The Search

Posted on May 21, 2026 by Ampersand

This strip is drawn by the awesome Mike Lawrence, who really went wild with the chicken fat!

I wrote this strip two months ago, after coming across this story:

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is facing an unusual wave of internal backlash after employees began publicly accusing the agency of failing to pay salaries and activate health insurance weeks after recruitment. […]

In raw, unfiltered Reddit posts now spreading beyond law-enforcement circles, ICE officers describe going a month or more without a paycheque, struggling to secure medical cover for sick children, and watching promised bonuses quietly stall.

I feel bad for the children, of course, but other than that this story is a prime opportunity to enjoy some schadenfreude.

(If you’ve seen “Avenue Q,” then that graphic may make some sense to you. I saw it live for the first time last month, so it’s been in my head lately – often in the form of earworms).

Even more schadenfreude-inducing: The acting director of ICE has been suffering from extreme anxiety over his job stress.

Acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons has been hospitalized at least twice for stress-related issues as he has carried out President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda… During these episodes, the current and former officials said they saw Lyons break out into a full sweat, with his face turning deep red.

The extent of my loathing for the people running ICE (and even more, the people who ran DOGE) honestly worries me. They are among the worst people in the world, and if the world were better they’d all be working in an abusive Amazon warehouse, desperately holding their pee in for hours.

(Well, actually, if the world were better then Amazon’s warehouses wouldn’t be so abusive, but you know what I mean).

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each panel shows two women hanging out in a living room, on a sofa. The first wears a bright yellow t-shirt, so I’ll call her YELLOW; the second is in white t-shirt with blue jeans, so I’ll call her JEANS.

PANEL 1

Yellow is reading something on her phone, while Jeans turns and begins rooting through her backpack.

YELLOW: This article says that ICE agents are really unhappy… The job is stressful and they’re not getting the bonuses and bennies they were promised.

JEANS: Hold on.

PANEL 2

Jeans has pulled a huge electric microscope out of her backpack.

YELLOW: Er… What’s that?

JEANS: It’s my portable microscope. It has 300 times magnification but with digital zoom it’s more like 1000 times.

PANEL 3

Jeans enthusiastically describes her microscope.

JEANS: It has a built in stabilizer and eight levels of LCD lighting! With this, I can see even the smallest objects.

PANEL 4

Yellow is puzzled. A snarl on her face, Jeans turns to the microscope’s screen.

YELLOW: Okay, but why?

JEANS: I’m looking for a violin tiny enough.

CHICKEN FAT

“Chicken fat” is long-dead terminology for odd little details cartoonists slip in art.

PANEL 1: The lamp is a “leg lamp,” like in A Christmas Story, except that it’s a hairy leg in a sneaker and gym sock.

There’s a cat napping on the sofa. There’s a framed picture of Dr. Teeth (from The Muppets) on the wall. There’s a little doll with a green face hanging by the neck from the lamp pull. Jeans has a tattoo that says “tattoo.” The magazines on the coffee table are “US” and “THEM”; the person on the cover of “THEM” is pointing a finger at “US.” The side table drawer is open, and in the drawer a couple of mice are sitting on a tiny sofa and watching a TV with mice news hosts on it.

PANEL 2: The cat is reading a book entitled 43 Places To Hide a Hairball. The backpack’s brand name is “Manspürt.” Jeans has a tattoo that says “Advertise Here.”

PANEL 3: There’s a framed picture of “Bleeding Gums” Murphy (from The Simpsons) on the wall. The cat is playing with a paddle ball, but instead of a ball there’s a panicked mouse. A magazine on the coffee table is “THINGS,” with a coffee mug and a rubik’s cube on the cover. Jeans’ tattoo now says “Eat At Joe’s!” Jeans is wearing one of those t-shirts with a list of people in Helvetica font, which says “Hel & Vet & Ica.”

PANEL 4: The cat is looking over their shoulders at the screen. The apple logo on the back of the microscope has now turned into an apple core logo.

TATTOO PROGRESSIONS: The leg lamp has a tattoo that says “Debbie.” In panel two, “Debbie” is crossed out, with “Donna” written beneath it. In panel three, “Donna” has also been crossed out, replaced with “Donny.”

Jeans has a tattoo of a baseball bat in panel one, which is a bat (the mammal) in panel two, and Batman in panel three.

The Search | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics | 3 Comments

Radical Gender Ideology

Posted on May 19, 2026 by Ampersand

This cartoon is by me and Nadine Scholtes.

In a way, it’s also by Samantha Fulnecky, because a lot of the dialog was swiped verbatim from a paper she wrote. But I don’t think she’d appreciate a co-writing credit.

“Radical gender ideology” is the right’s new boogieman, joining “woke” and “DEI” and “Critical Race Theory” and “cultural Marxists” and “SJWs” on their increasingly deranged hit list. Donald Trump attacks it in executive orders; Pam Bondi told the FBI to offer a bounty for “terrorists” motived by radical gender ideology; speaker of the House Mike Johnson opened a subcommittee hearing by sneering “the scourge of radical gender ideology is very real.”

The fear of extremist “radical gender ideology” has been the conservative excuse for supporting anti-abortion and anti-trans laws, and generally trying to push the culture back to what they imagine the 1950s were like. The obvious irony is that, in doing this, conservatives are pushing their own radical (and reactionary) gender theories into law.

