Alas, a Blog | Feminist, anti-racist, pro-fat, plus whatever else we feel like talking about.

Cartoon: Right-Winger With A Zinger

Posted on February 20, 2023 by Ampersand

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.

(Part of the appeal of this cartoon, for me, is that, like Fezzik in The Princess Bride, I love inane rhymes.)

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In the Washington Post, Kat Jercich wrote:

…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.”

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

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.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

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.

MAN (hesitantly): Um… Uh…

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This cartoon on Patreon

Cartoon: Turning Men Down In Public

Posted on February 16, 2023 by Ampersand

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?

Turning Men Down In Public | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Link Farm and Open Thread, Staircase Cat Edition

Posted on February 15, 2023 by Ampersand

Grover Cleveland’s Sex Scandal: The Most Despicable in American Political History
Cleveland almost certainly raped a woman, then had her involuntarily consigned to an asylum. What a scumbag. I really regret the nice things I’ve been saying about Cleveland for decades.
A Twitter thread with highlights from Judge Walker’s injunction against the higher ed provisions of Florida’s HB 7 (aka the Stop WOKE Act).
Opinion: Dr. Nasser ‘Nas’ Mohamed sought asylum in the US after coming out as gay. Here’s what he wants people to know about Qatar | CNN
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.”
This Couple Died by Suicide After the DEA Shut Down Their Pain Doctor
“What the DEA is essentially doing is telling a diabetic who’s been on insulin for 20 years that they no longer need insulin and they should be cured.”
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.
When will the US learn that sanctions don’t solve its problems? – Responsible Statecraft
“…The link between sanctions and regime change is tenuous and sanctions often seem to prolong the worst dictatorships, not overturn them.”
Gay and Tonic suggests a lovely, sad and joyful whiskey commercial/short film from abroad that we should watch, and I heartily agree. It’s about 3 minutes long.
I wrote a long twitter thread about “The Embrace,” a new, and enormous, public sculpture in Boston.
How Rod Dreher Caused an International Scandal in Eastern Europe – The Bulwark
An extremely prominent American Conservative is comfortable shilling for an anti-Democratic regime, even though it makes him look ridiculous.
Hiltzik: The stupid and dishonest idea of raising the Social Security retirement age is back – Los Angeles Times
The Curious History of Anthony Johnson: From Captive African to Right-wing Talking Point
The existence of a freeman (sort of) and slaveowner from Africa in the 1600s has captivated racism-denying conservatives.
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.
THE WORST THING WE READ THIS WEEK: Why Is the New York Times So Obsessed With Trans Kids? – Popula
Very good article. It also provides some context for that open letter from 180+ New York Times contributors objecting to their constant (and often front page) anti-trans coverage.

Photos by Gabriella Clare Marino – check out her Unsplash page and her Instagram.

Posted in Link farms | 32 Comments

Cartoon: Radical Feminism Has Changed

Posted on February 14, 2023 by Ampersand

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.

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.

Radical Feminism Has Changed | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues, Transsexual and Transgender related issues | 47 Comments

Cartoon: The Myth of William F Buckley And The John Birch Society

Posted on February 13, 2023 by Ampersand

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.

Cormac Kelly wrote:

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!

The Myth of William F Buckley And The John Birch Society | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc. | 1 Comment

Comic: The Debt Ceiling Hostage Crisis

Posted on January 29, 2023 by Ampersand

If you like these cartoons, and if you’re inclined to, and if you have the money, and if doing so wouldn’t break any religious rules or local laws, you can support my Patreon. I make a living from lots of people pledging just one or two dollars, and I think that’s really neat.

It’s not an ironclad rule, but as a general goal I try to avoid doing “news of the week” cartoons. I like my cartoons to focus on long-term issues.

But Republicans (and it is only Republicans) threatening to tank the entire U.S. economy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling is a long-term issue, because the modern GOP pulls this shit again and again. We’ve seen this in 1995, 1996, 2011, 2013, and now 2023, and I doubt this is the last time.

So what is the debt ceiling (also known as the debt limit)? From the US Treasury’s webpage:

The debt limit is the total amount of money that the United States government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt, tax refunds, and other payments.

It’s important to understand that the debt ceiling is about paying debts and obligations that have already been spent by Congress, in the spending bills that have already been passed. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling means refusing to pay for the things we’ve already bought. It means the US goes into default.

