Ghouls of the Media

I said what I had to say about the Newtown massacre over the weekend (though the topic is certainly coming up over at Editorial Explanations, my other blog -- look for a bunch of cartoons with bizarre slants tomorrow).

But I do have to note one particularly slimy sidenote.

My last name is Wheeler; one of the kids murdered in Newtown had the same last name. And Newtown is less than a hundred miles away from me, which is practically next door, in US terms. There's no connection, as far as I know -- Wheeler is a common name.

But there was a call, from some random reporter from my local paper, on my answering machine yesterday. I have to assume they sat someone down with a phone book and a list of last names of the dead, to scare up potential relatives who might give a sad quote to their fish-wrap.

And at moments like that, I'm happy that the US newspaper industry is in such decline, if this is how they work a major story. It's disgusting, stupid, and a massive waste of time, all in the service of "human interest." And The Wife wonders why I'm such a misanthrope!

In Which I Casually Mention My Other Blog, As If In Passing

If I were a more diligent blogger, keenly attuned to maximizing my personal brand online and leaping on every opportunity for self-promotion -- you know, the kind of thing that I tell my authors to do all day long? -- I would be posting here at least once a day with some kind of reminder about my other blog, Editorial Explanations.

(As You Know, Bob, Editorial Explanations was a series of posts here before I decided it made more sense as a standalone -- so it's only separate to make it better indexed and cleaner. This blog is "stuff I want to talk about on the Internet," so I still consider Editorial Explanations a subset of the greater Antick Musings world-domination engine.)

On the other hand, I did say for the first five years of this blog that I wasn't going to talk about politics here, because that's a quick trip into crank-dom. So maybe I just want to have it both ways. (Or maybe I'm trying to make Editorial Explanations more of a meta-commentary -- media criticism, to be grandiose about it -- and less about my particular political views. That's the hope, anyway.)

So: if you like, pretend that I have a really promotional post every single day, urging you to check out Editorial Explanations and the other awesome sites in the Antick Musings Network. With that, and some judicious theft of underpants, I'll be well on my way to profit!

Thoughts on Editorial Explanations

It's hell, trying to live up to your own expectations.

I have an image in my head of what Editorial Explanations -- that's my new blog, which launched out of this one, and is still going, over there {gestures vaguely}, in case you've forgotten -- is supposed to be, but I disappoint myself pretty regularly.

It's not supposed to be me making fun of political cartoons that express an opinion I disagree with, since that would just be petty and partisan. (And, likely, not very interesting or fun for long.) But I feel myself always sliding in that direction, and always trying to take a colder look at cartoons and asking "is this one really hard to understand, or do I just disagree with it?"

I also think I've been posting too many cartoons, in the spirit of playing with my new toy as much as possible -- Editorial Explanations should focus on the bizarre, inexplicable, utterly lame, and incomprehensibly brain-damaged, no matter what their political stripe is. And there aren't a dozen cartoons that weird every day. (At least, I hope not -- all of those odd foreign ones I've been adding to the queue are just that horrifying because I don't understand the context, right?)

And, finally, I'm beginning to wonder about myself, because the day right after I finish my big "Book-A-Day" project here, I dove into this new thing -- which wasn't even one of my front-of-mind ideas for the next blogging project. I may need to be kept busy, for my own or everyone else's good.

Editorial Explanations Is Moving

Well, it's moved, actually.

As I've been making those long posts full of editorial cartoons this last week, a nagging thought stayed in the back of my head. "These really should be posted one cartoon per post," I thought, "and tagged by cartoonist." I finally realized that this thing really would work better as a blog of its own, and now it is one.

All of the "Editorial Explanations" posts here have been sliced into their component cartoons and posted over at the brand new blog Editorial Explanations, plus a few new cartoons from today.

While building Editorial Explanations this afternoon, I realized that my RSS feed link for Antick Musings was broken, as was the "subscribe via e-mail" link. I've fixed both of those, which may make reading Antick Musings more convenient to some of you. Editorial Explanations has both kinds of subscriptions as well, and its smaller posts might be more helpful for slower connections as well.

