Editorial Ecclesiastes

D. D. Degg Published: July 13, 2025 2 minutes 1 comment

Wading over to Mike Peterson’s side on the pool.

The “New” Woke Superman

Well it seems the new Superman movie is just too woke for the right wing pundits and cartoonists.

Accusations that James Gunn has “politicized” Superman come laughably late, as the world’s most famous superhero has always been political, write narrative strategist Andrew Slack and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas.

Mike Beckom, Tribune Content Agency – July 10, 2025

The last thing I want to do is go to the movie theater and hear something that doesn’t precisely conform to my worldview.

Rex Huppke for USA Today reviews the “new, woke” character as portrayed in the recent Superman movie from the MAGA point of view, with tongue firmly planted in his cheek.

I listened to warnings about the new “Superman” movie from my friends at Fox News and others in the conservative fear-o-sphere. They told me libs had turned the Man of Steel woke. They warned the movie might propagandize me into thinking immigrants are not entirely evil.

But because I’m brave and believe in doing my own research, I decided to venture out of my Marxism-proof bunker and drive – in a gas-powered car, as God intended – to the local theater to see what the Democrats had done to my favorite superhero.

I had reason to worry. Jesse Watters of Fox News said this version of Superman “fights for truth, justice and your preferred pronouns…

Below is a panel from the first page of the first Superman story from Action Comics #1 (1938) and a news story from 1940 about others complaining about Superman’s problematic morals.

Also on the subject of not being woke is a cartooning couple from Townhall and Cagle Cartoons.

There was a time in the distant past of comics and cartoons when it was a regular part of the medium to caricature Black characters in an offensive manner:

Barney Google, Spark Plug, and Sunshine by Billy DeBeck – December 18, 1923

46 years after the above Barney Google strip and 55 years ago from this year it was still happening in the funny pages of 1970. We can say with assurance that sort of thing is in the past and isn’t seen anymore.

*Matt Margolis and John Cox – July 10, 2025*

I’m sure Margolis and Cox will be amazed as Hank Ketcham was when confronted by accusations of racism.

h/t to Clay Jones Facebook page

Color vs. Black and White, A Matter of Resolution

I have complained before of Michael Ramirez‘s over-rendered, over-illustrated editorial cartoons with an overlay of gray shading and dull colors making them virtually indecipherable on the printed page of my local newspaper’s black and white “Think” page.

Even his single figures do not reproduce good on the printed page with the fine lines disappearing:

Then I saw a Michael Ramirez cartoon reproduced without the color!

Now it is incumbent on me to write a letter to my newspaper editor to grab the black and white versions of the Creators Syndicate cartoons they publish, and maybe the syndicates and online sites can do it also and we can see Michael’s linework.

Lalo Alcaraz’s Summer of ICE

A Los Angeles cartoonist is making waves online with a painting called “Summer of ICE,” depicting an ice cream cart sitting alone on a sidewalk, but not for the reasons you might think.

“Once in a while, an image will take off,” said award-winning and nationally syndicated artist Lalo Alcaraz of the image, while acknowledging that its title is actually a play on words.

NBC4 News out of Los Angeles covers the abduction of an immigrant worker by Trump Storm Troopers and cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz‘s painting to help Enrique Lozano’s GoFundMe defense.

As a teenager and young adult I was there side by side with migrant farm workers (compared to them my field habits could barely be called work) in The Big Valley and as I moved from agriculture to industry I was still working with Mexican immigrants and U.S. citizens of Mexican descent in Central California. Living in a purple agrarian district I am amazed at the conservative people I grew up with, who know the value of and need for the migrant farm workers, cheering the ICE raids. While I cheer on Lala Alcaraz’s cartoons about the disgrace.

God Bless our Theocracy

Why I believe Trump is the Way and The Light Fireside talk. Friends, on Sunday, August 10th, at 7pm in the MAGA Sanctuary Congress-Christian Juan Ciscomani will be speaking on the topic “Why God wants us to lie for Him”.