Hopefully most people have forgotten this (and her), but in November of 2025 University of Oklahoma student Samantha Fulnecky managed to make national news by writing a terrible paper for psychology class. From Wikipedia:

Fulnecky’s essay argued that there were only two genders and that gender roles were created by God, referring to the Bible. She wrote that while she didn’t want kids to be bullied, in the context of gender norm enforcement, it was morally justified. She also used Biblical authority to call social acceptance of transgender people “demonic.” The essay was unrelated to the [assignment]; transgender and nonbinary identities were not presented in the research.

Two different instructors independently gave Fulnecky’s mess a well-deserved failing grade. So Fulnecky quickly filed a discrimination complaint. The University of Oklahoma, egged on by Republican politicians, took Fulnecky’s side, and both instructors were relieved of duty.

My cartoon doesn’t exaggerate Fulnecky’s views. Her paper really was that extreme.

Which made the immediate, nationwide support Fulnecky received striking. The national Turning Point USA org took Fulnecky’s side (and proudly posted her shitastic paper online). Republican politicians and pundits rushed to support her. Fulnecky’s radical ideology about gender isn’t held by all right-wingers, but it’s entirely welcome in their tent – and it’s influencing laws nationwide.

Jill Filipovic, in an article about the endless deluge of Republican anti-trans legislation, writes:

Conservative gender ideology is religiously-based and it goes like this: Men and women are fundamentally different, created by God to compliment each other. There is a clear hierarchy: God, man, woman, boy child, girl child. Women are to serve men, produce children, and maintain the home; and in turn, men are to protect and provide for women and children. For Christians, this is the origin story of humankind; it is foundational, the very first building block of humanity and by extension society. It is, essentially, a “separate but equal” view of gender: Men and women have equal dignity, but not equal rights, roles, or responsibilities.

Nadine did her typically great job dealing with my deranged script requests. I particularly love it when a miscommunication makes things funnier. My script suggested a couple of birds playing soccer in the background of panel three, but I didn’t mention that I was imagining them playing with a miniature, bird-sized ball. So Nadine drew a bird carrying a full-sized ball, which is much more surreal and wonderful than what I had in mind.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels.

PANEL 1

A pretty young woman carrying a textbook talks cheerfully.

STUDENT: God made male and female and made us different from each other for a purpose! Trying to change that would only do harm.

PANEL 2

As she speaks, a big thought balloon appears. In the thought balloon, we see Adam and Eve, Adam holding a hammer, Eve holding a broom and a baby. God appears from a cloud, offering Adam a six-pack.

STUDENT: Gender roles aren’t “stereotypes”! Women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us with those womanly desires in our hearts. The same goes for men.

PANEL 3

The snake offers Adam a pretty pink dress; Adam is delighted, hearts in his eyes, dropping his hammer to reach for the dress. In the background, Eve watches, holding her baby and crying.

PANEL 4

In the original scene, a second student has appeared, and is giving the first student a skeptical look.

SECOND STUDENT: Huh. So you’re saying it’s the left that’s got a “radical gender ideology”?

FIRST STUDENT: Exactly! Thank Jesus my beliefs are just common sense.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is obscure cartoonist terminology for silly things we put in the background.

PANEL 1 – There are three flyers on the bulletin board. The first one is incomprehensible because the character’s head is in the way, but it says: “HEY! Please move your head it’s in the way and now they can’t read what I’m saying it’s really unfair.” The second says “LOST” with a picture of a woman holding a cat. Smaller print says “My human. Very tame. Answers to “meow.” If found, please return, I’m hungry.” The third flyer says “Study group seeks lonely smart person. Come do our work for us! Please bring snacks.”

PANEL 2 – God has a “Mom” heart tattoo. There’s a very “My Little Pony” looking Pegasus in the background.

PANEL 3 – Two birds are playing soccer in the background. The snake is wearing a beret. A book on a stump is entitled “Sick Trans Stuff.”

PANEL 4- The second student has a tattoo of the Triforce symbol from the “Legend of Zelda” videogames. There are again three flyers hanging in the background. First flyer: “TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS. Everybody else really is happier and more together than you are.” Second: “STUDENT HOUSING.” There’s a picture of a shoebox, and then “You’ll be amazed at how little space you actually need.” Third: “COLLEGE: You’ll never make friends so easily again! It’s kinda sad when you think about it.”

Radical Gender Ideology | Patreon

Posted in Atheism, Cartooning & comics, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc., Feminism, sexism, etc, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues, Religion | 3 Comments

Centrist Dems Pre and Post Election

Posted on April 16, 2026 by Ampersand

When Kamala Harris lost the election, a lot of centrist Democrats blamed progressives (as they did when Hillary Clinton lost in 2016), and it’s been a constant drumbeat of recrimination ever since. I’m talking about folks like Quentin Fulks, who blamed Harris’ loss on activists forcing politicians to apologize and “men don’t like people who apologize.”

Personally, I blame Trump’s election first and foremost on Trump voters. Wacky of me, I know.

A lot of people (including me) have blamed 2024 for being a terrible year for incumbent parties worldwide – but I just read an argument that the popular wisdom is wrong about that one.

A lot of people blame stay at home voters – but the problem with that is, stay at home voters would probably have voted for Trump.

