I find myself continually frustrated with the political process, in large part because the people who seem to question it also seem unwilling, or unable, to access it.The great success of the Civil Rights Movement and, to a lesser extent, the Anti-War Movement, was the grassroots actions that did not simply confront the system but […]
Matt Bors, with a correction to a current news story.I stopped off yesterday at Akwesasne, the Mohawk community that straddles the border they don’t admit exists, as part of my book-promotion tour. One of the women at the cultural center had provided me with some guidance for a character, a Mohawk trapper, and I wanted […]
The Classics Illustrated version of “In The Reign of Terror” set me on a road that I am on today, quite literally.I’m not sure whether I read it when I was 10 or 11, because I was in the same cabin both summers, but it was definitely in the summer and definitely in Algonquin.Classics Illustrated […]
This Real Life Adventures ran November 30, 2001, and has been a favorite of mine ever since.If you’ve been reading the blog for awhile, you’ll know that “Classic” postings are code for my being out of town and unable to post. In this case, I’m back home in the Adirondacks, where people indeed have tree […]
Rabbits Against Magic tackles the really irrational part of sports superstitions.As opposed, y’know, to the rational part.I’m fairly tolerant of player superstitions: If not stepping on the first base line as you head back to the dugout at the end of an inning, or wearing a particular T-shirt under your pads, or not shaving before […]
Jeff Danziger covers the coverage.I am so glad to be out of the newsroom.I used to come into the briefing every day with at least two stories already working, just to avoid being assigned something stupid. When that didn’t work, I’d try to talk the editor into an angle for the assignment that wasn’t, well, […]
I think it took Richard Thompson a few strips after his enforced layoff to get back in the swing of things over at Cul de Sac, but he’s back to knocking them over the wall on a regular basis. This is the opposite of Saturday Night Live Syndrome, where, a few seasons in, you learned to […]
Our Constitution gives us the right to free speech. It is true that no freedom is absolute and is subject to certain reasonable limits but, at the same time, it is also true that the freedom of expression cannot be curbed at the flimsiest excuse.Yet, over the years, an atmosphere of intolerance has been created […]
I have previously expressed my affection for strips that stick something permanently in your mind. Today’s “Home and Away” does a masterful job.I’ve worked as a pizza cook, which wasn’t terribly successful, since there’s a lot of fast hand-eye work involved. I was much happier when they moved me to the grill, which involves more […]
Tom Tomorrow on the continued predominance of the “We had to destroy the village in order to save it” school of economic policy.For those too young to remember, that phrase comes from a point in the Vietnam War when it was decided to move peasants from villages in vulnerable rural areas to brand new villages […]
This is a page from “Congo 50,” a graphic novel produced by a group of Congolese artists to mark the nation’s 50th anniversary.You can read the first chapter here, plus get an insight into the purpose and process. I wish the pages had been done in a higher resolution or larger size, but I was […]
At his LATimes blog, David Horsey asks, regardless of how you feel about which one should run the country, which one would you have rather known in high school?I’m less willing to separate the issues. The child most assuredly is father of the man.And it can work both ways: Some bullies, in the process of […]
My life, as drawn by Sandra Bell-Lundy in today’s “Between Friends.”And it’s worse than this.The best part of telecommuting is that you can sit at your computer all day in your sweats. And, since everyone who knows your work is hundreds of miles away, if you need to go out and buy groceries, you don’t […]
Amid all this talk about same-sex marriage, there’s still a lot of regular-old-marriage out there to be mined for humor, or maybe for contemplation, and two of the better storytelling strips out there are doing wedding arcs at the moment.Or maybe not.Arlo and Janis is more of a “you got that right” strip than a […]
The gay marriage issue has divided editorial cartoonists this week.Not so much between “For” and “Against” as between “Timely” and “Whoops.”After Joe Biden’s remarks Sunday, there were a raft of cartoons criticizing Obama for not also speaking out in support of gay marriage. And then, on Wednesday, just about the time all those cartoons were […]