Cartoon Violence Thinks A Melody Is Like A Pretty Girl
Each week, the Comics Curmudgeon helps explain Today's Cartoons.
Other than deep discounts on ink, is there anything political cartoonists as a class like better than a good metaphor? No. But just as sometimes you run out of ink and all the office supply stores are closed and you have to go to the bodega on the corner and you end up paying OUTRAGEOUS markup on little bottles of ink, and to add insult to injury you have to pay through a little door in a huge bullet-proof window and they write your $20 with a special marker to see if it's counterfit ... um, where was this going? Oh yeah, sometimes you go to press with the metaphor you have, not the metaphor you might want. Here are some of the attempts to draw parallels that maybe weren't perfect, but, hey, deadline's comin'.
The thing is: Barack Obama's enormous, profoundly phallic hat.
Butreally,the thing is: Barack Obama's enormous, profoundly phallic lack of extensive experience in the federal government.
Troubling aspects: Like Atlas, Barack Obama's enormous, profoundly phallic hat appears to be holding the inky darkness of the sky at bay, meaning that if he "throws it into the ring" as promised, we'll all be crushed by the weight of an unfeeling universe.
The thing is: Rudy Giuliani's freakish egg-shaped head and girly skirt.
Butreally,the thing is: Rudy Giuliani's freakish, bulbous anti-terrorism positions and girly, swishy social agenda.
Troubling aspects: I would have been hard pressed to come up with a version of Rudy Giuliani's rat face and combover less suitable for framing than the real thing, and yethere it is,by God.
The thing is: An enormous monkey decked out with certain accessories normally associated with babies, although at this size they can only be useful to fetishists.
Butreally,the thing is: Enormous tax cuts, apparently for America's enormous millionare monkey population.
Troubling aspects: Toss up: Bizzare sentence construction in "For the rich tax cuts" and the creepy, heavy-lidded, self-satsified look on the face of the baby/monkey/tax cut thing.
The thing is: A clandestine assignation between George W. Bush and Kim Jong Il, possibly leading to hot, sweaty President-on-Chairman-of-the-National-Defense-Commission sex.
Butreally,the thing is: The result of a complex series of negotiations that almost certainly did not involve any hot, sweaty negotiator-on-negotatior sex.
Troubling aspects: The way Bush is lurking behind the bench implies that he may be trying to sneak up on the Dear Leader. We want our hot, sweaty President-on-Chairman-of-the-National-Defense-Commission sex to be fully consensual and mutually respectful.
The thing is: Former pastor Ted Haggard waggling an enormous, profoundly phallic candy bar in his mouth.
Butreally,the thing is: Former pastor Ted Haggard totally no longer wanting enormous, profoundly phallic penises waggling in his mouth.
Troubling aspects: You mean besides the fact that it manages to both be unspeakably filthy and make no sense at all? --THE COMICS CURMUDGEON