Sad about missing the ice cream and the dadrock and the picnic and the seersucker yesterday? Well, cheer up -- you could be the Comics Curmudgeon, whom we force each and every week to look through the detritus of Today's Cartoons for the unfunniest of the unfunny. And then we make him spin it into gold, while we count our money and trawl Facebook for more pictures of those strapping young Frist boys.

This week, it's all crazy, all the time in toon land. After the jump: blood, guts, flags, and polar bears. Join us, won't you?

You know what I like? You know what really totally makes my day? When some political cartoonist really just lets one rip! No, that's not a fart joke. I mean, a lot of times cartoons are sort of tepid and boring, trying to pander to the sensible middle, labels on everything, about tax law or some complicated aspect of foreign policy or BLAH BLAH BLAH. And to be sure, they're rewarded for such efforts, mostly because their bosses don't have to listen to outraged readers with lots of free time. That's why my very favorite cartoons are ones where the cartoonist just draws a bunch of insane whackedoutedness about whatever the hell he or she feels like drawing and/or ranting about. In order to encourage America's political doodlers to continue with the crazy, I recognize some of the loonier of the week here.

Insane content: Where to start? Let's see, it's a footrace where a generic terrorist's feet are squishing in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's blood.

Best of the crazy shit: It appears that the artist has taken the media's constant "500-pound bomb" refrain to mean that the U.S. military uses Warner-Brothers-cartoon-style lead weights to squash our enemies. Also, al-Zarqawi's feet stick out from under said weights like the Wicked Witch of the East's.

Caveats: Terrorist appears to be wearing a doo-rag. "Iraqi Freedom" is wearing short shorts that would probably get him killed on the streets of Baghdad for "indecency."

Insane content: Congress's naked ass, just a thin flag away from visibility!

Best of the crazy shit: If you look closely, you can really see that the artist provided a lot of subtle clues -- the way the hem of the shirt rides up, the dainty bare ankles -- to indicate that Congress's ass is, like, totally naked. Plus, the cartoon ran on Flag Day, so: topical.

Caveats: Wait, are we saying that it's a bad thing that we can't see Congress's naked ass?

Insane content: The New Orleans Mayor's Office is surrounded by a protective wall of bullshit. (I'm assuming that's what that stuff is, anyway, as otherwise this makes no sense to speak of.)

Best of the crazy shit: The absence of any background details implies that the Mayor's Office sits high above the Big Easy on a veritable mountain of feces. Mayor Nagin is look pretty smooth there in his open collar and goatee, and the cartoonist had the good sense to not even label him. (Yeah, you'd think that what with him being right next to the MAYOR'S OFFICE and all there'd be no need, but once these guys start labeling things, it's hard to stop them.)

Caveats: The building itself is something of a weird mishmosh, architecturally speaking. It should either reflect New Orleans's rich history and architectural heritage, or be a squalid substandard FEMA trailer.

Insane content: George Bush and Vicente Fox are gay lovers who have gay sex and will soon get gay married.

Best of the crazy shit: So much wacky visual deliciousness: The fact that Dem Donkey and GOP Elephant are wearing spiffy suits, the donkey's look of mean-spirited triumph, the motion lines and puffs of smoke as the door whiffs open, Fox's enormous blond hairdo (actually, on closer inspection, that may just be the background lighting, but I like my version better), and, of course, the fact that George Bush has "Illegal Immigration" written on his ass, which, as everyone knows, is the gayest part of any homosexual's body.

Caveats: The "quote marks" around "the closet" are "inappropriate."

Insane content: OH MY GOD THAT BEAR JUST ATE THAT OTHER BEAR AND THERE'S A BLOODY BEAR STAIN WHERE THE FIRST BEAR USED TO BE AND SOME BEAR BONES AND THAT'S CRAZY!

Best of the crazy shit: Definitely the bloody bear stain. You get the feeling that the artist had been squirreling away that "news item" until he could come up with some topic -- any topic -- that could be illustrated best by a polar bear eating another polar bear. Normally I frown on that sort of forced analogy, but obviously I'm willing to make exceptions when polar bear cannibalism is concerned.

Caveats: I'm pretty sure that the artist is opposed to cutting social spending to fund the Iraq war, but he's undermining his point with this metaphor, because everyone knows that polar bears are irresistibly fucking delicious. And if our social safety net is some kind of plump, juicy, tasty polar bear, well of course we're going to cannibalize it. --THE COMICS CURMUDGEON