading her arms wide in a gesture of acceptance.

WOMAN: What matters is that all of us respect John’s choice.

JOAN: I can’t do this anymore… I am Joan! I am!

PANEL 4

The woman, looking angry, kicks a surprised Joan off the platform.

WOMAN: No, you’re not.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is what an earlier generation of cartoonists called extras we’d now call “Easter eggs.”

PANEL 1 – Woodstock from “Peanuts” is perched on a tree.

People watching in the audience include Little Orphan Annie, Mr. Spock, and Spider-Man. A bald person has the planet sticking its tongue out from “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” tattooed on their head. Someone else is wearing a cap for the Portland Pickles (a real minor league baseball team with a pickle for a mascot). A woman has “this space for rent” tattooed on her shoulder.

PANEL 3 – An evil bunny, smoking a cig, is in the background. Way in the background, a gigantic squirrel is climbing the side of a skyscraper.

PANEL 4 – Someone in the audience is missing the top of their head, and we can see their brain (a call-out to an earlier cartoon by Grace and I).

A flyer taped to the stage says “LOST!” in big letters. Below that, in lettering that’s almost too small to be read, it says “innocence, generation, hope, the battle, my way, paradise, boys, steam, cause, virginity, my religion, and found, time, it, touch, in translation, tv show, no big, at sea, in space, for words, loved and, sleep, and my dog.”

T SHIRT IN ALL FOUR PANELS: In panel one, Joan’s t-shirt shows a snowman. In panel 2, the snowman has turned to look at the sun. In panel 3, the snowman is melting. In panel 4, the shirt just shows the sun and some puddles.

Respecting The Decision | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues, Transsexual and Transgender related issues | 3 Comments

Cartoon: Taking Away His Incentive To Work

Posted on March 10, 2025 by Ampersand

This cartoon is by me and Becky Hawkins.

Becky writes:

In some circles, Portland’s claim to fame, aside from “burned down by Antifa in 2020,” is the large number of people living on the streets. I think everyone agrees that housing is a major issue here, whatever solutions they support.

This cartoon was inspired by an anecdote I told Barry during a drawing session. I was getting lunch downtown and a food truck owner scolded me for giving a dollar to a guy on the corner. The owner said that if you keep giving money to homeless people, they’ll keep coming around, like he was talking about stray cats or wild bears. He asked why I did that, and when I asked “Do you really want to know?” he said yes.

I gave my personal reasons for giving money sometimes. A couple of acquaintances were homeless as teens. A dollar or two can provide the invaluable ability to get out of the rain for a bit and warm up with a hot drink. It feels good to know that I have a few bucks to spare.

I also pointed out that even if that guy got a job today (bypassing the application and interview process), his first paycheck would be up to two weeks away. He would presumably need to eat something and sleep somewhere in the interim. And even if the guy didn’t need to buy food or clothing with his first paycheck, the check wouldn’t cover the first and last month’s rent plus a deposit on an apartment (again, bypassing the process of searching and applying, being the first to apply for the open unit, and overcoming any barriers to getting his application approved). So when people say “Get a job,” it’s not something that will instantly cause a person to become housed and have their daily needs met.

The food truck owner seemed to understand that. I don’t know if I changed his views on giving people cash on the street. He’s probably still annoyed when people ask his customers for money. But it felt like a productive conversation.

A note on the drawing: Panel 4 is based on Moorea, an island in French Polynesia. I worked as a cruise ship musician right after college, and Moorea was the most ridiculously beautiful tropical vacation spot that I could think of.

Barry writes:

Thank you folks, as always, for supporting these cartoons! It’s greatly appreciated.

I really like this one, partly because it’s not the norm for me – there’s not really a punchline per se, it’s just over-the-top sarcasm.

My point in this cartoon isn’t to criticize anyone for not giving money to panhandlers – there are a zillion ways to give money, after all, and no human can do them all. (For purposes of this argument, I’m not counting Elon Musk as human.) Since we can’t do everything, I think it makes sense for each person to give in any way that feel legitimate and safe for them.

But moving beyond I don’t want to give to beggers personally to I actively discourage other people from giving is another thing altogether.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels.

PANEL 1

Two well-dressed women and a panhandler wearing a blue knit hat are on a sidewalk; the panhandler is sitting on a piece of cardboard, with a cardboard sign saying “please give,” and his dog napping next to him. One of the women is handing him a dollar.

WOMAN 1: If you give him money, he won’t have any incentive to find a job.

WOMAN 2: It’s only a dollar.

PANHANDLER: Thank you.

PANEL 2

The panhandler, tossing his “please give” sign aside, grins hugely as he stares at the dollar.

PANHANDLER: Hee hee

PANEL 3

Still grinning and staring at the dollar bill, the panhandler walks past a little grocery. Someone in the shop doorway points to him and calls out.

