Super-Man or Super-WIMP?

This may be a bit of a niche topic, but it certainly fits the theme of this website well. It refers to editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes’ decision to quit working for the Washington Post a few weeks ago after they rejected a cartoon of hers which was critical of the various billionaires lining up to plunge their faces into Convicted-comma-Rapist Donald Trump’s soiled diaper and lick the shit off his disgusting, shriveled balls.

Other cartoonists already made their own statements of support for Telnaes right away, but I wanted to come up with something that was as much about the issue she quit over as it was about her or the cartoon in question—especially after I saw how relatively mild that cartoon was.

To be clear, when I say “relatively mild,” this is not meant as a slight against Telnaes—arguably the deftest caricaturist in the field right now—or her work, which I respect and admire a great deal. On the contrary, the last time I recall being aware of one of her editors rejecting something, it was one of the most vicious cartoons I’d ever seen (NOTE: Normally I’d link it here, but I can’t seem to find a copy anywhere, even on her own website). I hope she’d agree with me that the paper refusing to publish something that’s pretty tame by her standards actually says more about them and their owner than if the piece had been especially savage, controversial or cruel.

Speaking of which, here’s what it says:

It says the Post is run by a bunch of self-serving, spineless ninnies who either don’t understand their journalistic responsibilities, or don’t take those responsibilities seriously, and should therefore be in a line of work more befitting their level of courage, such as carrying brooms behind horses during parades. Incidentally, they’re also deadbeats who’ve owed me money for one of my cartoons since even before they were bought by the Platonic ideal of a guillotine victim, Jeff Bezos.

It also says that Bezos himself is too much of a wuss to handle any criticism whatsoever without retreating to the darkness of his whisky cellar for a soft, blubbery cry, despite having gotten so notoriously jacked. Like a fake muscle-suit, it turns out his physique is little more than an ostentatious but mostly-empty display which can be deflated by the smallest puncture; an attempt to project strength which has the inverse effect of its intention.

Neither he nor alleged “judo master” and soon-to-be fellow divorcé Mark Cuckerberg has ever faced off one-on-one against an opponent who genuinely sought to challenge or harm them while having no consideration or respect for their money. They can’t even stand up to an elderly, obese, incontinent imbecile. I bet even Steven Seagal is tougher than they are.

No matter how much they work out or how many puffed-up martial arts accolades they buy, each will always be a pathetic, skinny weakling getting sand kicked in his face by a bully on the beach.

Anyhow, while I’m hardly the first person to compare Jeff Bezos to Lex Luthor (’cause, I mean, how couldn’t you?), I’ve for years had an idea for a story in which Lex buys The Daily Planet in order to stop them from investigating his crimes like Bezos bought the Post, and the editor as well as much of the staff quit in protest like Gene Hackman refused to return to the set of Superman II after the producers fired original director Richard Donner.

I thought maybe I could tweak that idea into a single image about this particular topic, and that maybe that way, the effort could also serve as a practice sketch or warm-up for the more ambitious concept from which it was derived.

The design here is based on the second Superman spin-off comic book series from the Silver Age, Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane, which readers of the classic but now-defunct website Superdickery will surely recognize as a frequent example of what YouTuber Huggbees once called, “the original clickbait.” This title, along with Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, often featured covers which showed Superman being wantonly abusive towards his friends, or one of the characters transformed in some ridiculous manner (such as into a wolf-man, or a “leopard girl,” or a baby… they really liked turning them into babies, for some reason), or Superman and his costars engaged in other bizarre, out-of-character antics that could only (possibly) be explained by reading whatever was inside.

I thought the notion of Superman working for his nemesis fit neatly into this tradition—it’s so obvious, that DC probably already did it several times before I was even born. The general public is familiar enough with these characters through pop-cultural osmosis to know what they represent, how they behave, and how they relate to one another, and is therefore primed to recognize the inherent absurdity of the situation: Superman shouldn’t be begging “Lois Lane” not to dump him while Lex Luthor bosses him around! He should be hauling a broken Lex off to prison while Lois reports on whatever that bald asshole did to earn his latest beating from the Man of Steel!

We’ve got a Multiverse of Lexes right now, from the Kevin Spacey-like Bezos, to Gene Hackman’s tackily-dressed, bloviating dipshit in a hairpiece, to Jesse Eisenberg’s watersports fetishist, to I don’t know what the hell Elon Musk is even supposed to be, so let’s just call him “Lex Loser.”

SUPERMAN, CAN YOU HEAR ME? SUPERMAN, WHERE… ?!