(I’d definitely blame the press’ determination to sanewash Donald Trump, but that’s a subject for another cartoon).

But if I had to blame Democrats, I would blame the people who actually ran the Harris campaign. People like Quentin “men don’t like people who apologize” Fulks, who was Harris’s deputy campaign manager.

Progressives didn’t select Clinton, Biden, or Harris (all of them centrists). Progressives didn’t decide to have Biden run for a second term – or for Biden to drop out less than four months before the election. Progressives didn’t select the very centrist Harris, didn’t decide on her campaign strategy, didn’t write her speeches or choose her issues.

I don’t really blame the centrists for Harris’ loss. Maybe there was no way for Harris to win. She had less than four months to go, and swing voters seemed really down on the Biden administration.

But the self-serving pretense by centrists that progressives are to blame – when they themselves made every decision in the Harris campaign – is ridiculous.

Man, the dude’s office in panel three was a pain to draw. But it gave me a lot of opportunity to put in chicken fat.

The most fun bit? Probably the woman’s tattoos. Frank Young did a bang-up job coloring them, too. (One reason I enjoy drawing fat characters: More room for tattoos.)

What’s the origin of the idiom “bang up job”? I wasn’t able to find it. But it’s been in use since the early 1800s.

I don’t have a cartoon syndicate and I’m not in newspapers. But I get to do this for a living because lots of readers support my Patreon with mostly small pledges! I also have prints and books for sale.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four regular panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel under the bottom.

PANEL 1

A large caption says “PRE-ELECTION.”

Two people, a casually dressed woman and a more business-dressed man, are talking in an office. The man makes a dismissive gesture.

WOMAN: Progressives have some ideas for this election…

MAN: Here’s my idea. Step one: donate to our campaign. Step two: you get lost.

PANEL 2

The man pushes the woman out of the office.

WOMAN: Hey!

MAN: No insult, but you woke special interest social justice freaks repel normie voters. Leave us in charge of this election so we can win!

PANEL 3

The man sits behind his desk, looking very pleased.

MAN: Good riddance! Now we can run a winning campaign – a centrist campaign with a centrist candidate and centrist strategies!

PANEL 4

A large caption says “POST-ELECTION”.

The same man and woman are in a hallway. She glares at him, while he yells at her, jumping with fury.

MAN: WE LOST AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!

KICKER PANEL

The man smiles as he talks to Barry the cartoonist.

MAN: Centrist Democrats can’t fail! We can only be failed.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is archaic cartoonist-speak for fun little details that don’t matter.

PANEL 1: On the shelves in the background: A book called “Really Big Book.” A framed picture of Tintin. There’s a framed picture of Amy from “Futurama” on the wall. The woman’s shirt says “Woop Woop.”

Her arms are covered with, well, random doodles, including a Rubik’s cube flying on angel wings, a cloud that says “meh,” a sake, and a explosion with a “BOOM” sound effect.

PANEL 2: The snake tattoo has moved to her other arm, which also features a hand hatching from an egg and a paper saying “8675309.” Her shirt now ways “Hi Mom!” There’s a framed picture of Groucho Marx on the wall.

PANEL 3: There are framed photos on the wall of Kermit the Frong, Marcie, Peppermint Patty, the Mayor from “Nightmare Before Christmas,” and Mayor Quimby from The Simpsons.

On the shelves are: A globe with a goldfish-shaped continent; a stack of three books: Really Big Book, RBB Strikes Back, and Return of the RBB. The photo of Tintin has been replaced with Tintin’s dead, decapitated head. A photo of a seagull with a fish in its beak. A mouse with a bow and arrow, taking aim at an apple on the head of another mouse. A mouse painting a picture of cheese. A napping cat.

On the desk: The book says “Scary” on the spine and “Boo” on the front cover. The icon on the back of the laptop is a cracking egg.

Finally, a mouse or rat is clinging to the arm of the chair in the foreground.

PANEL 4: The snake tattoo is back! Now looking at a tattoo of a mug of steaming liquid. There are framed pictures of Popeye and Olive Oil.

Taking Responsibility | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Elections and politics | 96 Comments

Don’t Call Them Concentration Camps!

Posted on April 4, 2026 by Ampersand

This comic is by me and Becky Hawkins.

Becky writes:

What’s a better challenge than drawing a period piece? Drawing a period piece where the reader is supposed to think it’s present-day until panel 4! Luckily for me, men’s fashion doesn’t change as wildly as women’s fashion, and that one haircut (long on top, short on the sides) is still around. The guy on the left–suit, glasses, and hair–was modeled after someone I saw while I was out and about. Granted, sartorial choices in Portland don’t seem to be bound by time or geography… I hope it works!

Surprising no-one, I spent most of my time laying out panel 4. Barry’s script says: The camera pulls back a little. We now see that the speaker is wearing a swastika armband just above his left elbow. Maybe we can see one or two characters in the background wearing them too. Women are wearing circa 1930s hats; there’s a horse and carriage in the background, maybe; in general, we can now see we’re looking at Berlin in the 1930s.

I did a few sketches from different angles. When I pictured this cartoon in my head, the “camera” was pointing toward the cafe, with the characters sitting by the wall. That way, all you could see in panels 1-3 were two guys, a big window, and a bit of wall. It would be easier to hide the 1930s-ness that way. But when I sketched it out, I couldn’t make it work.

