Cartoon: Too Petty To Talk About


Another comic drawn by Mr. R. E. Ryan!


In July 2023, Emily Yahr wrote an article in the Washington Post about the irony of Luke Comb’s cover of Tracy Chapman’s song “Fast Car” being a smash hit on the country charts, since when “Fast Car” originally came out, in 1988, a queer Black women would have had a great deal of trouble breaking into the country charts.

Yahr tweeted her article with a two-tweet thread:

As Luke Combs’s hit cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” dominates the country charts, it’s bringing up some complicated emotions in fans & singers who know that Chapman, as a queer Black woman, would have an almost zero chance at that achievement herself:

A recent study from @data_jada and @jadiehm shows that fewer than 0.5 percent of songs played on country radio in 2022 were by women of color and LGBTQ+ artists, and were largely excluded from radio playlists for most of the two decades prior.

Then, literally hundreds of right-wingers responded – ignoring that Yahr has specified “the country charts,” ignoring the second tweet entirely – by pretending Yahr was so ignorant that she thought “Fast Car” had never been a hit for Chapman.

Of course, Yahr never thought that – her article mentioned that the 1988 “Fast Car” reached number 6 on the Billboard Top 100. But right-wingers were having too much fun talking about what an idiot the female lefty writer was – what she actually wrote was irrelevant. (And honestly, probably almost none of them bothered reading the article.)

This was, even at the time, obviously the sort of flash-in-the-pan controversy that no one remembers three weeks later. I wrote a very short thread about it on Twitter.

One self-proclaimed leftist responded to me:

Let people enjoy their entertainment of choice w/o submitting it to a racial examination. Why isn’t Springsteen being played on hip hop stations? C’mon. Lefties have more important things to do than look for ‘racism’ everywhere.

I replied:

“Lefties have more important things to do…” But nothing more important to do than trying to discourage other lefties from talking about racism?

And that exchange was what inspired this cartoon.

I wouldn’t have bothered doing a cartoon if that was the only incident. But that person’s reaction – “lefties have more important things to do than” talking about [fill in some issue the speaker doesn’t care about, or is opposed to the social justice view on] – is one I’ve seen many times over the years, and it always bugs me. Because if what I’m talking about is too petty to be worth talking about, then isn’t you telling me you find it petty even pettier, and therefore even less worth talking about?

(Man, this is definitely getting too long to fit on one page of the reprint collection. I wonder what I’ll cut out? Oh, well, that’s future Barry’s problem.)

When I say I’ve seen it “over the years,” I mean that literally. I wrote a very long blog post dismissing the “pettiness” charge… back in 2006.

Someone named Chuck had responded to a list of “male privileges” I had compiled when I was in college. (The list is still circulating around online and given as a handout in Freshman gender studies courses, and honestly may be the most widely-read thing I’ve ever written.)

Chuck wrote:

We have women on this planet with REAL PROBLEMS and we’re going to fill our list with entries about our clothes and our weight issues?

My response to Chuck was too long for me to quote the whole thing here, but here’s part of it:

Chuck’s standards are unreasonable. Is there anyone who ignores all local issues so long as, somewhere in the world, someone is suffering worse? Pretty much anyone who isn’t concentrating full-time on the genocide and mass rapes going on in Darfur can legitimately be said to be using their time on something other than the most immediately pressing issue in the world today.

(Every time I see this critique of feminists, I’m struck by what hypocrites the critics are. I’ve never seen a “how dare feminists write about makeup” critic whose own writings didn’t include some less than earth-shaking concerns. Chuck, for example, has recently posted about the etymology of “y’all” and about what’s on the telly (he’s pissed that American Idol is so popular, and I can’t blame him). Since Chuck doesn’t write exclusively about immediate life-or-death matters, why does he think it’s fair to hold me to that standard?)

Not only is it an inevitable human condition that most people are interested in analyzing what happens in their daily lives, it’s probably a good thing. A feminist movement that considers day-to-day sexism too petty to ever discuss would be ivory-tower and snobby. A well-rounded feminism – like a well-rounded life – should include many concerns and many approaches. The demand that we ignore “petty” local issues is a demand that we stop acting like human beings.


Obviously, my cartoon doesn’t get into all that. (Maybe I should do another cartoon about pettiness?) It does, however, touch on the hypocrisy I wrote about – how the people condemning us for including what they consider unimportant issues, never subject their own views to the same scrutiny.


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels. All of them show different scenes, but all of them focus on the same character – a thirtyish, square-jawed guy with short light brown hair and a seemingly permanent scowl on his face. Let’s call him SCOW (short for scowl).

PANEL 1

Scow is sitting and typing at a computer in his apartment. He’s wearing an undershirt. In the background we can see city buildings and the sun high in a blue sky.

A word balloon shows us what Scow is typing.

SCOW: Why are you talking about racism in music? There are more important things!

PANEL 2

Scow is now sitting up in bed (he has a nice bedroom, with dark wood furniture and framed art on the wall), wearing red jammies and intently typing on his phone.

SCOW: Time spent talking about race could be spent talking about something important!

PANEL 3

Scow is apparently at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner – there’s a big turkey on the table. He’s wearing an argyle sweater vest and talking intently to the unfortunate 12-ish looking girl sitting next to him. (His mouth is full, and little bits of food are coming out.) The girl looks annoyed and is rolling her eyes.

SCOW: Who cares about race and casting? There are more crucial things to talk about!

PANEL 4

Scow is now back in his apartment – it looks like a living room – wearing VR googles and (presumably) talking to someone in VR. He’s waving his arms as he speaks.

SCOW: Why do they always make a white character Black when they remake movies? They’re obsessed with race!

PANEL 5

This is the same scene as panel 1 – Scow is sitting in his apartment typing on his computer. The window in the background now shows stars and a moon. Scow is leaning his head heavily on one hand, presumably because he’s exhausted but well into the “I can’t go to bed, somebody is wrong on the internet” zone.

SCOW: Don’t we have more important things to focus on?