MAGA Handmaiden Days are beginning for all girls ages 16 to 21. July 26, at 7 PM in the Primary Room. President Trump will be dropping in to visit the dressing rooms.

Trad Wife Obedience Class. Our popular class will begin in September on the 7th and last 6-weeks. Bring your Trump Bibles, aprons, knee pads and rolling pins. Butter churns will be provided.

We leave you this Sunday evening with the bulletin of The Church of the Everlasting Eternal Trump Presidency as transcribed by David Fitzsimmons.

Mike Tiefenbacher

While I broadly liked the movie, I take issue that James Gunn, creator of a SUICIDE SQUAD movie and PEACEMAKER series that would never be in danger of earning that epithet) is “woke.” In SUPERMAN, his cynical alteration of Jor-El and Lara, who in the film are depicted as to not only somehow knowing, without any ability to have visited Earth (taken from the Donner movie, not the comics), that Kal-El should take over Earth because Earth residents are inferior (taken from Mark Waid’s “Birthright,” but shown there in the end to have been an intentional hoax), something I first recall being accepted as “fact” in SMALLVILLE, the TV series that was intended to show viewers that everything they thought they knew about the Superman legend from the comics was wrong, smacks of the historical white imperialism over every “inferior” non-white race on Earth–quite the opposite of “woke.” And all the heroes who aren’t Superman don’t share his anti-killing code of conduct (note Hawkgirl’s murder of the dictator), a very cynical, non-“woke” attitude as well. It appears that the upcoming Supergirl movie will adapt Tom King’s dreadful “Woman of Tomorrow” foul-mouthed characterization of Kara as quite the opposite of the demure and role-model hero we’ve seen for most of her years since her 1959 introduction, again, hardly “woke” in any way. (And if that movie kills Comet the Super Horse as that series did–by exposing him to kryptonite, despite Comet not being Kryptonian in any way–it will show that Gunn doesn’t understand the value of licensing–in the current case, Krypto is sparking all kinds of toys and books, while Comet would seem to be even more valuable property in a couple of years–but not if he dies in the SUPERGIRL movie.)

But yes, Superman has long been the allegorical representation of immigrants in America in the comics–though until this century, he’s never declared “undocumented.”

Comments ¹

Mike Tiefenbacher

While I broadly liked the movie, I take issue that James Gunn, creator of a SUICIDE SQUAD movie and PEACEMAKER series that would never be in danger of earning that epithet) is “woke.” In SUPERMAN, his cynical alteration of Jor-El and Lara, who in the film are depicted as to not only somehow knowing, without any ability to have visited Earth (taken from the Donner movie, not the comics), that Kal-El should take over Earth because Earth residents are inferior (taken from Mark Waid’s “Birthright,” but shown there in the end to have been an intentional hoax), something I first recall being accepted as “fact” in SMALLVILLE, the TV series that was intended to show viewers that everything they thought they knew about the Superman legend from the comics was wrong, smacks of the historical white imperialism over every “inferior” non-white race on Earth–quite the opposite of “woke.” And all the heroes who aren’t Superman don’t share his anti-killing code of conduct (note Hawkgirl’s murder of the dictator), a very cynical, non-“woke” attitude as well. It appears that the upcoming Supergirl movie will adapt Tom King’s dreadful “Woman of Tomorrow” foul-mouthed characterization of Kara as quite the opposite of the demure and role-model hero we’ve seen for most of her years since her 1959 introduction, again, hardly “woke” in any way. (And if that movie kills Comet the Super Horse as that series did–by exposing him to kryptonite, despite Comet not being Kryptonian in any way–it will show that Gunn doesn’t understand the value of licensing–in the current case, Krypto is sparking all kinds of toys and books, while Comet would seem to be even more valuable property in a couple of years–but not if he dies in the SUPERGIRL movie.)

But yes, Superman has long been the allegorical representation of immigrants in America in the comics–though until this century, he’s never declared “undocumented.”

Jul 14,2025

Comments are closed.