So what happens if the US goes into default? Most likely, a worldwide recession, and the US dollar permanently becoming much less valuable. From (ugh) the US Chamber of Commerce (not my favorite group, but no one can accuse them of being left wing):

It is impossible to overstate the negative consequences that would occur if the United States were to default on its debt.

The U.S. economy and global financial system are all underpinned by the idea that the U.S. government – unlike others around the world – always pays its bills. Investments in U.S. debt are considered “risk-free”, which means the federal government pays less to borrow money. […]

Defaulting would mean that the U.S. government no longer always pays its bills. Treasuries would no longer be risk-free. Interest rates for the government and everyone else would rise as the financial system tries to sort itself out. The role of the dollar globally would be weakened, perhaps permanently. Most analysts believe this would result in an immediate recession with long-term negative effects.

Republicans routinely raise the debt ceiling when a Republican is in the White House (Congress raised it three times during the Trump administration without any fuss). Democrats have also used the debt ceiling vote to complain about spending – but never to the point of threatening a default.

On Twitter, I talked with Ron about this; Ron felt the Democrats are at fault for being unwilling to negotiate and compromise. But an actual compromise involves two sides each giving up something they actually want. (For example, the GOP might give up some tax cuts for the rich, and the Democrats might give up some Medicare spending).

But the GOP doesn’t actually want the U.S. to go into default. That’s the reason holding the debt ceiling hostage is so attractive to them; if the Democrats give in to GOP demands, it means the GOP gets whatever it wants without giving up anything it wants in return.

Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior advisor to President Obama, writes:

If the MAGA Republicans can force cuts to Social Security and Medicare by putting a gun to the head of the U.S. economy, what will happen when the debt ceiling comes up again? Will they demand a federal abortion ban? National voter suppression laws? The resignation of cabinet officials?

This was the lesson President Obama learned from his experience in a similar situation. And it’s why President Biden is 100 percent correct not to engage with the Republicans in this rigged game.

Negotiating over spending and taxes should happen during debates on the budget bill, with both parties having priorities they care about at stake. A system in which the GOP gets whatever it wants by threatening to tank the entire economy, even thought they don’t actually want that, is not something we should agree to.

I experimented with doing less detailed “pencils” than usual for this cartoon. This means that I have to do more improvisation and thinking while drawing the final lines, which is exciting for me and hopefully leads to more spontaneous feeling lines and drawings.

The downside is, it can also lead to me making mistakes I probably wouldn’t have made if I penciled more carefully, and even throwing out some finished drawings. Check out the original, rejected art for panel:

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has nine panels.

PANEL ONE

At the top of the panel, there is a large caption, which says: THE DEBT CEILING HOSTAGE CRISIS.

The panel shows a middle-aged man, wearing a brown suit with a red necktie, standing in a deep trench that’s been cut into the floor. It’s reminiscent of defensive trenches dug by soldiers during war, but it’s very clean and abstract, rather than being a realistic trench.

The man is holding an old-fashioned comic book bomb – a perfectly round black sphere with a burning fuse – in one hand, and shaking a fist with the other. He’s yelling and looks angry.

MAN: Give me what I want – or I’ll blow us ALL up!

PANEL TWO

A far shot lets us see that there are actually two trenches here. In one trench is the man from panel one; in the other is a white-haired woman wearing a blue blazer over a red blouse. The two of them are facing each other.

WOMAN: What do you want?

PANEL THREE

The man holds up the bomb higher, and holds up the forefinger of his other hand. He’s still yelling angrily.

MAN: I want BIG cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

PANEL FOUR

Pretty much the same scene, except now we’re seeing the angry-looking man in profile.

MAN: I ALSO want big cuts for climate change spending. AND the IRS. AND welfare.

PANEL FIVE

A close-up of the man as he smiles.

MAN: Basically, if it’s not defense spending or tax cuts for the rich, I want it slashed.

PANEL SIX

The “camera” pulls back so we can see both trenches; the woman is in the foreground, the man (still grinning and holding up the bomb) is in the background.

MAN: And if I DON’T get EVERYTHING I want, I’m blowing up the economy!

MAN: Do we have a deal?

PANEL SEVEN

A shot of the woman, who has an angry expression as she stares at the man, her arms crossed.

WOMAN: No.

PANEL EIGHT

A shot of the two of them staring at each other, with the back of the woman’s head in the foreground. The man is thinking things over.