PANEL 6

Scow and a friend are sitting on a park bench hanging out. Scow is talking to the friend; the friend is reading his book and seemingly paying no attention to Scow. (I mean, I’m assuming that the guy is Scow’s friend, because that’s what I said when I wrote the script, but nothing in the panel establishes that, maybe this is just some random stranger that Scow sat down next to and started ranting at, in which case, wince.)

SCOW: And these ridiculous people spend all their time talking about the same unimportant things!

SCOW: Over and over!

SCOW: They never stop!


Too Petty To Talk About | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Race, racism and related issues, Racism | Leave a comment  

Cartoon: THEY MURDERED MY CHILDHOOD!


This cartoon was drawn by the wonderful cartoonist Jenn Manley Lee. (The link goes to Jenn’s long-running science fiction slice-of-life comic, “Dicebox,” which I highly recommend).

Jenn writes:

I know there were a variety of reasons Barry asked me to illustrate this cartoon, from the chance to create a couple of thematic costume designs to giving a smack up the head to those idiots howling about a ruined childhood because something was created not specifically for them. (By the way, in the absence of time machines, the only way to ruin a person’s childhood is if they are still going through it.)

It was also fun to come up with a classic skimpy, bondage adjacent costume for the original heroine design —complete with high heels— while being mindful of aspects that could be reinterpreted into an updated and more practical design. I chose a “G” logo mark in order to unite them more clearly. That “G” could stand for Glory, Gladiator, Girl or, heck, even Gynephilic; I’m not choosy.

I also took pleasure in ignoring Barry’s “stage directions” in order to have the two versions grab coffee (or tea, tisane, hot cocoa, etc.) in order to discuss things further. Like civilized folk do.


Jenn is one of my oldest friends; she and I met in cartooning circles back in the 1980s, and we traded self-xeroxed minicomics. I think that many artists, when young, learn a lot more craft through competing and comparing and trading tips and shop talk with their young artist peers, and Jenn and I definitely did that for each other.

Jenn has a huge toolbox of cartooning techniques, and I think that shows even in this simple four-panel cartoon – her grasp of colors especially is far beyond my own. (Jenn has done coloring work for most major US comics publishers.)

Although Jenn and I have known each other forever, we’ve almost never collaborated. I asked her to draw this one because I thought she’d be great for the challenge of designing both the  sexified original and the 2020s “reboot” of a made-up character. In my script, I suggested a superhero themed character, but Jenn suggested a Roman themed character instead (with a bit of a “She-Ra” influence – Jenn and I both loved the recent-ish, controversial She-Ra redesign), and the results look great.


Jenn’s work has tended more towards action/genre comics, while my work has been more cartoony. I thought Jenn’s rough sketch for panel four didn’t have enough exaggeration in the poses, so with her permission I did a few sketches (based on the poses she’d already chosen) to suggest slightly bigger poses and bendier spines.

Jenn added a lot to the script – not by changing the words, but with what she did with staging and setting. (My script originally called for grotesque babies with adult heads for panel four, but Jenn wanted to change that and I think she was right). And lots of excellent details – the tapping on the window in panel three, the eye-rolling clerk in panel four – were Jenn’s.

Jenn named the comic book store “HEY KIDS! comics,” which I loved but there was just no way to avoid it being covered up by word balloons. But someone should get to see it! So, here you go:


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels.

The first three panels feature the same two women in each panel. Or maybe a woman and a teenager. They’re both dressed in stylized Roman soldier outfits. The older woman, on the left, is dressed in what the artist called a “bondage adjacent costume,” with straps and high heels and a skimpy one-piece made of brown leather. She’s wearing pteruges – you know, straps hanging down from her waist to sort of form a skirt.  She also has an amazing mane of red hair cleverly arranged to resemble a Roman Galea helmet.

The younger woman, on the right, is wearing a brown leather vest over a dark green bodysuit, flat boots, and a Roman Galea helmet. She has protective armor on her forearms and calves.

Both of them wear red capes and carry round shields and swords. The older woman’s shield features a stylized letter “G” in yellow on a red background; the same symbol, in the same colors, is on the younger woman’s belt. I’ll call the two characters “Original G” and “New G.”

PANEL 1

The two women are back-to-back and in a battle, fending off swords left and right. They’re in a building with pillars. In the background, we can see ancient buildings, an active volcano, and what I think is a dragon flying.

Despite all this, the two women are calmly and cheerfully chatting with each other. (I love that, and that was all Jenn.)

ORIGINAL G: Who are you? You look familiar…

NEW G: I’m you! A redesigned version of you, anyway.

PANEL 2

The two women are now at a little table in front of the display window of a modern comic book store. They’re both carrying coffee. Original G is sitting down, while New G is already seated, legs crossed at the ankles, looking relaxed.

ORIGINAL G: So does this mean I don’t exist anymore?

NEW G: Nope – there are thousands of toys and comics and animations with you that no one can take away! But now my version of you exists, too!

PANEL 3

Original G leans towards the display window, tapping on it like people tap on goldfish bowls. On the other side of the window, we can see action figures of both versions of G, displayed on pillars.

ORIGINAL G: I get it. This way, we can entertain different audiences, right?

NEW G: Exactly! Who could complain?

PANEL 4

We’re now looking at the cashier counter in a comic book store. A tired-looking cashier leans on one elbow, rolling her eyes. In front of the counter, two adult men are screaming in horror. One man, in a green shirt, is holding out a comic book with the “G” symbol on the front cover, wide eyes staring at it. The other man is actually sitting on the floor, hands tearing at his hair, legs kicking like an unhappy toddler, as he stares at an action figure of New G.

GREEN SHIRT: THEY MURDERED MY CHILDHOOD!

HAIR PULLER: THIS IS THE WORST ATROCITY OF ALL TIME!


They Murdered My Childhood! | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Media, Popular (and unpopular) culture | 43 Comments  

Cartoon: The Union’s Demands Are Impossible!


“Carmakers Say They Can’t Afford UAW Demands, While Paying CEOs $1 Billion” —Financial Post, October 13, 2023

“GM lavishes shareholders with cash weeks after saying it couldn’t afford workers’ demands”—CNN, November 29, 2023

During the recent (recent as I write this, in November 2023) auto workers strike, I saw many online prognosticators explain that it was impossible for the auto makers to agree to the UAW’s demands, as the expense would drive the companies our of business. You can’t get blood from a stone and all that.