Barry kindly collected several photos of 1930s Berlin cafes before sending me the script. But I still spent way too much time looking at old photos to find some buildings that would plausibly be on a modern American street. Berlin’s public plazas, broad streets with tree-lined medians, and ornate building facades would scream Ye Olde World, in my opinion.

I searched for “1930s Berlin street photography” and found some commercial-residential buildings that wouldn’t look out of place in an old-for-the-US downtown area. I then committed the newbie cartoonist mistake of putting a lot of detail into an area that was destined to sit behind a word balloon. At least I copy-pasted the windows.

I hope you enjoyed this cartoon!

Barry writes:

A story from 2019:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., ignited the latest semantic scuffle when she recently charged that the Trump administration “has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying.” Her use of this term to describe the mass detention facilities in which thousands of asylum-seeking migrants, many of them children forcibly separated from parents and family members, are being held in deplorable conditions, provoked an immediate and fierce backlash. … Sami Steigmann, a Holocaust survivor voiced his indignation: “What you are doing is insulting every victim of the Holocaust. Shame on you!” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, charged that Ocasio-Cortez “is insulting victims of genocide” with her comments.

But concentration camps – both actual camps, and the term – existed before World War Two. As far back as 1899, during the Boer War, some British people argued against calling the British concentration camps in Africa what they were.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines the term concentration camp as: “A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group which the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable.”

People tend to conflate “concentration camps” with “death camps,” but the two terms aren’t interchangeable, and it’s important to be able to discuss concentration camps without euphemisms. Refusing to call them what they are just helps them get worse.

Andrea Pitzer writes:

If you were swept off the streets in vans by secret police wearing masks; if your initiation into detention involved transit camps meant to hide your departure and effectively disappear you from legal help, temporarily or forever; if you are held with others who are denied due process; and if you are detained with people who have predominantly been rounded up more on the basis of ethnicity, race, religion or political affiliation than for any criminal charge you have in common, you are in a concentration camp. It is only a question of what stage concentration camp you are in, and whether you will be stuck there until the camp is allowed to transform into its next nightmare form.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. All of them show two men in suit and tie, talking at an outdoor cafe. One man is a redhead with a mustache; the other is a clean-shaven blonde.

PANEL 1

REDHEAD: And the conditions in the concentration camps we’ve built are appalling! I’m ashamed for my country!

BLONDE: Whoa! “Concentration camps”? Really?

PANEL 2

A shot of the blonde man, lecturing.

BLONDE: The camps can be criticized but calling them “concentration camps” is inflammatory. It’s something people say for the shock value.

PANEL 3

The blonde man looks angry.

BLONDE: Frankly, calling them “concentration camps” demeans the memory of the victims of the real historic concentration camps!

PANEL 4

The “camera” pulls back, and we see that this is a scene from 1930s Germany. (Storefront signs are in German, there’s a horse and carriage going past, women in 1930s fashions and hats.) The blonde man has angrily stood up, and we can see he wears a swastika on his sleeve (as does another man in the foreground).

BLONDE: And finally – never say you’re ashamed to be German. It’s like our new chancellor Hitler says – we’re making Germany great again!

(No chicken fat in this one!)

Don’t Call Them Concentration Camps | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Immigration, Migrant Rights, etc | 56 Comments

Parents’ Rights

Posted on March 24, 2026 by Ampersand

The right-wing (plus some alleged liberals cough Singal cough) assault on trans kids is genuinely horrifying. Literally hundreds of anti-trans bills – most focused on trans people under 19 years old – are proposed every year, and some succeed in becoming law.

Unfortunately, it’s obvious which side the conservative majority of the Supreme Court is on. Earlier this month, regarding California’s policy of not outing trans students to their parents, the Court ruled:

Gender dysphoria is a condition that has an important bearing on a child’s mental health, but when a child exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria at school, California’s policies conceal that information from parents and facilitate a degree of gender transitioning during school hours. These policies likely violate parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

In her dissent, Judge Kagen noted that the conservative majority’s concern for parents’ rights has been inconsistent.

Another contrast—this time, between this case and United States v. Skrmetti (2025)—is also striking. In Skrmetti, several parents challenged Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. The suit raised claims grounded in both equal protection and substantive due process. As to the latter, the parents in Skrmetti, similarly to the parents here, asserted a right “to make decisions concerning medical care for their minor children.” …And in support of that right, the Skrmetti parents relied on the same precedents the Court does today. But the Court, when deciding to grant certiorari in Skrmetti, limited its review to the equal protection issue: It would not even hear the parents out on their substantive due process claim.

This is typical of Republican hypocrisy – in the courts, but also in the way everyday Republicans talk about parental rights. As journalist Chris Quinn put it, “Republicans always say the parents know best, except when the Republicans know better.”

Some Republicans square this circle by saying that gender affirmative care for minors is child abuse (a claim they support with lies about what the research shows), and child abuse is the exception to parental rights.

But necessary medical treatments, supported by the overwhelming majority of experts and legitimate medical organizations, aren’t child abuse because Republicans arbitrarily declare it so.

