I stumbled over the New Yorker Cartoons of the Year 2015 on the newstand and wasn’t sure at first if it was the current issue or a special, but it’s a special.Or, one might say, a softcover book with a very soft cover, since it’s basically a thick (perfect bound) magazine with the only ads […]

(Arlo & Janis) (Anne and God)Let’s start the day with this Juxtaposition.Janis is right: Market forces determine what’s available. If nobody watched the violent, fear-inducing, division-creating, hateful crap on TV and in the movies, they’d stop making it.Arlo is right: Knowing that enough of our fellow-citizens enjoy this toxic garbage to keep it around is […]

I’ll admit from the start that this is not my favorite time of year. Back in the days of listservs, I had a filter set to automatically delete any email that contained the phrase “Twas the night before,” because there was never anything entertaining in the satiric doggerel that followed.And I wish Facebook would figure […]

Tom Racine’s latest Tall Tale Radio podcast episode is now available. Head over to Tall Tale Radio and give it a listen. In this episode: Bill Morrison, whose artistic resume would take up several blog posts by itself, joins me to talk about his amazing career and the path it has taken.  From working in […]

I certainly didn’t go to bed last night wondering what today’s topic would turn out to be. Rather, the question was, which cartoon would be the lead?Clay Jones gets the nod, for having combined the central theme of weariness in his cartoon with an essay that tipped the balance in an otherwise dead heat.Not only am […]

(Jack Ohman) (Phil Hands)I’m going to start with what should be the low-hanging fruit.Obviously, the increasing threats and attacks on Planned Parenthood are tied to the increasingly irresponsible accusations against the organization. And, obviously, it is just as unfair to blame all Christians or all Muslims for horrific acts carried out by the most radical, unhinged […]

I know I’ve mentioned the documentary “Very Semi-Serious” here before. It will air next Monday on HBO. I was kindly offered a sneak peak last night (which was also the night of the screening in New York City with the New Yorker cast of cartoonists – wouldn’t that have been fun to attend).A few thoughts […]

I start each day here with a relatively clean slate, but it’s impossible not to anticipate things a bit.Sometimes it’s as direct as a cartoon posted late in the day to which my response is, “Well, it’s gonna take a lot tomorrow morning to push THAT one off the page.”And sometimes it’s less specific.I came out […]

Retail provides today’s starting point, taking us to much grimmer but not unrelated areas.On a superficial level, Marla’s right and you can’t win and I got a good laff out of that part. People want to grind axes and be offended. “Happy Holidays” doesn’t necessarily mean “Christmas and Hannukah.”For people living in less diverse communities, it […]

Sheldon muses on the dissimilarites between Greek and Roman culture and there certainly are such. Maybe the Etruscans did more to westernize the refugees from Troy who landed on their shores than we generally think.My first conflict with this topic came when Eldest Son was in third grade and remarked upon how strange it was […]

(Jimmy Margulies) (Matt Davies)These guys aren’t the only ones to comment on Pfizer’s cynical overseas move, but I like what they’ve done with the topic.For those who missed it, one way to lower your legal, if not patriotic, obligation to support the United States is to merge with a foreign company and pretend they acquired […]

Soup to Nutz nails TED Talks. When they first came along, I liked them, but they wore out their freshness early on, starting with the growing realization of how non-exclusive it is, and yet how exclusive.That is, being invited to give a TED Talk isn’t like receiving a MacArthur grant. In fact, I guess you can […]

Marla’s right. It’s a holiday and we should all be closed.Well, what we really should be doing is having Thanksgiving dinner Matt Wuerker style.*sigh*But having worked alternate holidays in the newsroom, I’m still of the opinion that the show must go on, so what I’m going to do is give you the comics and let […]

One of the best reasons to visit Cartoon Movement is that foreign cartoonists don’t do cartoons about Indians wondering if they should let Pilgrim refugees come to their country.They are also apparently not required to draw cartoons contrasting the rejection of refugees with the story of the Holy Family seeking asylum in Egypt.I have said […]

A big congratulations to a well deserving editorial cartoonist, Rob Rogers of the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, for being awarded this year’s Berryman Award for Editorial Cartooning. From the Post-Gazette: The winning portfolio included cartoons about police facing cellphone video cameras, the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris, the campaign between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders for […]