Now the auto makers have agreed to the bulk of the union demands, and I will make a prediction: The companies will still be in business a year from now. We’ll check back in and see!


The night after I’d finished the linework for this cartoon, I was lying in bed and thought “I should set two of the panels at night, to make it clear that we’re looking at two separate scenes, not a single scene.” And I very clearly pictured the first panel, with the night sky visible behind the characters.

The next morning, I looked at the cartoon and saw that I’d completely misremembered the perspective I’d used in panel one – a perspective that makes it impossible that any sky would be seen at all. No matter; I just made panels three and four nighttime panels,

Looking at it now, I wonder if I didn’t overdo it – the change in color scheme is so striking that it might detract from the gag. But on the other hand, the challenge of figuring out nighttime colors (something that I very rarely do in these cartoons) ended up being a lot of fun. It’s always possible that a year from now I’ll look at the art and wince, but right now, I think it’s pretty attractive, and hoping it’ll be enjoyable for you folks to look at.


As for the gag – I have to admit, the right wing character in this cartoon, with her absolute shamelessness, amuses me a lot. It’s much more frustrating in real life, alas.


I thought this cartoon was finished, but then realized that I hadn’t show the phone screen glowing in the final panel. I initially shrugged and said “oh well, next time,” but it kept bugging me so I went back and added the glow.


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

The entire strip features the same two characters walking and talking. The first character is a woman who keeps her black hair pulled into a bun; she has large round glasses and is carrying a smartphone. Let’s call her BUN. The second character has brown hair in a sort of pageboy with bangs, so we’ll call her BANGS.

PANEL 1

Bun and Bangs are walking on a suburban sidewalk. Bun is holding out her smartphone to show Bangs some story she’s just been reading; Bangs is reading something on her own cell phone. Bun is looking a little panicked.

BUN: Have you seen these striking auto workers’ demands? The raises they want are literally impossible!

BANGS: Actually, the news just said the car companies agreed to the union’s terms.

PANEL 2

A close up of Bun, holding up a forefinger and looking just a little smug and pleased as she makes a prediction. Behind her we can see a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.

BUN: Yeah? Well, just you wait—a year from now, all the auto companies will be out of business!

PANEL 3

A big caption at the top of panel 3 says ONE YEAAR LATER.

Time has passed, but Bun and Bangs look much the same, although they’re now in different clothing, and it’s now nighttime. They’re walking on top of a hill and talking. Both of them are cheerful in this panel.

BANGS: So last year you said auto companies would be out of business by now. Since that didn’t happen, have you rethought anything?

BUN: I never said that.

PANEL 4

Bangs is taken totally aback. Bun is looking at her smartphone and finding something new to panic about.

BANGS: What? But you—

BUN: Hey, fast food workers are on strike! A year from now, a Big Mac will definitely cost $40!


The Union’s Demands Are Impossible! | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Union Issues | 3 Comments  

Cartoon: Only SOME Can Be Objective

Scroll down for a transcript

Another cartoon drawn by Nadine Scholtes! As well as drawing this cartoon, Nadine made a crucial contribution to the script; she suggested making the final panel a thought balloon, an idea I immediately agreed to.


This cartoon was directly inspired by reporter Felicia Sonmez’s lawsuit against The Washington Post. From her complaint:

Defendant Barr stated that, by speaking out publicly, Ms. Sonmez had “taken a side on the issue” of sexual assault. He also told Ms. Sonmez she was “trying to have it both ways” by publicly disclosing her own assault and continuing to report on the topic. Defendant Ginsberg raised his voice and told Ms. Sonmez that it would present “the appearance of a conflict of interest” if she continued to report on Kavanaugh or any other issues related to sexual misconduct. […] Defendant Barr stated, “We don’t have reporters who make statements on issues they are covering. We don’t want the external perception that we have an advocate covering something she has experienced. He added, “The work you do intersects with what you experienced in your life.” Ms. Sonmez noted that this is no different from any other reporter in the newsroom.

Importantly, these concerns about conflict of interest didn’t always extend to Sonmez’s male colleagues:

Around the time that Ms. Sonmez was interviewing for her position at the Post, she was told about a male colleague who faced sexual misconduct accusations including sending an unsolicited photo of his underwear-covered crotch to a young woman. Defendant Baron never ordered that the reporter be banned from covering stories related to sexual misconduct or inappropriate behavior by men. Upon information and belief, none of the reporter’s editors said his writing on the topic would present a “conflict of interest” or questioned whether he was capable of objective reporting. He was given a prominent position, wrote more than a dozen stories that touched on these issues and continues to do so today.

But that’s hardly the only case I had in mind. In 2018, messages from a private discussion group for journalists – one that had no (out) trans members – were leaked. In one of these leaked messages, Jesse Singal – probably the most prominent reporter on trans issues in mainstream publications – wrote about “groupthink” among trans people, implying that not being trans makes Jesse Singal better at writing about trans issues.

But…trans people, like members of any other group, have their own prevalent forms of groupthink. Time and time again my reporting and research has conflicted with what [the biggest-name trans activists have] told me[.] On other issues, of course, I would trust trans people more than anyone else—who better to talk about the humiliation of living in a state with a ‘bathroom’ bill, or the difficulty of getting hormones, or other stuff that only trans people have to deal with? But overall, no, I don’t think trans people are more qualified to write about the tricky science stuff going on here than I am.

(Since writing that, Singal has apparently removed “the difficulty of getting hormones” from his list of topics that he thinks trans people might know more about than Jesse Singal.)

Ironically, the leaked messages displayed their own form of “groupthink,” as members of the forum rushed to agree that Singal’s reporting is perfect and the many, many criticisms of his work from trans people were, without exception, irrational and meritless.