Even if you, dear reader, happen to be a centrist weenie who can “see both sides” of this issue, that in and of itself is an argument for keeping gender affirmative care for minors legal. If this issue is complex and multifaceted, that’s even more reason that a minor’s medical care needs should not be decided by random Republican legislators.

Republican legislators don’t know Sam Examplekid; they don’t love Sam Examplekid; they have no familiarity with Sam’s needs or background or condition or individual circumstances. The decision should lie with people who know Sam and are committed to Sam Examplekid’s well-being – Sam, Sam’s parents, and Sam’s doctors.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has for panels, showing two women talking as they walk through a hilly park. The woman in front has dark hair and is wearing a red t-shirt; the person in the rear has light brown hair and is wearing floral pants. I’ll call them TSHIRT and FLORAL.

PANEL 1

Tshirt is listening as Floral lectures.

FLORAL: Of course teachers should be legally required to “out” trans kids to their parents. Because of parents’ rights.

PANEL 2

FLORAL: It doesn’t matter if it’s outing trans kids, or vaccinations, or what books teachers are allowed to assign. It should always be up to the parents!

PANEL 3

Close-up on Flora, who is pounding a fist into her palm, very intense.

FLORAL: Parents’ rights are sacrosanct! Period!

PANEL 4

Tshirt turns to ask Floral a question; Floral replies cheerily.

TSHIRT: What if parents want their trans kid to have gender affirming care?

FLORAL: Fuck parents’ rights.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is a long-obscure cartoonists’ term for unimportant but amusing details slipped into the art, which I want to bring back. (“Stop trying to make fetch happen!”)

PANEL 1: A grinning kid is hanging upside-down high in a tree. A notice nailed to the tree shows a sad-looking robot and says “NOTICE: Background gags weren’t made by A.I.” On the ground, Steamboat Willie (the earliest form of Mickey Mouse, now copyright-free) is fleeing from a vicious cat.

PANEL 2: An evil-looking bunny is behind the bush, smoking a cig. High in a tree, a rat has disguised itself as a squirrel by taping a big leaf to its real end, and is trying to pass itself off to a real squirrel. A notice nailed to the tree has a picture of an evilly grinning robot and says “NOTICE: Then again isn’t that what an A.I. would say.”

PANEL 3: On top of a cloud, a cloud-colored person with a mohawk is lying on their back and reading their phone.

PANEL 4: A basset hound is in the hole in the tree. A sign below the hole says “Home Sweet Hole.” The robot from the notices in panels 1 and 2 is hiding behind the tree. Steamboat Willie’s lifeless corpse lies in the grass. A notice nailed to another tree shows a picture of a vague shadow shape, and says “MISSING: Small robot which functions as a visual representation of A.I. in background gags. Extremely hackneyed, but functional.”

T-SHIRT: In panel 1, the t-shirt has a logo of a piece of cake. Panel 2, it’s a peace sign. And in panel 4, it’s a chess piece.

Parents’ Rights | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues, Supreme Court Issues, Transsexual and Transgender related issues | 15 Comments

Time Travel 2: Ask Me Anything

Posted on March 20, 2026 by Ampersand

This cartoon is by me and Becky Hawkins.

This is a sort of sequel to a previous cartoon I did about time travel.

Rags really was one of my childhood dogs (and the most important one to me). Although Siggy, the big German Shepherd (I think) who would lie under my crib growling at anyone he didn’t know who dared to approach, was also great.

I’m glad Becky drew this one – if I’d drawn it myself, I would have wasted hours trying to recall and recreate my 1983 bedroom layout. As it was, I made poor Becky do revision after revision on Rags. (“He was bigger than that… He had long hair that often covered his eyes…” and so on.)

Unfortunately, we didn’t have any photos of Rags to work from, and I have a famously bad memory, so – despite Becky’s excellent drawings – I’m sure Rags looked different from this. But that doesn’t hurt the cartoon. The process forced me to think a lot more about Rags than I usually do, though, and I enjoyed that. He really was such a sweet dog.

I did draw a tiny piece of this cartoon myself; the Reagan caricature in panel two is my attempt to recreate how I drew Reagan back then. I would draw a peanut, added Reagan’s famously high hair, then add facial features and wrinkles. That was, technically, the first political cartoon I ever drew.

The little kicker panel is my favorite part of this cartoon. If I had a time travel machine, after I’d done all the usual time travel stuff (seeing Sarah Bernhardt in a play, stopping 9/11, going to Palm Beach in 1999 and getting on the ballot design committee, etc), I genuinely would love getting to see Rags again.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus a “kicker” panel at the bottom.

PANEL 1

Little Barry is reading in bed when he’s startled by Big Barry coming in through a glowing time portal in the air. Rags, a dog, looks around.

BIG BARRY: Hi, Barry of 1983! I’m you from decades in the future! Ask me anything!

LITTLE BARRY: ACK!

PANEL 2

Little Barry thinks about what to ask. Big Barry smiles but looks very nervous. Rags sniffs Big Barry, tail wagging.

LITTLE BARRY: Okay, um… So is Reagan still the worst President ever?

BIG BARRY: Hah haha ha ha ha! Hoo boy, you think Reagan’s bad! HA! Ha ha aaah oh God.

PANEL 3

Big Barry, weeping, rushes out through the portal.

BIG BARRY: SOB! I’m sorry, I can’t – I – it’s – I gotta go!