Editorial Explanations isn't quite complete -- I do want to put in some kind of links-list, with as many editorial cartoonists as I can dig up, plus other resources -- but it's mostly there, and I hope you'll find it just as amusing, but more useful, than the posts of the same name here were. It should continue indefinitely, though I can't promise that I'll be explaining a dozen cartoons a day consistently.

(And that reminds me that I should do some housekeeping around here as well -- add it to the long list of things I'll get to as soon as I get A Round Tuit.)

In other Antick Musings housekeeping news, I'll note that I'm now five books behind in writing about what I've read, plus two movies. But there's always tomorrow!

Editorial Explanations: February 11, 2010

The editorial cartoonists of this nation [1] have infallible solutions for the problems of the world, and a laser-like precision in targeting those solutions. In fact, sometimes they can be too laser-like, so much so that those of us who aren't precisely in the beam of that laser can't even tell what a particular cartoon is about.

That's where I come in; I explain editorial cartoons so that you don't have to spend your days wondering what the significance of the monkey marked "The Gold Standard" was. Today's crop includes:

Richard Bartholomew, 2/11/11:
You ever heard the phrase "if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile"? Well, if you let democracy topple one Middle Eastern dictator, then you're just setting the stage for a bloody purge in US daytime television. Do you want blood in the halls of ABC? Then prop up those dictators with all your might!

Nick Anderson, 2/11/11:
If the right-wing fringe of the Congressional GOP forces a budget showdown, and really does shut down the government, it will mean the end of everything that is good and true. Just like it did in 1995.

Mike Luckovich, 2/11/11:
The camel of Freedom will always triumph over the Pyramid of Evil Dictators! ....Maybe, thirty years later. Or maybe not (Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, etc.)

Lisa Benson, 2/11/11:
Just in case any of those people out of work for a year or two are cheered up by the news that the recovery is finally getting going, Benson is here to inject the spectre of the usual big-business boogeyman, Weimar-era superinflation. Doomed! Doomed! You're all doomed!

Rob Smith, Jr., 2/11/11:
Politicians have high opinions of themselves. Although, let's be honest: no one connected with Glen Beck should be tossing any brickbats....

Mike Keefe, 2/11/11:
Kids are stupid. Also, teachers suck. And get off his lawn, while you're at it!

Steve Artley, 2/11/11:
Egyptian metaphor rundown: Camels on Monday. Mummies got Tuesday. The crook and flail was Wednesday. Thursday was for pyramids. Today is for Sphinxes. (The weekend is a bye; cartoonists can repeat their favorites or pick from the secondary menu: animal-headed gods, scarabs, blowing sands, and the ever-popular shadowy religious loonies. The first cartoonist to use the Aswan Dam in an honestly funny cartoon will win the secret prize.)

Ann Cleaves, 2/11/11:
President Obama asked everyone to be nice, and so they will. The End.

Clay Bennett, 2/11/11:
Cutting taxes at all will kill the heart of the USA. Either that, or the US just fell in (messy) love because of the arrows of the tax-cut fairy.

Paul Fell, 2/11/11:
The USA is on the verge of falling into a feral all-against-all fight for resources, in which every chickens' beak will be turned against every deformed dog's jowls.

John Sherffius, 2/11/11:
The GOP budget is not healthy for children and other living things, man. Fight the power!

Jeff Stahler, 2/11/11:
Ha ha, First Lady! A year after you told us to eat healthy, we're fatter than ever! Guess we showed you and your good intentions, huh?

Chuck Asay, 2/11/11:
Asay honestly believes that if you ask Americans directly, they'll be in favor of starving poor children to death. This explains much about his cartoons.


[1] And those of other nations as well; but the cartoons I see are mostly American.