SHOP OWNER: Hey, you — want a job?

PANHANDLER: Hee hee hah!

PANEL 4

The panhandler and his dog are enjoying the waters of some island paradise, floating on inflatable rings. He’s now wearing a bathing suit and sunglasses, although he’s still wearing his blue knit hat. A little floating table next to him has a drink with a tiny umbrella in it.

He’s still holding the dollar bill, which he’s gazing out with satisfaction.

PANHANDLER: Aaaah…

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is obscure cartoonists’ lingo for unimportant but funny details.

In panel 3, one of the posters in the grocery window shows a canned drink with a skull on the label.

In panel 4, there’s a rubby ducky wearing sunglasses floating in the water next to them. The dog is wearing a new diamond-studded dog collar. There’s a little table floating next to the dog with a dog bone in it.

I know from experience that people will accuse this cartoon of being a strawman – so to preempt that a bit, here are some real things that real people have really said. (Really!)

“For every dollar that we give to a beggar, the more lucrative we make begging and, comparatively, the less lucrative we make working. This is bad, for we want people to work, not beg.”

“[Giving money] provides an incentive for them and others to take up begging, rather than seeking more sustainable work.”

“Giving money to beggars … can create a cycle of dependency that keeps individuals from seeking long-term solutions and perpetuates the problem.”

“Giving money reinforces begging as a means of income, perpetuating a cycle of dependency and discouraging efforts to seek employment…”

Taking Away His Incentive To Work | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Economics and the like | 24 Comments

Cartoon: We Can Disagree And Still Be Friends

Posted on March 6, 2025 by Ampersand

Here’s a link to a timelapse drawing video for this cartoon!

If you watch the timelapse videos, let me know in comments if you think they’re generally a good length, or if you’d like them to be shorter or longer. I can pretty much make them any length; it’s just trying to find a balance between going slow enough so people can see and enjoy the process, and going fast enough to avoid it being boring.

———————–

An organization called Braver Angels, whose mailing list I’ve been on forever, is dedicated to encouraging and facilitating friendly conversations between left and right leaning Americans. They’re convinced this is important, nation-saving work.

I’ve been to one of their meet-ups. Since I live in Portland, most there were lefties (some considerably further left than me), so the few right-wingers in attendance were an in-demand commodity. Nonetheless, I somehow I got a turn with a right-winger and had a very cordial chat.

I didn’t get much out of it, because it’s never been hard for me to be affable with people I disagree with. (Which might surprise people who only know me from my cartoons.) I don’t have trouble understanding that they’re humans, that they have hopes and dreams and frustrations, that they love music and puppies and some of the same movies I enjoy.

And to tell the truth, if the other person is smart and willing to be civil and respectful, I enjoy a friendly debate.

But – contra Braver Angels – I don’t believe these conversations matter. Having a friendly conversation with a Trump voter isn’t going to restore USAID or give trans kids access to medical care or bring any of the women killed by pro-life policies back to life. It’s probably not even going to convince them to stop voting for politicians who support hateful policies.

(Don’t get me wrong – when I have these conversations, I try to persuade folks to stop voting for terrible people. But I don’t think I’ve ever succeeded. Daryl Davis I am not.)

In Time Magazine, a psychologist and a pollster wrote that “estrangement has become an epidemic in America.”

“Epidemic” may be hyperbolic, but I agree it’s happening more often lately. But the solution isn’t to tell left-wingers that it’s our responsibility to keep up loving relationships no matter what the other person supports.

When I get Braver Angels emails, I always want to ask them what they think they would have been doing in 1936. Would they have been urging people to maintain cordial friendships with Nazis?

I tend to avoid comparing contemporary politics to Nazism, for a host of reasons. But after seeing the entire right wing unite around the ridiculous premise that this and this weren’t Sieg Heil salutes, I’m realizing that as long as it’s presented to them in the right way, there is absolutely no limit to what the U.S.’s current right wing won’t defend and support.

And I can absolutely understand not being able to stomach being friends with that.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, each of which shows two characters on a sidewalk. One is a man in a yellow polo shirt, the other a woman in a striped tank top.

PANEL 1

MAN: Why do you liberals make everything so personal? I know folks whose own kids have cut them off because they voted for Trump!

PANEL 2

The woman has stopped to face the man, and is listening with a little smile. The man is smiling and talking, but his face has begun to fall off, like a mask.

MAN: Sure, we’ve got political disagreements. But we shouldn’t let them stop us from being friends, right?”

PANEL 3

The man’s face falls off, and under it is a monstrous, open-mouthed creature. His speech balloon has a creepy, intense font. The man’s human face, still visible as it falls, is laughing.