PANEL 4

The time portal flicks out, and Big Barry is gone. Little Barry addresses the dog.

LITTLE BARRY: Well, that bodes ill.

KICKER PANEL

Big Barry is petting Rags; Rags is happy for the attention.

BIG BARRY: I didn’t really come back to see my younger self. I came back to see Rags. Who’s a good boy?

RAGS (thought): Is it me? It’s ME!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

Chicken fat is archaic cartoonistese for fun little details in the art.

Panel 1: A poster for the “Annie” musical above Barry’s bed says: “Annie. A New Musical and Barry’s First Celebrity Crush. Remember when tickets were affordable… Must be nice.”

Panel 2: The poster has changed to a crudely drawn caricature of Ronald Reagan, with the caption “Let’s Retire Ron.”

Panel 3: The poster has changed to a shirtless, ridiculously muscled man flexing, little mini-muscle bumps sticking up from his huge biceps. The caption says “MUSCLES MAN… His Muscles Have Muscles!” He has a word balloon, which says “Please get me to a doctor.”

Panel 4: The poster has changed to a photo of Reggie Jackson swinging a baseball bat. The caption says: REGGIE… because being good at hitting a ball with a stick makes you a HERO.”

Time Travel 2: Ask Me Anything | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Elections and politics | 7 Comments

The Business Genius

Posted on March 16, 2026 by Ampersand

Yes, this comic was inspired by evil non-genius Elon Musk. No one better epitomizes money cosplaying as competence.

As Richard Carrier wrote:

He fell ass-backwards into big money, and our system protects big money. …Literally everything he touches gets fucked up, from self-driving cars to Twitter to the government, or almost anything at all; even PayPal—that’s why they fired him. He was so bad at it that his own staff revolted and insisted he be canned. Indeed, nearly everyone who has ever worked for him says he is a shitty leader who has no business running companies. But alas, like other rich people who fail upwards, Musk’s contracted severance package for being axed from (what was then) PayPal for incompetence launched his entire career as a moneybagged gunknozzle.

Musk hardly stands alone. Private Equity’s business model is for people who know nothing about an industry to buy out existing companies and often destroy them. Although with private equity, it’s often more like piracy than actual incompetence.

Why did Sears tank? Everyone knows that the 19th century business was an antique, incapable of mounting a challenge in the age of e-commerce. That was a great smokescreen for an old-fashioned bust out that saw corporate looters make off with hundreds of millions, leaving behind empty storefronts and emptier pension accounts for the workers who built the wealth the looters stole.

And of course, Donald “six bankruptcies” Trump is a tragic example of how inherited wealth (to the tune of $413 million) and a staggering ego can give an utter incompetent a rep as a business genius. Trump’s actual talents in are self-promotion and dodging taxes, not in creating value.

The challenge of drawing this cartoon was the factory setting, which is a zillion miles outside my comfort zone. I doubt I’ve ever drawn the interior of a factory before, and I wasn’t sure how to begin. I looked at photos of factories online and they seemed impossibly complex, and my attempts to streamline them just didn’t look good.

What finally got me over the “factories are too hard to draw! Waaaah!” wall was looking at the graphic novel Factory Summers by the brilliant cartoonist Guy Delisle. I didn’t directly copy Delisle’s drawings, but I took a lot of instruction from how he simplified factory interiors to make them work in comics.

Once I got started, it was fun. A factory setting in two-point perspective provides so many ways to fit in little visual gags.

I was worried about panel four. For the gag to work, readers definitely had to notice the burning factory disaster in the background, but a lot of readers kind of skip noticing the backgrounds. I asked Frank Young, who colored this cartoon, to make the conflagration in the distance impossible to miss, and I think Frank really delivered.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel.

PANEL 1

Two workers in reflective vests and hard hats are on a factory floor when a man wearing a blazer over a t-shirt walks in, arms spread wide.

BLAZER: Greetings, workers! I just bought this weezotski factory.

WORKER: Oh, uh… Welcome! So you must have lots of experience with weezotskis?

PANEL 2

Grinning, Blazer keeps talking, looking very smug.

BLAZER: None! But success in an unrelated industry has made me freakishly wealthy! And that makes me a business genius who can run anything!

PANEL 3

Blazer puts his arm around the worker and makes a grand “envision the future!” gesture.

BLAZER: I’m gonna disrupt this company so hard! It’ll be amazing! You’ll see! (Not you personally. I’m firing you.)

PANEL 4

CAPTION: SIX MONTHS LATER

Blazer, still grinning, flees from a burning factory building.

BLAZER: Another business brilliantly saved!

KICKER PANEL

Blazer, looking smug, is talking to Barry the cartoonist.

BLAZER: Maybe I should run the government!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is long-obscure cartoonist talk for fun but unimportant details in the art.

Panel 1: A limp hand is sticking out a hole in the huge factory machine. A panel of the floor is missing, and a corpse in a funeral suit lies within. The box the worker is carrying is labeled “Caution: Irrelevant Prop.”

Panel 2: In the background, in supervisors windows, are Homer Simpson and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew.

Panel 3: An opening in the side of a big factory machine contains Brain, of “Pinky and the Brain.” A vent hose has a distressed face on it. In a window in a machine in the background, a grinning stoned person hands upside-down. The paper on the clipboard says “this text is way too small to be read, sorry”.

