Here’s my cartoon from this past April’s issue of Dollars and Sense. (Click on the cartoon to see a larger version.)
To tell you the truth, I can’t draw Darth’s helmet to save my life. So I turned to the awesome Bill Mudron, who could easily draw Darth’s helmet with a crayon clenched between his butt cheeks, although in this case I’m pretty sure Bill used his hands. I wrote and penciled the cartoon, and Bill inked it, drawing Darth and the backgrounds pretty much from scratch.
Since this is a health care cartoon, I thought it would make sense to auction it off to help someone pay for health care. Somewhere on the internet I ran into Connie Parrott‘s case; Connie is a type 1 diabetic who is trying to raise funds for needed medical equipment through the internet. Although I still haven’t met Connie, she and I have emailed, and she was willing to let me do the auction thing. Connie’s friend Ed Brayton, who blogs at Dispatches From the Culture Wars — a blog that, coincidentally, I’ve been reading for years (sometimes the internet is a very small place) — volunteered to help organize it.
So, anyway: The original art is being auctioned here on Ebay. You can find details (paper stock, image size, etc) over there.
Luke would have been enrolled with the rebellion’s health plan for months at this point in the Star Wars storyline. Your cartoon violates canon, and I therefore shun it and its promotion of single payer!
Not to mention, hadn’t Han been turned into the world’s largest paperweight by this point in the plot?
Luke would have been enrolled with the rebellion’s health plan for months at this point in the Star Wars storyline.
The Rebellion probably only allows new members to sign up after they’ve been with the Rebellion a certain amount of time.
The Rebellion probably only allows new members to sign up after they’ve been with the Rebellion a certain amount of time.
That would explain all the suicide missions they send people on. “Looks like all of Blue Squadron is about to become eligible for healthcare and for the 401(k) match.” “Hmm..oh no! The death star is attacking. Oh, who should we send to fend them off…”
Along the same lines, the Empire is probably actually functioning in a considerable social welfare role in order to gain political support from the people, whereas the Rebellion is made up of disgruntled former aristocrats and dispossessed religious types. You just KNOW the Organa family isn’t keen on paying 20% of their net every year to provide free midichlorian transplants to out-of-work Bothans.
the Empire is probably actually functioning in a considerable social welfare role in order to gain political support from the people
The Empire has political support from the people? What’s the evidence for that?
Off topic: Where’ve you been lately, Robert? Don’t tell me you’ve deserted us on some weak excuse about wanting a real life or something.
I turned to the awesome Bill Mudron, who could easily draw Darth’s helmet with a crayon clenched between his butt cheeks,
If you really want to raise some money, put up a video of Bill doing that.
Oh, hey, it’s on Boing Boing! Neat.
The Empire has political support from the people? What’s the evidence for that?
It seems fairly obvious from the films.
1. There are no apparent uprisings among the populace, outside the tiny and hunted Rebel Alliance; revolutionary fish swim among the popular sea, but it’s apparent from all the “hidden bases” that the Rebels can count on no help from the population of any established planet.
2. Commerce appears to be continuing, implying that the Empire is doing its duty by maintaining order, which under almost all circumstances brings some support from at least the commercial classes. As demonstrated in the prequel films, much of the economic activity of the galaxy is dependent on trade, and the commercial classes represent a lot of people.
3. The military, aside from the cloned ground arm, seems highly professional and staffed by people who are dedicated to their jobs and who seem to believe in the Empire even after it has seen defeat and stalemate; states have a difficult time attracting such devoted followers unless there is a popular belief in the legitimacy and value of the state. Even Luke, who like all whiny teenagers “hates the Empire”, was planning to go to the imperial academy and join its military before being gulled into taking the job as triggerman for the Rebels.
4. Indigenous non-spacefarers seem to live peacefully even cheek-by-jowl with Imperial facilities, at least until Rebel agitators arrive and – through deception and manipulation of the low-tech indigenes’ religious beliefs, a deception and manipulation apparently extremely common to the so-called “good guys” – drag them into the conflict.
Such popular support isn’t surprising. On balance, the Empire is the good guys. Sure, there are excesses. Nobody is saying that what happened to Alderan was acceptable. But the people responsible – the individual “bad apples” – are dead, so it’s time to move on and accept that responsible government of the galaxy is going to involve some centralization, some truncation of the powers of the hereditary nobles and priestly castes, and some reallocation of political power into the hands of the people.
Go Empire, beat Rebels!
I beg to differ. I think it’s safe to bet that the Empire, with its Nazi helmets and Nazi uniforms and “Chancellors” and its revolving door of evil German/Nazi-looking officers with disturbing lack of faith, that the Empire is supposed to be like the Nazis. Thus, while that means they’re probably rabidly popular on their home planet or so, they’re probably mostly just feared by everyone else. The construction of the Death Star points to this; one of the guys celebrating its construction explicitly says “no star system would dare oppose us now” (or something to that effect), implying that the Rebel base wasn’t their only target. They had relatively constant uprisings to worry about.
Also, simply the fact that Rebel Alliance has a fairly formidable starfleet suggests broad based support and resources. No ragtag, stinking guerillas, they. It would be the equivalent of facing a homegrown resistance that, instead of using car bombs, deployed aircraft carriers.
The Empire actually follows a path similar to many historical banana republics. It only lasts 20-25 years (estimating Luke and Leia’s age at the end of Return of the Jedi), and actually falls fairly quickly after completely abandoning democracy. (The way the officers talk about the Imperial Senate in the beginning of Episode IV suggest that it still has the power to obstruct their plans when it wants to – of course, immediately afterward Vader and that Grand Moff guy walk in to announce that the Senate’s been permanently dissolved.)
Finally, let’s not forget the extended ending in the Special Edition version of Episode VI, where all those various planets were shown cheering at the Empire’s collapse. Granted, this was the same Special Edition that made Greedo shoot first, but that Lucas is terrible at handling character is no reason to suppose he has no understanding of the politics of his own created universe. He wrote two and a half hours’ worth exposition of it in Episode II, after all.
Wow. Even in an already geeky thread, this stands out as superbly geeky. I bow to you. :-)
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I suppose it would be even more geeky and worse to reference the Star Wars books on this matter? There are plenty of books that talk about the evil shit the empire did, and the ramifications of it.
There are also books that talk about how what’s left of the empire is actually a pretty good place to live, and a libertarian one.
I think it’s safe to bet that the Empire, with its Nazi helmets and Nazi uniforms and “Chancellors” and its revolving door of evil German/Nazi-looking officers with disturbing lack of faith, that the Empire is supposed to be like the Nazis.
On the other hand, it was the rebels whose ceremony at the end of Star Wars resembles a scene in Triumph of the Will I like to think that Lucas was acknowledging the ambiguity of the situation and the potential for evil inherent in any government or potential government. But he probably just thought it looked kind of cool.
Robert:
Well, that there aren´t uprisings hardly means that the people support the empire. Terror is the way to keep people from uprising. Second, it seems unlikely that the empire has the support of most of the people in the galaxy, since it has racist nature (human ruled only), and races like the wookies were reduced to slavery. Third, doesn´t the rebelion counts as an uprising of the people? Four, yes, commerce is maintained…people, even opressed, continue usually to live their normal lives as much as that is possible. That doesn´t prove anything.