This is Historic Times » George W. Bush

No Further Questions

deephurting — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 02:54:41 +0000

I originally wrote this gag for President Bush. In a way, that’s all that really needs to be said about Obama’s approach to the “War on Terror”–his policies have become so similar to those of the Bush Administration that they’re practically interchangeable.

I remembered the joke while trying to develop something on the Anwar Al-Awlaki assassination about two weeks ago, which was the first official targeted killing of a US citizen on charges of aiding and inciting terrorism. Additional air strikes since then have resulted in the death of Al-Awlaki’s son, so I read today.

The idea of targeted assassinations like these makes me uncomfortable. Even if the target’s a really bad person who may deserve it, I feel it’s dangerous to grant the President the same power to chase down individuals that we grant him to wage war for national defense. I also feel that assassinating terrorists before attempting to capture, try, and convict them like the crooks they are is a self-defeating strategy that only serves to inflame new, even harder to defeat terrorists, as these cartoons argued. It’s a bit like fighting bacterial infections–do so too aggressively, and even though it may kill off all the weaker bacteria, you’ll end up with stronger ones that are resistant to antibiotics.

I nearly finished this a few days after the Chris Christie cartoon, but I wasn’t happy with the results at the time, and so chose to spend more time working on it. Unfortunately, this overlapped with a trip I took to Portland, Oregon that ended up lasting much longer than I expected it to. I was staying with my sister, and even though she has a scanner, it’s of such a poor quality that it was useless to me except to sketch out colors before I could rescan the lineart with my own.

Speaking of Portland, I should probably point out part of why I was visiting, for any readers who happen to live there: I was looking for work, because I find the local arts community vibrant, and would like to move there. If anyone reading this can point me in the direction of some good job openings in the area for someone with my talents, or hook me up with some interviews, please let me know. Or, if you can’t help with that, you could put money towards helping me move, instead…

The Hand-Off

deephurting — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:40:33 +0000

I was trying to develop something on Obama’s Jobs Bill when the Solyndra scandal hit the news. For those who haven’t been following the “liberal media,” Solyndra was a solar-panel company, as well as one of the poster children for the economic stimulus program, which recently went bankrupt because of their apparently unsustainable business model–an ABC News clip which I’ve seen several times explains that they were selling them for only half of what they cost to manufacture.

As is to pretty much be expected at this point, the White House attempted to defer the blame by citing the previous Administration’s plans to deliver stimulus to the ill-fated company, while Republican representatives shot back that Bush’s people had determined the venture was too risky, and were planning to ultimately reject the project. I wasn’t sure what to think about this particular situation, but I do know there is already a history of Obama getting blamed for bills incurred by President Bush (such as TARP), and I realize most of the National Debt is the work of decades’ worth of Presidents and Congresses and wasting tons of money on dumb wars.

I developed the above cartoon along that more general track. It took quite a bit of time to finish, both because I had a false-start where I drew one of the figures facing the wrong direction, and because it took a ridiculous amount of time to color, but I’m quite happy with the results. There are a lot of puns at work here, even for me–see if you can identify them all!

This is Bat Country!

deephurting — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:23:35 +0000

Here it is, folks, my 9/11 tenth anniversary cartoon.

A little over a week ago, I read about this ~~publicity stunt~~ tribute a large number of Sunday funnies are planning on doing. While I’m sure many of those involved mean well, I couldn’t help but be immediately reminded of this Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon, originally published in late September, 2001. I feel what these newspaper comics are planning might actually be in far poorer taste than Bolling’s joke, since the latter makes a good point about the absurdity of forcing the topic of 9/11 (or any disaster with a high body count) into any and every venue of the cultural consciousness, regardless of whether or not it’s appropriate there, and the former unironically does what the parody did in jest. The idea of gag-a-day strips that are usually about things like goofy talking dogs and Vikings in the Middle Ages suddenly talking about real-world, modern terrorist attacks is about as dignified as trying to shoehorn a miscarriage arc into a bad webcomic about “gamerz” where the punchline is typically violence and/or rape.

Just look at some of these samples. Hagar the Horrible and Beetle Bailey, in particular, look like something out of a modern art museum (while Reply All, like usual, looks like something attached with magnets to a day care center’s refrigerator). If the cartoonists were doing something like using their space to draw caricatures of specific victims of the attack, that’d be swell, but wrapping their characters in the event smacks of shameless, opportunistic self-promotion.

Imagine a day where most newspaper comics are Funky Winkerbean. That’s what’s happening this Sunday.

Anyway, that’s what got the wheels turning which produced the above editorial cartoon, even though the commentary on display is pretty far removed from its inspiration, instead addressing the wider topic of something I’d call “fear profiteering.” Following the World Trade Center attacks, we’ve seen an explosion in industries that buy and sell fear: private, for-profit militaries like Blackwater and corporate propaganda bullhorns like Fox News have enjoyed terrific windfalls from such camera-friendly human misery, and they’re clearly more than happy to exploit them.