I’ll mention one last example (although there are certainly more I could mention): in 2020, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette barred two Black staffers from reporting on Black Lives Matter. One of the staffers had tweeted a sarcastic comparison between “looters” and tailgaters; the other seems to have been excluded due to the “conflict of interest” of being Black.

Joshua Axelrod, a white reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, tweeted about a looting suspect and referred to them with a vulgar slur. Though Axelrod was reprimanded by his editors, he was not prohibited from covering BLM content like Johnson and Santiago were, despite the obvious show of bias. […]

Tony Mosley, a host with National Public Radio (NPR), has argued that newsrooms who bar Black reporters from covering BLM are essentially saying that “white journalists just by default are neutral and objective and they can cover everything, but somehow [Black journalists] can’t cover [their] own communities.”


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has three panels – although the final panel is divided into two sub-panels, as we shall see.

PANEL 1

In a newsroom (we can see a desk, and framed front-page stories on the wall), an older reporter, who is white and male, is talking to a younger Black reporter. The older reporter is wearing an off-white shirt with a red necktie; the younger reporter is a bit more casually dressed in a gray polo shirt. Let’s call the older reporter “NECKTIE.”

Necktie has his arms folded behind his back, and a condescending expression.

NECKTIE: Percy, you can’t write about police violence. You’re not objective.

PANEL 2

We are looking at Necktie again. In the background, we can see a young male reporter, with a red shirt and glasses, and a younger female reporter, wearing a jacket over a light pink blouse, both sitting behind desks.

NECKTIE: Just like Joey can’t write about trans issues.

NECKTIE: And Alicia tweeted about being sexually assaulted. So she can’t write sex crime stories. Reporters must be objective!

PANEL 3

This panel is divided into two sub-panels. The first panel shows Alicia, having stood up, speaking critically to Necktie; Necktie has his arms folded and is grinning.

ALICIA: But by that standard, isn’t everyone “biased”?

NECKTIE: Not quite everyone.

A thought balloon leads from Necktie’s head to the second (and larger) sub-panel. This panel shows Necktie, now wearing a jacket, a crown, and a sash that has “cis white male” printed on it, standing on a little platform so he’s above the other three reporters. The other three reporters are enthusiastically cheering for Necktie, and Alicia is swooning a bit with little hearts in the air around her head.

Behind Necktie is an enormous lit-up sign – the kind with a border made of light bulbs. The sign says, in large letters, “ALWAYS OBJECTIVE.” Balloons and confetti and roses fall from above. The balloons have lettering, which say things like “upper class” “white” “cis” “male” “abled” “thin” and “straight.”

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” means easily-overlooked and meaningless details in a cartoon the cartoonists put in, which maybe you (and they) find amusing. In this case, the chicken fat can be found in the framed newspapers on the walls in the background.

In panel 1, there are two such newspapers, each partly blocked by foreground elements and by word balloons. Both of them are for a newspaper named “Background Tribune.”

The first is almost entirely blocked by Necktie standing in front of it. But since I wrote it, I know that it says “NO ONE CAN READ THIS! Virtually Entire Text Hidden By Drawings.”

The second article is less blocked, and says “KISSINGER DEAD. Sun Shines Bright, Babies And Unicorns Celebrating.” (Although I wrote the script for this cartoon years ago, I added in the chicken fat on November 29 2023, the day Henry Kissinger died.)

In panel 2, the newspapers on the wall are such tiny elements of the background that I doubt anyone will be able to read them online (although they might be legible in the eventual book collection). The first says “NO ONE CAN READ THIS! This Text Is Simply Too Tiny To Be Legible.” The second says “NO ONE CAN READ THIS ONE EITHER. This Gag Is The Same As The Other One.”


Only Some Can Be Objective | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Media, Media criticism | 12 Comments  

So Much In Common


Robert Wright writes:

But then I remembered a conversation I had a few years ago with a psychologist at Boston College named Liane  Young. She and some colleagues had done research on how Palestinians  and Israelis view their conflict and found that the two groups have  something in common: Both believe that people on their side of the fight are motivated more by love for one another than by hatred  of people on the other side, but that on the other side it’s the other  way around: there, people are motivated more by hatred of the enemy than by love of one another.

The Palestine/Israel Pulse, an annual survey of Israelis and Palestinians, also found some disturbing commonalities:

As  in previous surveys, levels of trust in the other side are very low:  86% of Palestinians and 85% of Israeli Jews believe the other side is  not trustworthy.

Each  side perceives itself as an exclusive victim (84% of Palestinians and  84% of Israeli Jews), while an overwhelming majority of Palestinians (90%) but only a smaller majority of Israeli Jews (63%) think this suffering grants them with a moral right to do anything they deem as  necessary for survival. A vast majority among both groups (93%) see  themselves as rightful owners of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river. While a third of Israeli Jews are willing to  accept some ownership right of the Palestinians, only 7% of Palestinians  are willing to accept such idea about the Jews.

* * *

No issue depresses me more than the Israel-Palestine conflict. October seventh made me feel physically ill, and I couldn’t write new cartoons for a month after, because nothing else seemed as urgent but writing a cartoon about Israel and Gaza felt impossible.

Eventually, I forced myself to write a few cartoons about Israel and Gaza. The best of the scripts – this one – is actually a remake of a cartoon I did ages ago (15 years? 20?), Such An Easy Mistake To Make.

What Hamas did on October 7th was incomprehensibly awful. What Israel has done since is also incomprehensively awful. It’s a hideous situation.

I don’t think peace is impossible. But to even begin diplomatic steps towards real peace would require new governments on both sides of the conflict. That’s a big ask, and even if it happens, it would be lead not to peace but to yet more big asks which would be required before peace could happen. I like to bring some optimism into these notes accompanying the cartoons, but regarding Israel and Palestine, I find it very hard to feel hope.


I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each panel shows the same scene: Two women on a suburban or urban-but-not-the-core sidewalk. It looks like winter; the women are both wearing puffy jackets, and the trees are bare.

The woman on the left has black hair in a ponytail, is wearing a dark purple knit hat, a blue puffy coat, and dark pants. Let’s call her HAT.