Editorial Explanations: February 10, 2010

The editorial pages of the world's newspapers continue to feature pictures with a bewildering array of mummies, columned buildings, and funny-looking anthropomorphic elephants and donkeys. But Editorial Explanations is here to lay bare all of the secret agenda, dogwhistles, and just plain muddled concepts, in a spirit of amity and benevolence for all mankind:

John Sherffius, 2/9/11:
Ever wonder why your bathroom remodel was so expensive?

Dick Locher, 2/9/11:
Locher -- 81 and still working -- is engaging in a wee bit of generational warfare with those longhair hippie punks. What else would you expect from the longtime Dick Tracy writer/artist?

Gary Varvel, 2/10/11:
As we all know, the economy was going incredibly strongly until the unseasonable snowfalls across the country last month pummeled the unemployment rate to an incredible 383,000 last week.

Steve Kelley, 2/10/11:
Boehner's secret plan to save money on health care is to entice the nation, through his twinkly smile, uncanny tan, and copious tears, to gear up to smoking three packs a day, and then all die cleanly of emphysema.

Bill Day, 2/10/11:
Uncle Sam is inside the Tiger of Uneasy Economic Recovery, and must slide down the Tongue of Outsourcing, fight his way through the Stomach of Unfair Competition and avoid the Digestive Juices of State Communism to reach the Sphincter of Release and the light of a new stock market boom.

Steve Benson, 2/10/11:
Neil Young -- well, he's clearly riding a Crazy Horse, now, isn't he? -- is still pissed at Lynyrd Skynyrd about "Sweet Home Alabama," and has finally gone completely unhinged.

Robert Ariail, 2/10/11:
Hey, look: dominoes! Ariall's makin' like 1955 and bringing the dominoes back!

Ann Cleaves, 2/10/11:
Health care is like a ruined Greek temple, and we must tread lightly on its exposed boards, for fear of falling into the Pit of Squiggly Lines. Though, if we're smart and quick, we could jump down, get in the Dollar-Sign Car, and light off for the territory.

Randy Bish, 2/10/11:
Oh, noes! Social Security might just go bankrupt in 2037! And Congress has always been so focused on the problems of twenty-five years in the future, too!

John Cole, 2/10/11
It's fun to caricature your political enemies as fat cretins!

Clay Bennett, 2/10/11:
Boehner must hate American freedom so very, very much to keep smoking as he does.

Editorial Explanations: Emergency Update Edition

Today's regular crop is on their way -- a little late, but chugging along -- but I had to interrupt today's proceedings to bring the greatest editorial cartoon of all time to your attention. It's by the amazing quadumvirate of Matt Bors, Barry Deutsch, Jen Sorensen, and Kevin Moore, and it represents the highest pinnacle editorial cartooning has yet achieved, in this or any other country.

No explanation is, of course, necessary:

It falls short of utter perfection only very slightly, but there are white areas that could have held several more labels. Still, it's an exciting development, and I hope to see more from this amazing team.

Editorial Explanations: February 9, 2010

Looks like there's a bumper crop of confusing and bizarre editorial cartoons today, as the nation's overworked cartoonists shuffle through their mid-week doldrums just like the rest of us. Here's what they would say, if they were just a little bit clearer:

Dick Locher, 2/8/11:
Locher has a sunny, positive view of American politics, one in which Republicans and Democrats would work together to forge a better tomorrow...if only they weren't in the world's most depressing mall.

Jerry Holbert, 2/8/11:
Holbert, on the other hand, is just itching to unleash a plague of blood. On anyone.

Chuck Asay, 2/8/11:
Asay is shocked, shocked! that politicians ever go back and pass new laws that modify old ones. In other news, Asay wonders why the Younger Generation has such disrespect for the Code of Hammurabi.

Matt Davies, 2/8/11:
Businesses would really rather avoid having any rules whatsoever, if they have any say about it. Also, substituting "commas" for "commerce" is officially The Lamest Pun Ever.

Angelo Lopez, 2/9/11:
Conservative cartoonists may be mean-spirited, cruel, vindictive, overly personal and pessimistic to the point of suicide, yes. But liberal cartoonists are sappy and dull.

David Cohen, 2/9/11:
Sorry, I take that back. Liberal cartoonists can be both mean-spirited and dull!