Like the Red Menace of the ’50s, the terrorist attacks have been an extremely useful tool for unscrupulous politicians as well. The pointless and unnecessary invasion of Iraq and George W. Bush’s second term arguably could not have happened without them. For Bush, the attacks functioned like his own personal John Hinkley moment, propelling a President whom everyone up to that point knew was a corrupt idiot to sudden, undeserved popularity and dangerous levels of power. This has had a domino effect: like each of the Presidents following Reagan, most of the bad things the current President pushes can probably be traced to the policies and attitudes the Bush Administration was able to advance thanks to this single, early crisis.

So, this cartoon sets out to criticize anyone who exploits 9/11. I chose vampire bats for the metaphor because they have special enzymes in their saliva that prevent blood from clotting. Similarly, I feel it’s in the best interests of organizations and people who live off the reaction to terrorism for that blood to keep on flowin’, so of course they’re going to take every opportunity to remind us of the big, scary boogeymen that are still out there, while at the same time turning what ought to be an occasion for solemn reflection on American foreign policy into a disgusting, orgiastic display of “patriotism” and hocking 9/11-themed versions of their products. Buy the Official Patriot Day Snuggie™! Try new 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Edition Kaboom™!

About the attacks, it’s often said that we should “Never Forget.” This isn’t a bad thing, because we certainly should remember what happened, and whom it happened to. But it’s also important to remember why it happened, and that’s something that’s frequently ignored. This is because the truths about what caused the event are inconvenient to many of those who control the media narrative, and because there isn’t an easy answer to that question. As I said, it’s rooted in the complexities of decades of Western foreign policy, as well as centuries of religious conflict. Most of this is stuff people would still have to learn in the first place before they could start “never forgetting” it.

Remembering 9/11 also doesn’t mean we should come to let the actions of the terrorists dominate our culture and govern every aspect of our lives. Otherwise, we give them what they wanted, and perpetuate the cycle.

As FDR once declared, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Weiner of Mass Distraction

deephurting — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:00:22 +0000

I avoided doing anything on the recent Anthony Weiner Twitter scandal basically for its entirety. There was enough nonmentary throughout the media that I didn’t figure there was any sense in me adding to it unless I happened to come up with a perspective that was unique, or at least not being explored very much.

In my opinion, the important thing here isn’t what Weiner was accused of in the first place–it’s that he lied about it. That’s the part of this story that’s bigger than one man. It’s the latest incident illustrating how some members of Congress and other governmental institutions think they can be flagrantly dishonest to their constituents and suffer no consequences for it.

What baffles me is that people who can howl for blood and run a person out of office over lies about his or her inconsequential fetishes and affairs couldn’t get so worked up about having the nation plunged into economic disaster and hundreds of thousands of lives pointlessly extinguished by a war based on fabricated threats. I’m sure many of those who called for Anthony Weiner’s resignation (or demanded such from President Clinton when he was embroiled in his own scandal) are the same ones who defended the lies and treason of the Bush Administration, and probably do so to this day without any awareness of the irony.

When I mentioned this to a friend on Thursday, shortly after hearing about the Congressman’s resignation, he said, “Well, it’s too late to impeach Bush and his cronies now.” That may be so, but as long as they live it won’t be too late to punish big liars like them, both for the purpose of justice, and to send a message to other big liars, and smaller liars like Anthony Weiner: When you speak to the public, speak the truth, especially when you’re working at the public’s behest.

Learning from Past Mistakes

deephurting — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 16:30:39 +0000

My 1st Presidency

deephurting — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 09:52:10 +0000

This would’ve been great if I’d finished it a week or so ago. Alas, I’m a little late to the party, and while my cartoon doesn’t really add anything of significance to this particular topic of conversation, I found the image irresistibly funny. Hopefully you will, too.

The events depicted in the photographs include 9/11, Bush being informed of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, that guy who threw his shoes at Bush, and assorted caskets coming back from the war. Also, the half-eaten pretzel refers to the time Bush reportedly choked on one, in case anybody out there forgot about that.

In a way, I can understand Bush’s difficulty in being asked to name the “worst moment” of his disastrous Presidency–after all, how could anybody possibly choose just one?

The next cartoon’s already almost done, so it should be up right away. Stay tuned.

A World Without Teleprompters

deephurting — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:27:15 +0000

Yeup, it’s another “George Bush, Jr. is bad at talking” cartoon. But, it is based on something specific. I came up with it, to begin with, as a response to this piece of garbage by Mike Lester.

If you follow Republican talking points at all, then you know one of the hot things to ridicule Obama about is his use of teleprompters. This is part of a broad strategy of first acting like the media worships Obama over something he’s legitimately good at, then going, “But LOOK! It’s an illusion! He’s a fraud!!”

Never mind that the latter often has no basis in reality. Hey, maybe they’re just trying to warn us not to make the same mistake they did?

The irony here is that our last President, a Republican President, was one of the worst public speakers in history–that was, until Sarah Palin came along. That’s what this cartoon attempts to highlight.

It’s one of the dumbest talking points ever. There’s nothing so unusual about the President using a teleprompter, but if idiots are going to be bringing it up constantly, then perhaps some historical perspective is in order.

Sleep on It

deephurting — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:15:03 +0000

Chain of Command

deephurting — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 06:36:19 +0000

More Actual Quotes

deephurting — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:32:42 +0000

The title of this cartoon references another one I drew over three years ago. I just added it to my archive, so here’s a link to it for those interested.

With luck, I’ll be able to upload more old cartoons soon!