A sign says “URGENT: Always complete your shift and clean your area before fighting demonic forces.” Another says “WARNING: Studies show that most people’s largest deathbed regret is time not spent working.” A sign on a large red button says “NO. Do not press button. Nope.”

Panel 4: The dark cloud in the sky, if you rotate it 90 degrees to the right, is an enormous face in profile.

The tattoo storyline: In panel one, the worker has a tattoo of a snake on his right arm, and a tattoo of an apple on his left arm. In panel two, the snake tattoo has crossed to his left arm and is examining the apple. In panel 3, the apple has been eaten, and the snake – no longer merely a tattoo – is crawling out of a hole in a big factory machine.

The Business Genius | Patreon

Posted in Capitalism, Cartooning & comics, Economics and the like | 2 Comments

Tehran

Posted on March 12, 2026 by Ampersand

All dialog in this strip is quoted from “Dark Like Our Future” by Deepa Parent in The Guardian. From the article:

Thick black smoke was still rising in the sky, soot covered the streets and cars, balconies filled with black gunk, and the toxic air had filled the lungs as Tehran woke up after a night of airstrikes on the city’s oil depots on Sunday.

In messages and voice notes sent to the Guardian, people described the situation in their homes and on the streets, some calling it “apocalyptic”. With the sun blotted out, disoriented people in Iran’s capital had to turn on their lights to see through the gloom.

Four oil depots and a petroleum logistics site in and around Tehran were hit.

People in Tehran will be sick from this, and dying earlier from this, for years to come.

Any response to the war on Iran I could make seems so inadequate next to the enormity of the damage we’re doing – and the enormity of our leadership’s delusions.

But I still felt I should say something. “Theresa’s Daughter” wrote:

It’s easy to feel like our voices don’t matter. That without thousands or millions of followers, without a blue checkmark next to our names, what we say won’t change anything. But that’s exactly what people in power want us to believe. They want us to think we’re too small to make a difference. They want us to forget that history isn’t just something in books — it’s being written right now. And if we stay silent, they get to write it however they choose.

Our leadership seems completely indifferent to the suffering they cause. Talking about the sinking of an unarmed Iranian military ship, in which over a hundred people died, President Trump said that no effort was made to capture the ship because “It’s more fun to sink them.”

I read Daniel Larison’s post “The Poisoning of Tehran,” in which he quoted “Nagin” extensively. (The Guardian described Negin as “an activist and former political prisoner.”) I decided I should do a cartoon amplifying Negin’s voice. Obviously, the amplification I can provide is trivial, compared to a huge outlet like The Guardian or a well-known writer like Larison – but we all do what we can with the tools we have, right?

This obviously isn’t the usual sort of strip I do, so I’m interested in what people think. Was this good? Or a misstep?

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, all showing a woman in her thirties in a modest but nice apartment.

PANEL 1

The woman pulls back a curtain, looking at the darkness outside.

CAPTION: “Negin” – not her real name – lives in Tehran.

NEGIN: The situation is so frightening it’s hard to describe. Smoke has covered the city. I have severe shortness of breath and burning in my eyes and throat, and many others feel the same.

PANEL 2

Negin turns away from the window and speaks directly to us.

NEGIN: I ask those who have the ability, especially foreign media, to reflect on this situation. What are people supposed to do under these conditions?

PANEL 3

Negin speaks angrily.

NEGIN: If someone has a problem with the Islamic Republic government, that’s one thing – But not with us, the people! This is no longer just a human rights violation.

PANEL 4

Negin sits on the sofa, slumping and looking down.

NEGIN: It is truly anti-human behavior.

A footnote below the cartoon says “Dialog quoted from “Dark Like Our Future,” The Guardian, march 8 2026.”

Tehran | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, In the news, International, Iran | 46 Comments

The Alpha Wolf

Posted on February 27, 2026 by Ampersand

This cartoon is by me and Nadine Scholtes. And just look at how adorable the wolf pups she drew are!

The term “alpha wolf” was coined in 1947 by biologist Rudolph Schenkel.

At that time, science knew very little about wolves. About all science knew–and that means that’s all Schenkel would have known–is that they live in a pack. He knew they howled and all that. But as far as their social structure was concerned, they live in a group of animals. And he wanted to study the behavior of animals in a group–in this case, the wolves–and so he wanted to do that in captivity.

To do that, he had to make a pack. And so he just got a bunch of wolves– one or two from some zoo somewhere, another couple from another place– threw them all together, and that was his wolf pack.

Schenkel then observed the wolves fighting for dominance – but a wolf “pack” formed in captivity, with unrelated wolves thrown together willy-nilly, won’t act like wolves in nature do. But Schenkel didn’t know that.

When keeping wolves in captivity, humans typically throw together adult animals with no shared kinship. In these cases, a dominance hierarchy arises, Mech adds, but it’s the animal equivalent of what might happen in a human prison, not the way wolves behave when they are left to their own devices.

In contrast, wild wolf packs are usually made up of a breeding male, a breeding female and their offspring from the past two or three years that have not yet set out on their own—perhaps six to 10 individuals. …Infighting for dominance is basically unheard of in a typical pack.

Wildlife biologists have known the “alpha wolf” is a myth for decades. But the term persists, mainly because some people really like the myth. They’re really excited by the image of a strong, dominant man dominating others through sheer physical strength.