PANEL NINE

A shot of the man in his trench, looking a little surprised, and also like his feelings have been hurt.

MAN: You’re not even going to negotiate?

The Debt Ceiling Hostage Crisis | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Economics and the like, Elections and politics | Comments Off

Cartoon: Might As Well Face It, We’re Addicted To Fear

Posted on January 7, 2023 by Ampersand

If you like these cartoons, you can help me make more by supporting the Patreon.

The marketplace is a terrible way to produce news. Because it the end, being the market, it’s not about what viewers need. Or about what viewers (think they) would prefer to see. It’s about giving those viewers who are willing to spend money whatever content makes them watch the most, because ratings means selling commercials means profit.

Any news that isn’t doing that is driven out of the market. It’s not enough to just be making a profit, because sooner or later the station or network will be bought out by someone whose interest isn’t in making a profit, but in making the most possible profit for the least cost.

And the easiest way to get viewers to read or click or watch is to make us feel like we’re in a violent crime wave.

Goodbye, in-depth reporting. Hello, “if it bleeds it leads.” From the Oxford University Press blog:

In the United States in the 1970s, local “action news” formats, driven by enhanced live broadcast technologies and consultant recommendations designed to improve ratings, changed the nature of television news: a shift from public affairs journalism about politics, issues, and government toward an emphasis on profitable live, breaking news from the scene of the crime. The crime rate was falling, but most Americans didn’t perceive it that way. From 1993 to 1996, the national murder rate dropped by 20%. During the same period, stories about murders on the ABC, NBC, and CBS network newscasts rose by 721%.

I initially misread that as murder stories rising by 72%. But nope. Seven hundred and twenty one percent.

It’s not just the news – it’s also the entertainment. TV shows and movies and novels often base their plots around murder, multiple murders, even serial killers. I myself watch lots of this violent media – because it really is compelling. (And fun!)

And what we see makes us afraid. To quote one study (among dozens that have found similar results):

Results indicated that exposure to tabloid front page stories was significantly associated with avoidant behavior and higher levels of fear of violent victimization. Moreover, people who exposed themselves to many different sources of crime news were more likely to fear violence than those exposed to fewer crime stories. These findings remained significant after controlling for personal and vicarious victimization experiences.

This cartoon makes the media much more virtuous than it is in real life, which (hopefully) just adds to the absurdity of the cartoon. I wrote it this way because I wanted the cartoon to focus on us, and our drive to watch this stuff, rather than on the media.

Drawing this cartoon was so much fun! I really wanted this cartoon to feel energetic, so I deliberately scribbled a lot while drawing, trying to produce spontaneous lines instead of perfect lines.

I’m pretty pleased with how this came out, and I’ll definitely want to try this approach again.

I want to make a “my best cartoons of 2022” list. If you can remember any cartoon we did in 2022 that you thought was especially great, please let me know, directly or in comments. Or on the Discord, which I really should mention more often.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. They all show the same scene: A middle-aged man, balding and with a beard, is watching (and yelling at) his television set. He appears to be at home; he’s sitting in a cozy armchair, and we can see a little side table with a lamp on it. The room seems pretty barren otherwise.

PANEL 1

The man squirms in his chair as he angrily yells at the TV.

TV: Stay tuned for nuanced reporting about crime, with important context and reasonable statistics.

MAN: No! That’s NOT what you’ve conditioned me to want!

PANEL 2

The man is now standing on the seat of his armchair, leaning forward and waving the remote control in a threatening manner as he yells. The TV leans away from the man as it responds.

MAN: I’LL CHANGE THE CHANNEL!

TV: But… Don’t you think accurate news is important.

PANEL 3

A closer shot of the man as he jumps up above his chair, yelling even bigger than before. (The TV speaks from off-panel). The remote control, forgotten, flies into the air near his hand.

The coloring in this panel is done in shades of red, emphasizing the man’s fury.

MAN: You KNOW what I want!

MAN: GIVE IT TO ME NOW!

TV: Okay! Okay!

PANEL 4

The TV, leaning forward aggressively, speaks in red lettering. The man, looking sated and happy, collapses back into his cozy chair.

TV: YOU’RE SURROUNDED BY VIOLENT CRIME! YOU’RE IN DANGER! YOUNG PEOPLE WILL RANDOMLY MURDER YOU!

MAN (thought balloon): Ahhhh… THAT’S the stuff.