The woman on the right has round glasses, reddish-brown hair, and is wearing a black puffy winter vest over a long-sleeve shirt, and a polka-dot skirt. Let’s call her SKIRT.

PANEL 1

Hat is holding her phone away from her face, as if she just finished a phone call. She’s got her back to Skirt, but is looking in skirt’s direction, and is slightly surprised to be addressed. Skirt is speaking to Hat with a sincere expression.

SKIRT: Excuse me… I overheard what you said on the phone, and I completely agree! This whole war comes down to the right to self-defense.

PANEL 2

Hat has turned towards Skirt. Both women have somewhat angry expressions, but the mood (I hope) isn’t yelling at each other, but a mutual griping session. Hat has lifted one hand in an “explaining my point” gesture, while Skirt has her arms akimbo.

HAT: Exactly! No other nation is expected to endure attack after attack without fighting back!

SKIRT: It’s unfortunate that some civilians die. But we’re not the ones who started it!

PANEL 3

They get more into their griping; hat is holding her hands in fists and leaning forward, and Skirt is waving her arms and leaning forward.

HAT: Right! They could end this anytime, but they don’t want to!

SKIRT: We’ve got no choice! We’re defending our right to exist!

PANEL 4

Hat turns a bit away as the conversation ends. Both of them look very pleased. The dialog this panel is all in thought balloons.

HAT (thought): So nice to meet another Israel supporter!

SKIRT (thought): So nice to meet another Hamas supporter!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

In panel three, there’s a newspaper littering the ground. If you look super closely, the paper has the headline CARTOONIST LOSES PATRONS, and in smaller print, “Whoops! Says Drawing Man.” The newspaper’s photo shows a stickfigure man shrugging.


So Much In Common | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, International issues, Palestine & Israel | 32 Comments  

Cartoon: Nonbinaries Don’t Care About Your Bullshit


This cartoon is drawn by Nadine Scholtes.


People online who hate nonbinary people are strikingly bitter about it, and for no reason I can understand. “What’s wrong with these people?” they growl, and go on and on about how “narcissistic” they think nonbinaries are. Ask them for an example of how nonbinaries being more open these days has caused actual harm and they flounder.

Although I made up the name “Big Doug,” the tweets in this cartoon are taken almost word-for-word from real tweets – including pretentious sign-off line “that is all,” which is so cringeworthy I just had to use it here.

The non-binary folks I’ve met – many of whom are really young – are on the whole a cheerful and relaxed bunch, and their willingness to play around with their gender presentations is not only fun, it’s exactly the way I was hoping gender would go if you’d asked me thirty years ago. Gender presentation as a plaything, and a way of expressing creativity, is infinitely better than gender presentation as obligation or jail cell. 

I’m very happy with the art in this strip – and especially with the contrast between the desaturated colors of the first three panels (meant to reflect the emptiness of bitterly sneering at other people for their gender presentations) versus the much happier and more vivid colors in panel four. (And that cat-bag in panel four is so great!)


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. The first three panels show a man sitting on a sofa in front of his coffee table, and with a laptop on his, er, lap. Let’s call him “Big Doug.” He has his blonde hair combed back neatly, and is wearing a dark button-down shirt over blue jeans. A carton of take-out Chinese food, a soda, and a TV remote sit on the coffee table. His home, or what we can see of it, is large and nice, but also severely underdecorated (there are no pictures on the walls) and the lighting is desaturated and dull.

In each of the first three panels, the top of the panel is taken up by an image of the tweet Big Doug has just posted. (We can see on the tweets that “Big Doug” is the name he uses for his Twitter account.)

PANEL 1

Big Doug leans forward with an eager expression as he types on his laptop. Big Doug has just posted a tweet which says…

TWEET: There is no such thing as “non-binary.” It is a recent invention by people who want to identify as “Look at me.” That is all.

BIG DOUG: Hah! That’ll really piss the little freaks off!

PANEL 2

Big Doug leans back with his arms folded and an expression of someone who is happy with the job he’s done. He winks.

TWEET: Non-binary is the way ‘normies’ get to include themselves in the alphabet soup. That is all.

BIG DOUG: Maybe I “triggered” them and they’re too sad to reply. Ha! I bet the non-binaries are crying!

PANEL 3

A long shot shows Big Doug dwarfed by his high-ceilinged den. He looks puzzled.

TWEET: ‘Non-binary people must be respected.’ No, they do not. Reality must be respected, not delusions. That is all.

BIG DOUG (thought): Still nothing? Where are the non-binaries?

PANEL 4

We are outdoors; the sky is a bright blue with some small fluffy white clouds, and green trees frame the panel. Two young people are seated on a park bench, and a third, with pink hair peeking out from under a brown cap, leans over from behind the bench to show them something on their smartphone. All of them are dressed in bright colors (tending towards pastels in the case of one of them), and seem engaged and cheerful.

PINK HAIR: There’s a new k-pop dance. Wanna learn it?

PURPLE JACKET: Yes!


Nonbinaries Don’t Care About Your Bullshit | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues | 2 Comments  

Cartoon: Generations


This cartoon was drawn by the remarkable Nadine Scholtes.


I don’t believe in generations.

Or at least, I don’t believe in generational personalities. It’s like astrology; it’s fun to make huge sweeping generalizations about big groups of people. More than fun, it’s sort of a human instinct. And as harmful as this instinct is sometimes, it’s probably not too harmful when it comes to astrology. Or generations.

And now that I’ve typed that, I’m filling up with doubts. Surely going through huge events – like 9/11, or the Great Depression or the rise of the Internet – has an effect on people’s personalities?

Maybe. But on the other hand, it’s not there was only one generation around and being influenced when 9/11 happened. There are six living generations, as they’re generally measured, around at any moment, and all of them are potentially being changed by big events.

Plus, it’s not as if any of us have a mass mind. (Not until Lex Luthor succeeds in creating his massmindification device, anyway). So, sure, I went through a lot of stuff other folks of my age went through, but that doesn’t mean I have much at all in common with most of them. Honestly, I can’t even make conversation with most people my age. (Or any age.)

