#113: October Surprise in November

The first Sunday morning in November started off rather typically for me: playing the clarinet for the nearly-secular First Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City church service. Our dysfunctional music ensemble was led by a long, grey-haired college-dropout organist—really a oboist and English horn player who never practiced the keyboard much during the week—who doubled as our insufferably snobby music director, choosing which hymns to butcher by cleaving out verses that didn’t meet his musical taste; a half-deaf brass player who doubled on electric bass and ukulele; a deeply manic-depressive older lady who played flutes, xylophone, and glockenspiel but always forgot her glasses, music, or the correct instrument she had intended to bring and always arrived in the sanctuary in a state of flustered meltdown; and her codependent husband, a guitarist and flugelhorn player who was forever offering to run home and retrieve his frantic wife’s glasses, music, or alto flute or whatever.

Taking a Swipe at the Culture Wars!

Proving once again I utterly lack the subtle touch for editorial cartooning of my social betters (although the threshold has been lowered in recently decades), I offer my half-baked commentary on a current controversy in comics. Namely, should we kick the crap out of bigots, or ask for their autographs at cons?

Clarissa socks a White (and presumably) Nationalist penciller as Megaton Man, X-Ray Boy, and Gower Goose ponder the impact a pencil sketch will have on our civic discourse. ™ and © Don Simpson 2018, all rights reserved.

[More on the above drawing here!]

In case you don't recognize the inspiration, it's from an image by a couple of Jewish guys (who can never be replaced), punching the schnozz out of Der Führer (dictators seem to love flowing ties, don't they?!). Maybe the idea would be clearer if I caricatured more Neanderthal comic book creators calling for Whites-Only entertainment, or included more Nazis (is there a distinction?). But I'm too lazy, although I reserve the right to add more Nazis if and when I bother to ink this (you can never show enough Nazis getting beaten up).

Simon and Kirby beat up Hitler before Pearl Harbor, a reminder that cartoons can't always prevent actual war.

Here's another page from the sketchbook. Sorry these are only roughs -- I'm supposed to be grading art history papers this weekend (exploited adjunct is my secret identity when I'm not being a Social Justice Warrior), so two full sketchbook pages is really playing hooky.

Congratulations! If you clicked on this blog, you're not a racist! (If I had posted this same image on the Megaton Man blog, it would get three times as many hits -- sadly, this is no lie.)

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Sketching After Squirrel Hill

I probably know the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill and the surrounding East End (Shadyside, Oakland, Point Breeze, Polish Hill, Friendship, Wilkinsburg, et al) better than any place I've never actually resided. For many years, I taught cartooning workshops at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, bought art supplies at Artists and Craftsmen and other places, footwear at Little's Shoes, and on and on.

I must have walked by and certainly driven by the Tree of Life Congregation countless times between the main drag on Murray and Forbes and PCA - although I didn't know what it was called. I almost walked out there last Friday, before the awful events of last Saturday.

Clarissa James (Ms. Megaton Man) with Deirdre Denton, flanked by Simon Phloog, Preston Percy, and Kozmik Kat. Stella Starlight and Trent Phloog (Megaton Man) are in the background. Rough sketch; I'll pencil something tighter soon.

I keep thinking about how close it is to Halloween, and how awful it must be especially for kids in that surrounding neighborhood. I drew this with that in mind - a quickie before class. I seldom get much time to draw during the school year, as I teach college for two schools. But the thought came to me of my characters walking their children through the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, past the Tree of Life.

This is a very rough sketch and on every level a completely inadequate response, but what I have in mind is a time in America that now seems quaintly nostalgic in so many ways - when Rob and Laura Petrie had Jewish neighbors - Millie and Jerry Helper - and I grew up with at least four Jewish families on my block - the Freemans, the Tolchins, the Bornsteins, and the Sandubraes.

That ecumenical mid-century America seems almost a lost utopia now, but it doesn't have to be. Every time I pick up my pencil, I want to make it real again.