Might As Well Face It, You’re Addicted To Fear | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Media, Media criticism | 15 Comments

Cartoon: Things We Can Stop Saying To Fat People Already

Posted on December 7, 2022 by Ampersand

If you like these cartoons, help us keep making more by waring blue on alternate Tuesdays of anniversaries of the ending of important wars and sporting events and also any day that you’re wearing an odd number of shoes. That’s not a typo; I’m not saying you should wear blue, I’m saying you should beware blue. Hide from the sky, the sky is out to get you, so the nicer the day the more crucial unbrellas are. And for God’s sake never watch Blue’s Clues, no matter how your children beg. This will be your only warning.

Phew, this one took a long time to draw. And then it took a long time for Frank to color.

(At one point Frank texted me to say “Oh, those shopping carts! Whoo-ee!”).

(I responded, “OMG those fucking shopping carts!”)

Part of the reason this strip took so long me to draw is I made the mistake of thinking “I can just wing the perspective here” in the panel in the supermarket and so spent a lot of time freehand drawing the shelves and the tile floor, work that I eventually threw away so I could redo the drawing using actual perspective lines and vanishing points.

And two panels later, I made the exact same mistake drawing the panel with the bike rider.

That panel also contains a car. Cars, as longtime readers may remember me mentioning, are my cartooning nemesis. I can’t draw good cars, but I want to be able to. So every time I have to draw a car, I wind up with rejected car sketches like this.

A couple of these look okay – except that they’re drawn at the wrong angle. We’re viewing them from above, which means that I wouldn’t be able to put the bike rider in the foreground the way I wanted to (unless we assume the bike is 15 feet tall or in a tree or something).

I did manage to draw one from the correct angle – the one on the upper right. But it looks wrong to me. Like the metal is twisting and the parts don’t fit together right.

So then I eventually gave up, found a photo of a car from an angle that would work, and traced it. Then I hid the photo, and traced the tracing, changing some of the car’s features as I went. Then, for the final drawing, I traced the tracing of the tracing, again not looking at the original photo. This is all to help the final cartoon look like something drawn, rather than something traced.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that the front of the car would be outside the panel border, and the back of the car would be hidden by the bike rider. Oh well!

Drawing tattoo sleeves is always fun.

Not related to this cartoon, but I saw Glass Onion, and it was really smartly written and structured and funny and sharp. If you enjoy murder mysteries, it’s worth checking out. (It’s a sequel to Knives Out, but it really doesn’t matter if you’ve seen the previous film or not.)

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has nine panels. The central panel (panel five) has the words “THINGS WE CAN STOP SAYING TO FAT PEOPLE ALREADY” written in large, friendly, somewhat psychedelic-style lettering.

Other than the center panel, each panel features a different scene showing one or two characters speaking.

In addition to the nine panels, there’s a small additional “kicker” panel under the bottom of the comic strip.

PANEL 1

A thin woman stands outdoors, wearing a plush winter vest over a plaid shirt, with a knit hat. She’s smiling too large and clasping her hands together in front of her chin. Behind her we can see pine trees on a snow-covered hill.

WOMAN: You’re not fat! You’re gorgeous!

PANEL 2

On a sidewalk in front of a storefront, a man in green pants and a polo shirt looks very surprised, eyes wide, one hand against his cheek. He’s speaking to a fat woman with a rolled-up yoga mat strapped over her back, and a gym bag; she’s wearing athletic shorts and a tank top. She looks somewhat taken aback.

MAN: You do yoga?

PANEL 3

A woman stands in a kitchen, looking at the reader with a face full of concern, her forefinger pressed against her chin.

WOMAN: Are you sure you should eat that?

PANEL 4

A man stands in front of a shoulder-high brick wall. There’s a grassy area, the height of the wall, on the other side of the wall; there are bushes and trees and a wide-eyed dog. The man is holding a hand up in a “no big deal” gesture and looks certain.

MAN: My cousin’s friend’s wife’s barista lost 200 pounds by drinking one less coke a day.

PANEL 5

This is the center panel. It contains the title of the strip, “THINGS WE CAN STOP SAYING TO FAT PEOPLE ALREADY,” written in large, friendly letters.

PANEL 6

In a supermarket, a thin, older woman is pushing her cart next to the the cart of a fat man wearing a baseball cap. The woman is leaning over to examine the contents of the man’s cart. (Sharp-eyed readers might notice that the two carts contain exactly the same food items.)