But one thing that is eternal is that a lot of folks in older generations – and, having had my fifty-fifth birthday just yesterday as I write this, I have to ruefully admit that I’m approaching “older generationhood” myself – will be absolutely convinced that the current young adult generation is ruder, stupider, and less capable than their own generation was.

It’s silly and wrong. But on the other hand, those young adults will have their chance to grow old and condescend to the youngsters, too, so in a way it all evens out.


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each of the panels shows the same two characters; a doctor, who is a white man in his forties, and a patient, who looks to be in his sixties at least. We’re in a medical examination room; the patient is sitting on the examination table, while the doctor stands.

PANEL 1

The doctor is holding an otoscope (which is that thing they use to examine ears). (Did you know that thing’s called an otoscope? I didn’t, I had to google it). The patient is not yelling or anything, but he’s sort of ranting a little.

DOCTOR: Hold still while I look in your ear.

PATIENT: i bought a coffee and this young “barista” was so rude!

PANEL 2

The doctor, wielding the otoscope, is peering into the patient’s ear with an expression of concentration. The patient is warming up to his rant.

DOCTOR: Mm hmmm

PATIENT: i swear these millennials are the worst!

PANEL 3

The doctor has crossed the room and is putting the otoscope away in a drawer (which means I won’t have an excuse to repeat the word “otoscope” in the next panel, alas). He has kind of a bored expression. The patient looks very surprised by what the doctor is saying.

DOCTOR: Actually, sir, I’m a millennial. We’re old now.

PATIENT: Really?

PANEL 4

The doctor is now holding a clipboard. (Instead of an otoscope.) (Ha! Found an excuse!) The doctor is looking amused, while the patient looks affronted, with his arms crossed.

DOCTOR: Yup. We’re all picking on gen Z now. but in a few years we’ll switch to gen Alpha.

PATIENT: Dammit! Why didn’t I get the memo on this?

CHICKEN FAT

Chicken fat are meaningless details that cartoonists sometimes put into cartoons to amuse ourselves. In this case, there’s a framed poster on the wall in the background. In panel 1, the poster has a realistic image of a human heart, with the caption “YOUR HEART” and then in smaller lettering “is kinda gross looking.”

The poster isn’t in frame in panel two. In panel three, the poster shows a cartoon doctor (who looks like a Muppet to me) glaring out at us. The caption says “Please tell the doctor your self-diagnosis you found online. Doctors love that.”

In panel 4, the poster of the doctor is still there, but the caption has been replaced with a lot of tiny, tiny text. The tiny text says: “I can’t believe you’re reading this tiny print, it’s not at all interesting. Watch tv instead. I honestly feel a bit guilty putting this here because I’m totally wasting your time. It’s just meaningless background text. On the other hand, it’s not like you’d be curing cancer if you weren’t reading this. But that’s okay. You’re good as you are. Read tiny print if you want to.”


Generations | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics | 3 Comments  

Cartoon: G.O.P. Approved History


Welcome back to artist R. E. Ryan! This is the second cartoon he’s done with me; I certainly hope there’ll be more.


In 2019, the New York Times published The 1619 Project, an anthology of essays and other works arguing that slavery has had an enormous impact on U.S. history. (The title is a reference to the first year enslaved Africans landed in the colonies).

Republicans immediately set out to ban The 1619 Project from public schools. From Wikipedia:

Donald Trump, in his final few months as president of the United States, vowed to ban the 1619 Project from state curricula, accusing educators of teaching their students to “hate their own country.” Echoing Trump’s proposal, Republican lawmakers also sought to ban the project from state curricula; bills were introduced by US Senator Tom Cotton at the federal level, by State Representative Mark Lowery in Arkansas, by State Representative Skyler Wheeler in Iowa, and by Senator Angela Burks Hill in Mississippi. By the end of the summer of 2021, 27 states had introduced bills echoing the language and intent of Cotton’s bill.

Under Ron DeSantis, the 1619 Project was banned from being taught in Florida public schools, first by a 2021 Florida State Board of Education amendment banning critical race theory and again in 2022 by the Stop WOKE Act.

Some Republicans have proposed laws to ban teaching lessons that could make white students feel bad. From CBC:

A Florida state senator is pushing back on a bill aimed at protecting white people from feeling “discomfort” or “guilt” while learning about racism in the nation’s past.

The Republican bill — called “Individual Freedom” — would prohibit private businesses and public schools from training staff or students about racism in U.S. history in a way that makes them feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.”

One thing I found telling about the criticism of The 1619 Project is how many of their arguments were about how innocent white people were. For example, a well-known science fiction writer argued that the slaves brought to Virginia in 1619 were “captured by Africans and sold by Africans.”

That’s somewhere between misleading and just false. The enslaved people in question were from Ndongo. The particular soldiers who captured them were a mix of Africans and Portuguese. But who ordered them to do that?

The person who pushed gave the orders was Luís Mendes de Vasconcellos, who Portugal had placed to be governor of Angola. De Vasconcellos chose to go to war specifically because he wanted to profit from capturing and selling slaves.

De Vasconcellos was white.

His underlings who administered the sales were white.

The money from the sales went to white people. (And, ultimately, the king of Portugal.)

That’s hardly the only example. Well-known conservatives have argued that the people brought to Virginia in 1619 were indentured servants, not slave. (False.) They have argued that in 1780, Pennsylvania was “the first time that any country, any government, any legislature” had passed anti-slavery laws. (Ridiculously false.)

What this all has in common is a desire, among conservatives, to teach an alternate history in which white people are always totally and completely innocent.

This cartoon attempts to make fun of that, in ways that are completely silly and that I enjoy a lot.


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each panel shows a different scene with different characters.

PANEL 1

A bald white man wearing a brown suit is speaking directly to the reader. He has a gun-shaped flame lighter in one hand, a flame coming out the end, and a book in the other hand. The book’s title is “Woke Gender Stuff,” and the book is on fire.

MAN: You’ve probably heard woke liberal media lies about Republicans banning books from schools. But we love learning! We just want students to hear the truth! So sit down and learn some G.O.P. APPROVED HISTORY.

