So the In Contempt strip is no more, but the site lives on to host weekly caricatures starting today. This week my subject is Ben Bernanke.

I am still working out my methodology. I like this drawing, I think it’s kinda funny. But I want to make the drawing more energetic. Also, I wanna start foolin’ w/ watercolors.

Next week: Scott Brown.

From the NYT:

Although there is no reliable estimate as to how many dogs have had their vocal cords cut, veterinarians and other animal experts say that dogs with no bark can readily be found — but not necessarily heard — in private homes, on the show-dog circuit, and even on the turf of drug dealers, who are said to prefer their attack dogs silent.

The surgery usually leaves the animal with something between a wheeze and a squeak. The procedure, commonly referred to as debarking, has been around for decades, but has fallen out of favor, especially among younger veterinarians and animal-rights advocates.

Ja think?

Love that euphemism. It’s not invasive surgery that causes unnecessary suffering. It’s pressing your dog’s mute button.

Out to Sea: Page 3

This used to be called “Cartoon Wednesday,” but now there is only one cartoon to post. On Friday I’ll post a caricature at In Contempt. And here. It feels weird not doing a political cartoon. I really love how Wanderlost is turning out and the extra time to work on it and even get ahead. And I’m glad not to have to panic to come up with a commentary on current events, especially now when things seem more idiotic than ever. That would be grist for the mill, of course, but my mill was starting to spit out the grist in disgust. Still, like a phantom limb, I miss it.

I’ve started advertising in modest amounts, which as gleaned modest spikes in my readership. Mostly I’m concentrating on Project Wonderful. I’m still wary of GoogleAds. I don’t understand their metrics and I feel less control over what they do. I’ll have to read more about ways to manipulate it to my advantage, bwa ha ha. “Manipulate.”

My favorite all-time Tom the Dancing Bug recurring theme is Lucky Ducky. More specifically, it’s Hollingsworth Hound, the perpetually aggrieved and victimized dog banker who suffers from Lucky Ducky’s privileged position in the upside-down world of conservative thinking.

I mention this, because Ruben Bolling revived him as an illustration for a post linking to Matt Taibbi’s take-down of David Brooks’ corporate class victimhood. Also for your edification I submit HTML Mencken’s structural analysis of BoBo’s rhetoric.

Yeah, though racists are more specifically people who say things like… well, like what David Brooks said about Haiti. But that’s neither here nor there; my point is Brooks’s strategery, his affect, and for what ultimate purpose. The first co-opts a liberal point; the second does as well, but is a more subtle (doesn’t immediately ring as phony) “evidence against interest” item than the first, coming from a conservative. Then there’s the third item; ding ding ding; here’s the real “tell”: those who even see class differences are the moral equivalents of racists. And to actively oppose the interests of the opposite class? Hitlerian, presumably.

And on a tangential note, MightyGodKing adds his two-cents regarding the Citizens United decision. Shorter: he thinks it sucks, but can’t muster the indignation others have. Certainly worth a read, as his take is different from Glenn Greenwald’s standpoint of free speech absolutism.

Which sounds like a confused Indiana Jones movie.

Anyhoo, page 2 of “Out to Sea” is up at Wanderlost. I really enjoy drawing these giant waves. I think that may be my whole motive for the story, an excuse to draw huge undulating mountains of water full of foam and darkness. All for a little pig to ride upon.

Don’t worry — there is actually a story to go with all of that.

And the last strip for In Contempt. I discuss my reasons for this decision below the cartoon post, so please read it if the thought of a Contempt-less world leaves a little hollow spot in your soul. It does mine, honestly. I wish I could clone myself to do all the stuff I want to do. But who would feed him? He’d eat all my cookies!

I want to elaborate here on my caricature project. Mostly I want to develop a portfolio to send out to local pubs and get some illustration jobs. A little side money. But it’s also an artform that has always intrigued me, at least when it is done right. The idea entered my head (with some prodding from Barry Deutsch) after David Levine died a couple months ago. I have always loved his work, the acidic bite of his pen and ink, his elegant cross-hatching, his ugly yet apt exaggerations of distinctive features. His only rivals to my eye had been the great Stephen Brodner — whose water colors are beautifully gritty and sense of form like a Bob Clampett cartoon on acid (which says something); Pat Oliphant, when he’s not being a racist shit; Ralph Steadman, to whom many owe a huge debt, including Brodner; and Barry Blitt, who got into trouble for satirically combining all of the crazy racist paranoia about the Obamas into one New Yorker cover during the election. Those guys are my models. There are other great ones, but these artists put the poison in the ink well.