October 31st, 2016
Descent of Man
by Wayno & Piraro
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(Any cartoon may be embiggenated by clicking any shadow in that image.)
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Wow, what a week, Jazz Pickles. First, let’s discuss today’s Sunday cartoon, shown above. As a residence of the Los Angeles area for the past five years, traffic is always on my mind. This is a place with too many cars, which is why my beloved Olive Oyl (O2) and I ride motorcycles whenever we can. California is the only state where it is legal to ride between lanes and in LA traffic, it is often the only way to get home from the grocery store before tomorrow.
But on a larger scale, the world is a crowded place with far too many humans. It’s a complicated issue; you can’t just say “stop having children,” because a) most people won’t and b) the way our societies are structured, economies begin to crumble when the population becomes old and unable to work and there aren’t enough youth to take their places and keep the wheels of commerce going. So unless we really want to return to a pre-civilization style of living off the land––which only a tiny minority of modern humans even know how to do anymore––we’re stuck. I don’t have a solution for the world, but as for ourselves, O2 and I are moving to a small mountain town in Mexico that hasn’t got a single stop sign or traffic light. Please do not follow us; there are enough people there already. And if Trump wins the election and Americans start pouring over the border in hoards, we’ll have to build a wall.
Confidence in a job interview is an important thing, so this guy decides to go all in with a truly Trumpian effort. I’m guessing he won’t get the job and I pray Trump doesn’t, either.
Here’s a very weird take on the cartoon cliche of a mob guy dumping someone into the East River with cement shoes. And why is it always the East River? Why not the Hudson, which is just on the other side of Manhattan?
More fun with another mob cartoon cliche can be found here.
Lots of people told me they enjoyed this take on the Little Red Riding Hood fable. When I first wrote it I worried that it might be too lowbrow for my readers, but based on the response I got, I’m thinking most people still enjoy a good butt joke from time to time. Who am I to judge what makes people chuckle?
This cartoon was the story of the week here at Bizarro Headquarters. As most readers know, I submit these cartoons around four weeks before the publication date. That’s not because I’m always ahead of my deadlines, believe me––it’s because the industry requires it. When I wrote and drew this cartoon in late September, I thought it was a hilarious gag and couldn’t wait to share it with you. What I did not count on, of course, was that Anthony Weiner would be in the headlines again on the same day. It was sheer coincidence, but as a result, the cartoon got a lot more Internet play than it might have otherwise.
The success of this cartoon, however, only barely helped to mitigate my dismay at FBI director Comey’s unprecedented and clearly partisan decision to drag Clinton’s emails back into the headlines. As a reasonable, intelligent person who is not terrified by non-white people, gays, or women in power, I fear for my country’s future should something as stupid as this email story be enough to tip the polls in Trump’s favor on election day.
Readers of my cartoons and this blog usually know where I stand politically and sometimes criticize me for taking sides. But I think that a fundamental aspect of democracy––a system in which everyone gets involved in government by voting––is that everyone should get involved in the process. That means everyone speaks their piece. And in this case, with such a profoundly unqualified, egomaniacal, racist, sexist, compassionless charlatan as Donald Trump standing this close to the most powerful office in the world, everyone needs to speak up. If he gets elected, America will get what it deserves. And it won’t be pretty.
And what will we learn from the email scandal? Nothing. There’s nothing there. No email will be found with the kind of smoking gun that Republicans are hoping for like Clinton saying, “I can’t wait to be president and poison the nation’s water supply so that I can sell the country to China while our citizens are puking!” The most one can say she is guilty of is putting classified information on a private server. Colin Powell did the same thing when he was secretary of state and he was a big, tough, military guy. I don’t think either of them had ill intentions in doing so, I think it was likely a case of a couple of older people not innately understanding computers and the Internet well enough to realize how dangerous it could be, and foolishly opting for convenience. That’s not a crime, but it is foolish, which is likely why no one has admitted that stupidity was the impetus.
One last bit: It’s fun to read someone’s personal emails in a voyeuristic sense and that’s why this is a story at all. That, and the fact that political committees can decide to investigate anyone for anything and they know full well that the investigation is the damning part. It doesn’t matter if anything is ever uncovered or proven, voters are leery of a politician being investigated, whether they deserve it or not.
In the 70s, Nixon ordered a burglary of the offices of the Democratic National Committee to attempt to get private information and gain an unfair political advantage. We know it as “Watergate”. This was widely seen as a criminal act that was beneath the office of the President, and correctly led to the ouster of Nixon and much of his administration. The private emails recently stolen from the Democrats’ computers and published by Wikileaks are the same thing: stolen property in an attempt to gain political advantage. The real story is the theft, because no matter how hard they try, they’ve found nothing condemning in the emails.
My last cartoon of the week takes a shot at “preppers”. I think pretty much everyone who is not a prepper can agree that those people are nuts.
Thanks for reading, Jazz Pickles. If you think my cartoons and ideas are worthy of your support, please consider making a donation or becoming a monthly supporter of Bizarro. Most people see my work for free online and newspaper revenues are shrinking, so your support is much appreciated. You can look into doing that here.
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