(The last three words of the Man’s dialog are in huge, friendly letters, forming the title of this strip.)

PANEL 2

Two Black men are wearing Victorian-era suits and ties; one is wearing a tall black top hat. They are seated in plush armchairs in what looks like an exclusive men’s club; they are smoking cigars and drinking from wine glasses. 

The first man grins as he speaks to us; the second man is leaning forward in his chair, as if he’s intent on us getting this point.

1st MAN: I’m a Black African in 1526! My friends and I created the intercontinental slave trade and whites had nothing to do with it!

2nd MAN: Remember that, kids – whites are totally innocent!

PANEL 3

A modern-looking boxing ring. There are two boxers in the ring. The one on the left, who doesn’t look very strong, is wearing a royal crown over a white powdered wig, red boxing gloves, and a “Che” t-shirt. The one on the right has red hair, is shirtless (and has huge muscles), has stars-and-bars themed boxing gloves and shorts, and has a giant tattoo covering his back which says “We The People” in the distinctive handwriting of the Declaration of Independence. 

Let’s call them KING GEORGE and THOMAS JEFFERSON. George looks tired, while Thomas looks very energetic and is grinning at us.

KING GEORGE: I’m King George (they/them), here to fight Tom Jefferson!

JEFFERSON: I’m Tom Jefferson! I invented freedom. I’m so kind to my slaves, and did I mention I’m definitely not a rapist?

PANEL 4

Abe Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and Jesus have their arms around each other as they smile out at us. Abe is wearing his signature top hat and holding a can of beer. Jesus has a halo floating over his tricorn hat, is gently glowing all over, and is wearing a yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” t-shirt.

LINCOLN: I’m Abe Lincoln, and I’m a Republican! That’s all you need to know about me.

REAGAN: I’m Abe’s best friend Ronald Reagan!

JESUS: And I’m Jesus! We’re all Republicans!


GOP Approved History | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Colonialism, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc., Education, Free speech, censorship, copyright law, etc. | 10 Comments  

Cartoon: Some Things Straight People Can Stop Saying


This cartoon is by Becky Hawkins and I.


Quite a while ago, I did a cartoon like this about Cis people, and someone on Facebook (someone I knew at Oberlin in the late 80s, who is himself gay) commented “PLEASE do one of these but for straight people.” It went into the idea folder and sat there quite a while, gradually building up more scripted panels over the years, until there were enough panels I felt confident about to be a whole cartoon.

I offered this to Becky to draw, because I know she likes drawing what she calls the “bunch of jerks genre.” Becky also wrote panel seven (the “don’t want to look good” panel), which is now my favorite of these panels.

(“Wrote it?” says Becky. “I lived it!”)

Panel eight – the “what a waste” panel – went through the most redrawing after Becky had completed pencils. Here’s how Becky initially drew that panel:

As usual, Becky and I discussed the work in progress in chat. Here’s some of our conversation:

BARRY: My only critique is the “what a waste” panel. I feel that people usually say it as though it’s a compliment – “you’re so pretty/handsome, it’s a shame it’s being wasted” – rather than aggressively or angrily, like this guy. And also, his left arm looks WAY bigger than his right.

BECKY: This has nothing to do with any Lasso/transformation alternatives to redrawing on my part 😅

BECKY: I can turn “what a waste” hornier 😆

BARRY: Yes, “hornier'” was the word I should have said.  😛

(After Becky redrew the face a bit.)

BARRY: I feel like the eyebrows are moving the expression away from horny.

BECKY: Eyebrows updated.

(Barry pastes an image of a horny face into the chat.)

BARRY: “So what did you do at work today, son?”  “I google image searched for horny faces.”

BECKY: 😬 I don’t know if it feels better or worse that we needed to go outside our selves to get that face right.

BECKY: 😓 I’m an ACTOR! I can DO horny!

BARRY: LOL I can’t. When I was at summer camp, we were doing a sketch for a camp show, and my character was supposed to do a “oh my God she’s so hot I’m dying” comic reaction.

BARRY:  And I. Could. Not. Do. It.

BARRY: I remember Dave Wain, Craig Wedren and Stuart Blumberg – who all went on to successful show business careers – at rehearsal, demonstrating to me over and over what comically horny looked like, and I kept trying to imitate them and failing, until we finally gave up and rewrote the sketch.


As always, thanks for supporting these cartoons. It means a lot to me – it makes my life possible, it means I can pay awesome collaborators like Becky, and most of all it means that there are people out there who appreciate the work we do. Thank you!

Extra thanks this time to patron Aiko Bethea (who is also thanked in the sidebar). Aiko, if you’d like a digitally signed print of this cartoon (or any other cartoon you choose) mailed to you, let me know!


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has nine panels, arranged in a three by three grid, with nine different brightly-colored backgrounds making a sort of patchwork effect. Each panel shows a single character talking directly to the reader.

Below the bottom of the cartoon is an additional tiny “kicker” panel.

PANEL 1

A smug-looking guy with a beard and curly hair is waving a miniature queer pride flag (specifically, the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag, which has a circle on top of a series of triangles on top of colored stripes) as he speaks.

GUY: Look at what a great ally I am! I totally get what you people go through!

PANEL 2

A blond guy with wide eyes is pointing back and forth at us (as if moving his pointing finger rapidly between two people), and is grinning past a hand held in front of his mouth.

BLOND: So who’s the man and who’s the woman?

PANEL 3

A large man with spikey brown hair and a chin-only beard is waving a hand, his other hand on his hip, as he speaks with a somewhat aggrieved expression.

MAN: When’s straight pride? Huh?

PANEL 4

A young woman with her brown hair in a high ponytail, and with a tattoo of a fairy (er, the magical creature) on her upper arm, sticks her tongue out and makes a disgusted expression.

WOMAN: That’s so gay.

PANEL 5

This is the center panel, and a bit over half of it is taken up by large, friendly lettering which says: SOME THINGS STRAIGHT PEOPLE CAN STOP SAYING

Below that, an older woman with gray hair and glasses looks a little bit confused.

WOMAN: But you don’t look gay.