The woman is smiling, the man looks taken aback.

WOMAN: Well, that explains things.

PANEL 7

Two men, one thin and one fat, are jogging next to each other on a suburban looking sidewalk. The fat man, who has a shaved head, is wearing two layers of shirt (a black tee shirt over a mustard-brown long-sleeved tee shirt) and sweatpants. The thin man is wearing running shorts and a striped tee shirt. The thin man’s expression is surprised and maybe a little hostile; the fat man’s expression is annoyed.

THIN MAN: You’re not trying to lose weight? Really?

PANEL 8

In the foreground, we see a fat woman riding a bike and looking annoyed. Nearby, in the street, a driver is leaning out of his car window to yell at the woman. His expression is hostile.

MAN: You’re FAT!

A small caption at the bottom of the panel says “this really happens!” (And it does! It’s happened to me numerous times! I have no idea why people are like this.)

PANEL 9

A thin man is holding out his palms and speaking directly to the reader, looking puzzled and concerned. He appears to be in a den or living room – we can see a little table with a tea cup and flowers, and a comfy looking armchair, in the background. The man is wearing a button-up shirt with a polka dot pattern open over a black tee shirt.

MAN: Have you heard of eating less and exercising more?

SMALL KICKER PANEL UNDER THE BOTTOM OF THE CARTOON

A thin man wearing a black shirt is talking to a fat man with a beard and a pony-tail who looks like Barry (the cartoonist). Both of them have friendly, smiling expressions.

THIN MAN: I’m sure they didn’t mean anything. You’re being too sensitive.

BARRY: You can stop saying that, too.

Things We Can Stop Saying To Fat People Already | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Fat, fat and more fat | 19 Comments

Cartoon: Why Won’t Leftists Just Be Civil?

Posted on December 6, 2022 by Ampersand

Imagine a world without these political cartoons. Would life even be worth living? Obviously not. We’d all just sit around staring blankly at our piles of unwashed dishes and laundry waiting to die because nothing means anything. Oh, and, uh, patreon support blah blah blah.

I’ve made fun of the “civility” issue before, and I’m sure I’ll do it again. It’s just such an irresistible lump of hypocrisy. Plus, people being overdramatic means fun facial expressions to draw.

I’m an extremely civil person, outside my cartoons. Even on Twitter, I work hard to be polite, even when I’m arguing with right-wingers. In college I was on the debate team (my only sport!), and being polite is crucial in competitive debate.

So I’ve got a lot of sympathy for people who call for civility because that’s their aesthetic preference (which is where I’m coming from). Or because they believe that being civil goes hand in hand with kindness, and kindness is good, even when dealing with jerks (also where I’m coming from). Or because they personally have issues dealing with other people’s anger and contempt, and so they’re able to function more comfortably in an environment with politeness, even if it’s moderator-enforced politeness. (For a third time, that’s me.)

My eyes only start rolling when calls for politeness are used as a partisan cudgel, Because there are rude people on all sides, and anyone who can’t see that is either being disingenuous, or is so far sunk inside of a partisan bubble they probably won’t see sunlight until the asteroids wipe us all out and dinosaurs take the Earth back.

This one was so simple (only two panels!) that it was a pleasure to draw. I got to spend a lot of time trying to make her hair look lively and right, and working on her expressions.

The next cartoon I’ll post is a nine-panel strip. I usually have multiple strips written and waiting to be drawn. So I’ll tend to do the relatively quick to draw strips alongside ones that take forever, and hopefully it averages out to something like a reasonable workload.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has two panels. Both of the panels show a white woman with a stylish haircut, wearing a striped shirt with a calf-length skirt and black tights. She speaks directly to the reader.

PANEL 1

The woman looks sad and distraught. She’s holding one palm up in a bewildered fashion, and has her other palm pressed against the side of her face.

WOMAN: I was arguing with a liberal and she said…

WOMAN: I can hardly even SAY it, it was so AWFUL!

WOMAN: She said my argument was “RACIST.”

WOMAN: She actually used THAT word! About ME! How can anybody be so MEAN?

PANEL 2

The woman now looks angry, her hands balled up into fists.

WOMAN: Why won’t these lying libtard soyboy cuck groomer baby-killing totalitarian leftists just be CIVIL?

Why Won’t Leftists Just Be Civil? | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Civility, Civility & norms of discourse, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc. | 54 Comments