Charlie Brown

« Well, that was the silliest tea party I ever went to! I am never going back there again! » — Lewis Carroll

One more item unearthed while rummaging through my unsorted boxes: a couple of back issues of The Funny Times, one from 2010, the other 2013. The former held a fascinating exercice by Herblock prize winning cartoonist Ward Sutton, skewering and subverting the conservative ‘mindset’ from within. Not an easy trick to pull off convincingly, I would think; yet it’s one of Sutton’s specialties, having honed it to perfection — of a sort — as The Onion‘s longtime political cartoonist (since 2006), fictive curmudgeon “Stan Kelly”. Here’s a trove of Kelly pieces, which The New Yorker deemed “brilliantly terrible”.

Given the recent rash of controversies — in a long row of such skirmishes — regarding cartoonists’ freedom of expression, this piece sadly remains pertinent.

Of course, B.P. barely feels like parody, given B.C. creator’s Johnny Hart mesolithic views. A couple of samples from a 1999 interview: « *Jews and Muslims who don’t accept Jesus will burn in hell* », « *Homosexuality is the handiwork of Satan* ». [ source ]

Ah, yes — that nonsense about Obama’s birth certificate, another MacGuffin in a seemingly endless parade of conservative bugaboos.

By most accounts, Herbert Hoover was a pretty lousy president, though everything’s relative.

Another fine myth, that of a liberally-biased media.

***Teanuts*** goes right back to the first Peanuts strip (Oct. 2, 1950) for its inspiration (though not its aspect ratio, for some reason).

Here’s a pearl: « *simply, homosexuality can be healed. That is, a homosexual can become a heterosexual; the homosexual orientation can be changed through prayer for inner healing and the power of the Holy Spirit.* ». [ source ]

Again, *Diligent-Bert* hews so close to its model that it might easily pass for an actual Dilbert strip.

Incidentally, “Tea Party Comics”, commissioned by The Boston Globe, hardly passed unnoticed: it reaped a gold medal from the Society of Publication Designers.

The feature was accompanied by this deadpan caveat: « EDITOR’S NOTE: Ward Sutton, an elitist who lives in the elitist New York area, is a cartoonist, illustrator, animator and painter who has recently been lurking about the back of Tea Party gatherings, stuffing his pockets with American flag cookies, and brochures for camouflage underwear and mail-order ammo. Superpatriot and regular guy cartoonist Joe Smith disavows any knowledge of Mr. Sutton and his ilk. Need I say more? »

-RG

« There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people… Religion, Politics, and The Great Pumpkin. » — Charles M. Schulz

And… we’re back, as promised, in time for our sacrosanct (or should that be ‘impious’?) annual Hallowe’en Countdown.

I’ll keep it brief, as we’re still in the middle of an arduous longish-distance move. Oof!

To kick off this edition, I thought I’d reach for a true classic of the season. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to claim that few (if any!) have done more to disperse the pumpkin seeds of Hallowe’en than Mr. Schulz has — but in his ubiquity, he’s easy to take for granted.

Here’s a handful of choice strips from my favourite Peanuts period, the mid-to-late 1960s, just before Snoopy more-or-less pulled the lead rôle from under good ol’ Charlie Brown’s feet, to the strip’s detriment… though its decline was an elegant and leisurely one.