PANEL 6

A young woman (or a teen) with blonde hair is talking to us with a big grin and pointing rapidly at three different off-panel people.

GIRL: Do you think he’s hot?

GIRL: How about him?

GIRL: How about him?

PANEL 7

A woman sporting carefully done hair, cascading down to below her shoulders, a made-up face, and large earrings, looks confused as she speaks to us.

WOMAN: Can you explain to me why lesbians don’t want to look good?

PANEL 8

A middle-aged man wearing a polo shirt grins lasciviously at us, one eyebrow raised, as he pulls at the side of his collar in a “wow it’s hot in here” gesture.

MAN: You’re a lesbian? Man, what a waste.

PANEL 9

A woman with an annoyed expression is holding two children – a baby in one arm, and a toddler in the other. The baby’s onesie has “Heartbreaker” printed on the front, and the toddler’s t-shirt says “Ladies Man.” 

WOMAN: Why must you people flaunt it?

TINY KICKER PANEL BELOW THE BOTTOM OF THE CARTOON

A man wearing glasses and a green shirt is talking to Barry. He’s pointing up and to the left (towards panel one). Barry is looking really nervous as he replies.

MAN: By making this cartoon, aren’t you like panel one?

BARRY: It’s different because… um…


Some Things Straight People Can Stop Saying | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues | 8 Comments  

Cartoon: Why We Need Don’t Say Gay Laws


This cartoon was drawn by the wonderful Nadine Scholtes. The unicorns and rainbows were Nadine’s idea, and I love them.


From the Associated Press:

Top officials at a Florida school district ordered the removal of all books and material containing LGBTQ characters and themes from classrooms and campus libraries, saying that was needed to conform to a state law backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that critics have dubbed “Don’t Say Gay.”

Charlotte County Schools Superintendent Mark Vianello and the school board’s attorney, Michael McKinley, were responding to questions from the district’s librarians at a July meeting asking whether the bill, officially the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, required the removal of any books that simply had a gay character but no explicit sex scenes.

(After a lot of outcry, they allowed a handful of books with lgbtq characters into high school libraries.)

PEN America maintains an index of school book bans. They found that, in one year, 1,648 different books were banned. The largest category of banned books – 674 books, or 41 percent – were books that “explicitly address LGBTQ+ themes or have protagonists or prominent secondary characters who are LGBTQ+ (this includes a specific subset of titles for transgender characters or stories—145 titles, or 9 percent).”

As far back as the 1980s, I remember noticing that conservatives treat straightness as incredibly fragile; the slightest little contact with homosexuality, or even the idea of homosexuality, would turn any child queer faster than you could say “Liberace!” Or that’s how they acted, anyway.

In the present day, the idea that queerness is contagious is pushed especially hard by transphobes. Hugh Ryan writes:

Conservatives have been pushing two related theories to explain this uptick. First, there’s the “social contagion” theory, which holds that in a world drowning in representations of heterosexuality and cisgenderness, meeting a single trans person, reading a book with a bisexual character in it, or encountering nonbinary pronouns on TikTok can totally destabilize the identity of an otherwise “normal” child. It’s amazing how fragile heterosexuality and cisness are in this formulation—almost like they’re socially manufactured identities, backed by huge amounts of ideological infrastructure, peer pressure, media recruitment, and social policing. Well, I guess conservatives aren’t wrong about everything.


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon ahs four panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel below the bottom of the cartoon.

PANEL 1

Two teenagers are standing in a library, and talking directly to the reader. Billy, the boy, is wearing a football uniform and carrying a football. The girl, Sally, is wearing a cheerleader outfit. Billy has his arm around Sally’s shoulders, and Sally is affectionately holding the arm.

BILLY: Hi! I’m Billy Allamerican, and this is my girlfriend Sally.

SALLY: We’re both extremely typical heterosexual high schoolers!

PANEL 2

A person wearing a rainbow-colored sweatshirt, matching their rainbox colored hair, and wearing a big peace sign pendant, and a pinback which says “THEY THEM,” comes in, talking to Billy and Sally. They’re holding up a book with a sparkling cover with the title BE GAY. Billy looks surprised, and Sally looks puzzled.

BILLY: Oh look, it’s Ms Woke, our school librarian!

WOKE: Hi, Kids! Have you read this gay book?

SALLY: What’s “Gay”?

PANEL 3

This panel has a large caption at the top, which says “LITERALLY ONE DAY LATER” in pink lettering.

The panel shows Billy and Sally, standing out on a field. There are smiling unicorns with rainbow manes and tails rearing up on either side of them, and a rainbow behind them. Everything is sparkling.

Billy is now dressed and posed as a stereotypical flaming gay man, wearing a pink shirt and tan capris. Sally is wearing black boots with big buckles and dark shorts and shirt, and is holding an electric razor and shaving one side of her head. Even though it’s been barely a day and her legs were totally hairless in panel one, we can see hair growing on her legs. 

BILLY: Now that we’re gay, Sally, I’ve quit the football team to become a communist florist!

SALLY: That’s so cool, Billy! I’m going to shave my head and become a witch!

The panel border between panels 3 and 4 is a thought balloon.

PANEL 4

The right panel border of panel 3 is a thought balloon border, which leads to the head of the first speaker in panel 4 (indicating that panel 3 was in his imagination). There are two guys here; they’re sitting at a bar, with beers in mugs.

The first man is a gray-haired man with a beard and mustache, wearing a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a red necktie. He’s holding up one finger as if he’s making a point. We’ll call him NECKTIE.

The second man is bald and a little chubby, with a beard and mustache, and wearing a red plaid shirt. We’ll call him PLAID.

NECKTIE: And THAT’S why we need “Don’t Say Gay” laws!

PLAID: Makes sense.

TINY KICKER PANEL UNDER THE BOTTOM OF THE CARTOON

Necktie and Sally (with a crew-cut and wearing dark makeup) are talking; Necktie is in a panic, while Sally is cheerful.

NECKTIE: Why would anyone be straight if we let them know there are other options?

SALLY: Exactly!


Why We Need Don’t Say Gay Laws | Patreon

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