To be fair, a lot of people are excited by that image – which is why we see it over and over in action movies, and of course, in superhero stories.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having fun watching a Jason Statham movie. But for some people, the alpha wolf myth is compelling not just because it’s fun to watch a hero kick a heel, but because they use it to legitimize their sexist beliefs as natural. I don’t say men should dominate because I’m a misogynist – I’m just reporting what nature says! Don’t shoot the messenger!

And even people who aren’t that extreme might still be influenced by a watered-down version of the alpha male myth. Men – to be properly male – are expected to be confident, strong, take-charge, and emotionally muted. That stereotype long precedes the term “alpha wolf,” of course; but I think that pre-existing cultural belief is one reason the alpha wolf myth took off.

This is an aside, but do you ever wonder why Superman is so muscular? It’s not like he exercises to be able to juggle trucks; there’s no in-story reason he can’t be a scrawny dude with a bit of a potbelly juggling trucks. The answer, obviously, is that comics artists and readers – and also, filmmakers and film audiences – want to be able to see Superman’s power and dominance at a glance.

I offered this cartoon to Nadine to draw because I thought she’d have fun drawing the wolves in panel four. As expected, she did a terrific job with the whole cartoon. For some reason the blatant way the “alpha” and the maid are eying each other in panel two really cracks me up.

Hey, while we’re doing animal myths:

1) Ostriches don’t bury their heads in the sand when frightened. (They do bury their nests and stick their heads in the hole now and then to turn their eggs).

2) Bats aren’t blind.

3) Elephants, like humans, can be startled by unexpected scurrying near the ground, but no, they’re not terrified of mice.

You may have already known all that. But did you know that every time you debunk an animal myth, you’re harming cartoonists? We depend on those myths to earn our livelihoods! Why do you hate us so much, wildlife biologists?

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels.

PANEL 1

A man in a yellow shirt is at a bus stop, cheerfully lecturing the other two people at the stop.

MAN: “Feminization” has warped society. If we lived as nature intended I’d be the alpha wolf!

PANEL 2

The man with a huge thought balloon, showing him imagining walking with one hand holding a bloody axe and the other around a woman’s waist. A second woman, in a maid outfit, is carrying a tray of cake and steak. A third woman looks at him adoringly.

MAN: And the alpha wolf gets the first pick of everything! The best food, the best mates!

PANEL 3

MAN: That’s how men should live. I wish I was a wolf in the wild!

PANEL 4

Inside a wolf den, two adult wolves are talking. There are four kids (three small puppies, one medium sized) and a dead rabbit.

CAPTION: Wolves in the Wild

DAD WOLF: First the little ones eat, then the rest of us will.

MOM WOLF: And then — cuddle pile!

PUPPY: Yay!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is an archaic cartoonists’ term for unimportant little details in the art.

PANEL 1 – The tattoo is of a German cartoon mouse named Diddl, holding a heart.

A poster says “HEY YOU! READ THIS! Wow, I can’t believe you’re reading this just because I said to.”

Another poster shows a cool woman in sunglasses holding a guitar. Text says “YET ANOTHER BAND… you’re not cool enough to know.”

A pigeon standing on the sidewalk is wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigarette.

PANEL 3 – A poster has a picture of the panel 1 pigeon, with the caption “BEWARE Bad Pigeon.”

The guy waiting at the bus stop is miming shooting himself in the head so he doesn’t have to listen to this alpha wolf prattle any more.

The woman’s tattoo now shows the character Superjhemp (a parody of Superman and other superheroes). He’s very popular in Luxembourg – “he has appeared in over 29 graphic novels that have the highest sales rate for Luxembourgish publications.”

The Alpha Wolf | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Feminism, sexism, etc, Men and masculinity | 12 Comments

Two Quick Thoughts On AI Art and Artists

Posted on February 26, 2026 by Ampersand

I’m not as anti-AI as a lot of my cohort (lefty artists). I’ve never been morally against art made by remixing other artists’ work, so it’s hard for me to be angry at the “stealing” AI does to make images. If AI images were only a toy, something people play with but don’t sell, I wouldn’t be bothered by AI images remixing other images at all.

But it’s not just a toy, and I am worried by the economics of it.

AI image generation makes images close to instantly, but it makes those images by remixing work by human artists who took hours, days, weeks to make those images. The styles AI imagery apes might have taken someone decades to develop.

Those instantly-generated AI-generated images then compete in a marketplace against human artists.

That’s not sustainable for the humans.

I have no problem at all with human artists training themselves on art other humans have made. In comics, that’s a primary way most of us learn.

But after I’ve learned from other cartoonists, I can’t instantly produce images. So when I compete with them, it’s on even ground.

When artists are competing with other artists, that can be tough, but the result isn’t that there’s less work for artists overall.

But the more AI enters the art market, the less work is left for human artists. AI simultaneously depends on our work existing to be remixed, and makes paying us  for our work obsolete.

Second thought: I personally don’t feel threatened by AI (although I’m some combination of amused by and tired of people mistaking my work for AI).

But I really worry about the younger generation of illustrators. I think a lot of “entrance level” illustration work that used to exist is increasingly being done with AI.

Posted in art, Economics and the like | 8 Comments