Chan Lowe, 2/9/11:
Liberals are all secretly masochists, and crave the scorning attention of their enemies. Also, they wear fabulous purple outfits.

Paul Fell, 2/9/11:
The thing to do when gas prices inexorably rise is to increase public transit funding! No? OK, the thing to do when gas prices inexorably rise is to rationally switch to economical hybrids! Not that, either? Um, all right: the thing to do when gas prices inexorably rise is to complain loudly and not do anything about it!

Jim Morin, 2/9/11:
Hans und Fritz are alive and well -- for a few more seconds, at least -- in Florida.

V.C. Rogers, 2/9/11:
Bill's looking pretty off-model in panel four, isn't he? I think that's actually one of those sneaky interjections trying to scoot by Mr. Baldy McTable there.

Clay Bennett, 2/9/11:
If you're going to pick on a nation-famous personality, you need to do a better caricature than that.

Mike Keefe, 2/9/11:
Anthropomorphic elephants have really weirdly proportioned arms, which, sadly, prevent them from brandishing firearms for themselves. To compensate, they form commensal relationships with local NRA yellow-shirts, whose similar but distinctive disfigurements are deeply attractive to the GOP.

Scott Stantis, 2/9/11:
The Chinese are a crafty and wily people, always looking to save a penny. Also, the whole torture thing.

Lisa Benson, 2/9/11:
You make one little spill and suddenly everybody's all up in your face, man. We be drillin'; they be hatin'.

Bruce Plante, 2/9/11:
Heterosexual couples all secretly hate each other. No exceptions.

Jeff Stahler, 2/9/11:
Local politicians are fumble-fingered imbeciles who would eat paste if you let them.

Chuck Asay, 2/9/11:
The US government could save vastly more by cutting off Planned Parenthood (app. $350 million) than by poking at the defense budget ($689 billion) or the extensive Direct Payments to Old People programs ($1.4 trillion).

Steve Benson, 2/9/11:
Squinky Carter eyes and toothy Carter grin, huge Clintonian poof of white hair...which president is this supposed to be, anyway? And who gets credit for birthdays after he dies, anyway? By that count, William Henry Harrison is 238 today. Yahoo, Willie Hank!

Bob Gorrell, 2/9/11:
Those people are filthy peasants in ideological thrall to a foreign religious leader -- and that's why you should vote against John Fitzgerald Kennedy!

Editorial Explanations: February 8, 2010

Tuesday's editorial cartoons brought confusion and head-scratching to millions. But perhaps these thoughts will help:

John Auchter, 2/8/11:
That amazing technological development of the 1970s, the shelf tag, appears to have finally made its way through the dense jungle surrounding the last holdout of primitive man: Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Pat Bagley, 2/8/11:
Solar power is nice, y'know? Just really, really nice. That's all.

Jimmy Margulies, 2/8/11:
Mubarak might be a repressive dictator, but, for Israel, he's about the only repressive dictator within a thousand miles that hasn't declared a desire to immediately destroy their country. So they're not necessarily happy about the outbreak of democracy. Either that, or they just finished paying for that statue.

Nate Beeler, 2/8/11:
The promised Republican chopping of federal spending will begin with the famously wasteful Office of Dramatic Political Signs. Also, the word just is in red because...nope, can't figure out that part.

Bruce Plante, 2/8/11:
Shooting fat, drunken businessmen in the rear rarely brings immediate results. Cupid Obama should remember to buy them candy first.

Rob Smith, Jr., 2/8/11:
Talking with your mouth full is rude, and only liberals would be rude. Smith would also like to point out that ever eating anything other than celery sticks after mildly calling for better nutrition standards is so totally hypocritical, man!

Nick Anderson, 2/8/11:
Boo! Nasty theocrats! Iran in 1979! Why aren't any of you people listening to the Inevitable Drumbeat of Doooom!

Tom Tomorrow, 2/8/11:
Just like Charles Dickens, Tom Tomorrow is paid by the word.