God-Man: Year Two Thousand Eleven

It was kind of a slow week in terms of news, so I hope you readers can forgive the delay in updates. At the beginning, the big news was Michele Bachmann’s victory in the Ames Straw Poll, but that was immediately overtaken in the news cycle by discussion of an apparently impressive write-in performance by Texas Governor/gun nut Rick Perry, or as I like to call him for his history of executing the innocent and the mentally-impaired, “The Texacutioner.”

Besides the Texas Governorship, another thing Perry seems to share with our last President is being a total idiot. Unfortunately, eight years of George W. Bush (well, four if you don’t count the time he spent on vacation) kind of tapped the keg dry when it comes to new ways to say “he dumb,” so I wanted to draw a cartoon that did something other than comment on his deep, caveman-like brow.

Instead, I decided to focus on his plans for America: how to solve problems like economic chaos, unwinnable wars, social divisions and bizarre weather patterns which surely have nothing to do with Global Warming? Why, hold a prayer summit organized by a designated hate group where you ask God to fix it! If that doesn’t work, well, y’know… He works in mysterious ways; throw another tire on the fire and hand me a shank of Poor Person.

The Governor appears to be far more devoted to his religion than W. (except for the positive parts, of course), but I didn’t want to just slam Christianity in general, so after considering a gag that had Perry leaving tons of messages on God’s answering machine, I finally went ahead with a reference to Batman.

The skyline depicted in the second panel is Austin, Texas, and the spotlight for the “God Signal” is coming from the general location of the capitol building.