CSotD: Not With a Bang but a Twitter
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Once again a Prickly City strip defies lead time constraints, thanks to a situation that feels both predictable and insoluable.
There is a chance that Scott Stantis will get his tail in a crack one day, that some event will shake things up to the point where he's suddenly stuck with a lineup of strips that are badly outdated.
Even if the Republicans continue to pretend nothing's wrong, there's the question of how long an out-of-shape, overweight 70-year-old can be President of the United States during the day and sit up watching TV and tweeting at 3 in the morning. And that's not simply a personal attack: He had to cancel events on his overseas trip and ride a golf cart while the other G7 leaders walked.
But Nixon wandered the White House in a daze in his final months there and lived another two decades, so perhaps Trump can pull it off, though Nixon had also had eight years as Veep and about six in the big chair before the wheels began to come off for him.
Not only were his daytime duties on autopilot by then, but he was surrounded by a staff that knew what the hell they were doing.
Well, we're less than half a year into this administration and the Twitter gags are already getting tired, repetitive and pointless, though Steve Sack does find a way to freshen one in anticipation of Dear Leader's promise to tweet throughout James Comey's live testimony today.
Now, I've admittedly just used two Twitter-based cartoons, yes, but you should see the mountain of them which I'm not using.
The challenge for cartoonists is to set aside the "OMG He sure does tweet a lot!" gags and drill down to criticism of what and how he tweets, and the specific ramifications, such as attempting to undercut Comey's testimony.
For instance, Kevin Siers used the president's Twitter habit a few days ago to show both the odd way in which Trump assumed a level of panic that didn't exist in Britain after the incident on London Bridge, but also to contrast a famous statesman with a fatuous wannabe.
However, unlike Stantis who must make general points within the context of established characters, editorial cartoonists can and must be more specific and more timely.
For editorial cartoonists, "OMG He sure does tweet a lot!" cartoons are only a slight step up from retreating from the fray entirely and doing timeless, tired cartoons about debt-laden college graduates.
Thus Matt Wuerker, having just scored with the tornado-lawnmower gag featured here yesterday, follows that jab with a haymaker in response to the revelation that the Trumps have been self-dealing in order to profit from a charity golf tournament that promises to put all proceeds into cancer but, without disclosure to donors, skims excessive course fees for the family, while giving substantial "contributions" to other groups that then spend the money on golf course fees at Trump sites where they host their own charitable tourneys.
And, as Wuerker suggests, the scandal is not in how blatantly dishonest the Trumps have been in refusing to disclose their financial arrangements and in shameless self-dealing, but, rather, in the way in which the GOP delicately averts its eyes.
Juxtaposition of the Day
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(I like both of these for slightly different reasons.
Telnaes is not alone in picking up on the Godfather metaphor, but she picks exactly the right segment of the movie, though, of course, it is Don Corleone's lawyer and not the Don himself who famously shares dinner, and a warning, with that uncooperative movie producer.
I also like the contrast between that scene from the movie and her depiction: The horse's head is particularly cartoony and ridiculous, while Comey's response is hardly the screaming, horrified panic of John Marley, whom we know is about to cast his movie as he has been told.
As a result, the threat becomes foolish, absurd and — knock on wood — futile, and the threatener looks like a childish blusterer who is in over his head.
By contrast, Luckovich uses a Bond villain and shifts focus from Trump's demand to the cold eyes of the real villain, with a suggestion that the cat on his lap indeed knows all about loyalty.
His angle is to a great degree forced by this focus on Putin, but it has the additional benefit of not showing Comey's face and thus not showing any reaction. You don't see the cold response depicted by Telnaes and, in fact, you see nothing at all … except that he appears to be looking at Putin, not at Putin's cat.
As said, I like these both, and I hope to like them more after this afternoon and then into the future.
Now for some canine comic relief …
Adam@Home has headed for the basement as a storm looms, and I got an extra laff out of this one because we used to sit on the basement steps with our four dogs during tornado warnings when I lived out in Colorado.
Which, considering that's where the dogs were put when we left the house, didn't make it a particularly charming area. No, not even the time we ended up down there with dinner guests. And four dogs.
Colorado Springs is about 12 miles east of Pikes Peak, which is famously tall, which means that, since the weather generally comes from the west, you often don't see it until a few moments before it arrives.
Fortunately, one of our dogs was a Meterological Service Animal, bred and trained to detect thunderstorms a good 20 minutes before they struck and to alert us.
By vomiting on the floor.
Meanwhile, Leroy Lockhorn gets it wrong.
Them little pockets in your jeans is for poop bags.
Seems that the president of Levi Strauss was walking around in a pair of brand new boots one day when he stepped …
Here's your moment of zen
(Nice Jack Davis album cover!)
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