The heat and Today's Cartoons have, quite possibly, driven our poor little cartoon expert the Comics Curmudgeon right over the edge. He's starving them and making them fight -- the upside is, whoever loses, we win!
After the jump -- Joementum, Iraq, anti-semitic action stars, and the unbearable heat.
Sweet merciful mother of God and saints alive in heaven above, it's hot! Living in the miasma of the post-global warming East Coast summer with no central air conditioning at my disposal has made me even more cranky and irritable than usual. Unfortunately, being a shut-in blogger, I don't even have the opportunity to leave the house and get my aggressions out on helpless strangers. Fortunately, I have a venue in which I can pit political cartoons of similar subject matter against one another, watching them battle it out for dominance like so many angry ants in a jar! And then I get to determine a winner based on my own entirely arbitrary set of standards! Yes, this is just what the doctor ordered to salve my fevered brain!
Well, that and water.
Anyway, this week: cartoons duke it out for crosshatch supremacy.
Joe Lieberman vs. Liberal agitators
The issue: Apparently, George Bush planted a big wet one on Joe Lieberman, like a year and a half ago (not that I can remember that far back -- I had to look it up), and darn liberal party poopers won't let him forget it as he battles against a primary challenger on his left.
The contestants:
1. 
2. 
Cartoon #1 says: Democrats seek to remove the memory of the kiss by removing Lieberman's head from his shoulders!
Cartoon #2 says: Lieberman is so embarrassed by the kiss that he tries to hide it with a series of funny hats!
The winner: #2. The facial expression of the Democratic Donkey in #1 is totally baffling to me. He looks terrified, but why? It's not his head he's thinking about cutting off. I suppose that he could be worried that the end of Joementum could presage a Reign of Terror-style bloodbath in which centrists are viciously purged but ... hey, look, #2 has funny hats! Lieberman in hats! Ha ha, funny.
But they can both agree that: Bush wears lipstick, apparently.
Sunnis vs. Shiites
The issue: In Iraq's new world of freedom, certain Iraqis, in a development that couldn't have possible have been foreseen, seem to dislike other Iraqis. Like, a lot.
The contestants:
1. 
2. 
Cartoon #1 says: The best way for Americans to understand this complex issue is to imagine it in the context of those Civil War documentaries you probably had to watch in high school!
Cartoon #2 says: No, the best way to understand it is as some sort of wacky mismatched buddy action movie!
The winner: #2. #1 tries to map one civil war onto another and runs into metaphor trouble. Shouldn't the Shiites be the Yankees, since they run the government? But they are in the south ... #2, meanwhile, gets the outfits right, and is generally more amusingly drawn. It's on notice for its baffling decision to use quote marks instead of word balloons, however.
But they can both agree that: Iraq is a rubble-strewn wasteland. (This is actually not much of a stretch.)
Mel Gibson vs. the Jews
The issue: Apparently, Mel Gibson doesn't really like the Jews. Also, he's a drunk.
The contestants:
1. 
2. 
Cartoon #1 says: A wild-eyed Mel Gibson has hate burned onto his tongue and a Nazi uvula!
Cartoon #2 says: Mel Gibson hates Jews with his brain, his mouth ... and his black, black heart! (Note: Heart is only metaphorically black, not literally so.)
The winner: #1. #2 hasn't quite gotten wind of the post-16th century medical discovery that the heart is far too busy pumping blood to hate Jews. Plus, #1 actually put forth the effort of caricaturing Gibson, rather than just drawing his guts. But the most important thing is that that swastika/uvula is going to be burned into my mind forever.
But they can both agree that: Mel Gibson is hateful inside as well as outside.
The heat vs. us
The issue: Hey, is it hot enough for ya?
The contestants:
1. 
2. 
Cartoon #1 says: The electricity required to cool us is not free.
Cartoon #2 says: Heat can cause one to feel that he or she is literally melting.
The winner: #1 by default, because it doesn't bear the telltale signs of photoshopping a single drawing. Plus the blowing ice-cream cone is funny. Plus it's a scientific fact that the human body would burst into flames long before it would melt.
But they can both agree that: OH GOD IT'S TOO HOT IT'S TOO HOT KILL ME NOW PLEASE. --THE COMICS CURMUDGEON