MAN (monster face): Black illegals eating our dogs get out trannies are pedos fuck voting rights Sieg Heil

MAN (fallen face): Oops! Ha ha!

PANEL 4

The man pushes his face back into place. The woman is in shock, eyes wide and hands over mouth.

MAN: Anyhow, let’s not let politics come between us.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is unimportant details slipped into the art for fun.

Panel 1: Mickey Mouse, drawn in the style of “Steamboat Willie,” the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, is emerging from a hole in the ground, holding up a note that says “public domain ha ha!”

Panel 2: A gravestone in the background has “Floppy Disks 1971-2011” inscribed on it.

Tattoos: The woman has a tattoo on her bicep. In panel 1, it’s a tattoo of a nut (like at a hardware store). In panel 2, it’s a tattoo of a nut (a peanut). In panel 4, it’s a tattoo of Jerry Lewis as “The Nutty Professor.”

We Can Disagree And Still Be Friends | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc. | 35 Comments

Cartoon: Trump Says He’s Gonna Shoot Your Dad In The Face!

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Ampersand

Check out the timelapse drawing video for this cartoon! You get to see me get started on drawing it, then throw everything out so I can rewrite it and start over.

I saw a video which interviewed a teacher and a principal, both of whom seemed like very dedicated educators, both of whom realized that cutting federal funding for poor children, as Trump wants, would be catastrophic for their school.

Both of them had voted for Trump. Neither of them seemed to regret that, let alone seeing their vote as a betrayal of the interests of low-income kids attending their school.

If their school does suffer big budget cuts, I suspect they’ll find a way to blame it on Biden, or Obama, or Democrats in general. Trumpists – including Trump himself – have a long history of shifting blame in this way (see child separation, the Afghanistan withdrawal, the DC plane crash, inflation, and many other examples.)

(I actually have a tiny bit of sympathy for Trump denying responsibility for inflation after only a month in office. Although Trump’s tariffs and deportations will certainly raise prices, I don’t think that effect has happened yet. Inflation can be caused by many things which aren’t under Trump’s control – and weren’t under Biden’s control.)

(On the other hand, in December Trump promised “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one,” so based on that it seems fair to blame him now. And also, you know, fuck that guy.)

The “Trump voters fuck around and find out” genre of video has been understandably popular among lefties lately, but I’m worried that it may be wistful thinking on our part. I suspect most Trump voters won’t abandon Trump, no matter how badly he hurts them or their families; they’ll just construct alternate narratives in which Trump’s policies are blamed on liberals, or DEI, or Biden, or immigrants, or even Obama.

Of course, to win elections, Democrats don’t need most Trump voters to abandon Trumpism – we just need enough Trump voters. But if we’re waiting for most Trump voters to admit that they’ve screwed the country, and themselves, badly, we’ll be waiting a long time.

I originally wrote a different script, and was in the process of drawing it when I had the idea I liked better.

I was sorry to lose the newspaper gag in panel two, but on the whole I like the revised script better.

The original script didn’t even mention Trump – I just have an aversion to admitting the guy exists.

I had a lot of fun drawing the Dad getting shot in panel two, trying to find the way to make a gruesome event look funny and cute.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels.

PANEL 1

In a park, a blonde woman with a panicked expression is talking to a young man wearing a MAGA cap and an older man, both of whom are amused.

WOMAN: Trump says he’s gonna shoot your dad in the face!

MAGA GUY: Silly liberal! He’s not coming after good dads like mine.

DAD: You tell ‘im, son!

PANEL 2

A huge sound effect – “BANG!” – dominates the panel. The older man flies back, his skull fragmenting into pieces and his brain falling out, while Maga Guy watches with a shocked expression.

PANEL 3

The woman and Maga Guy stare in shock at the father’s dead body.

PANEL 4

Maga Guy swings around, pointing accusingly at the woman and yelling.

MAGA GUY: This is BIDEN’S fault!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is long-dead cartoonists’ lingo for unimportant details stuck in the art for fun.

PANEL 1: Kermit the Frog is peering around a tree in the background. The woman has a tattoo of Beaker from The Muppet Show on her bicep.

PANEL 2: The grain of the log is forming a smiley face.

PANEL 3: A bird flying by has a moon-faced head with a grinning human face. An evil bunny stands in front of the tree, smoking and wearing a fedora. Heihei, the chicken from the Moana movies, is sticking his head out a hole in the tree. The woman’s tattoo is now of Fozzie Bear.

PANEL 4: A sunglasses-wearing snake is coming out of a hole in the ground. Big Bird is sticking his head out of the hole in the tree. The woman’s tattoo shows Scooter from the Muppets.

Trump Says He’s Gonna Shoot Your Dad In The Face! | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics | 2 Comments