Recycling

Posted on September 24, 2026 by Ampersand

Another collab with Becky Hawkins! Becky and I are both fond of creating these history cartoons. Not every cartoon in the “history” category at leftycartoons is drawn by Becky, but I suspect most of them are.

And Becky did a great job with this one. I especially like panel three’s backgrounds — and, as is often the way, some nice work ended up hidden under a word balloon.

Over thirty years ago, Dutch scholar Teun van Dijk wrote a lengthy article called “Discourse and the Denial of Racism.” Among other things, he discussed the frequent combining of “positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation” – put another way, “I’m not bigoted, but isn’t this thing a marginalized group supposedly does just awful?”

…Speakers follow a double strategy of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation. It is within this latter strategy also that disclaimers, such as ‘I have nothing against Arabs, but . . .’ have their specific functions. … The denial often serves as the face-keeping move introducing a generally negative assertion, following the invariable but.

“Don’t conclude from the bigoted thing I’m about to say that I’m a bigot.”

The disclaimer isn’t separate from the prejudice. It’s the protective wrapping that allows the speaker to express prejudice while preserving self-image. The persecuted group changes, but the rhetorical structure doesn’t.

Today, I most often hear this formulation used as the packaging for prejudice against trans people and immigrants. But as far as I can tell, the same packaging is used to deliver prejudice against every marginalized group, for generations. This cartoon is only four panels long, but it could have easily been twenty panels long.

(But who’d want to read that? Just thinking about it depresses me.)

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, each showing a different period of history.

PANEL 1

Present day. A close-up of a hand holding a smartphone. The phone’s screen shows a talk show called “The JAQ Off.” Large letters on the front of the desk say “JUST ASKING QUESTIONS.” The host is interviewing a blonde woman in a red dress.

BLONDE: I don’t hate transgenders — I’m just against radical gender ideology.

PANEL 2

The 2000s. Two thin women are talking in the plus-size exercise-clothing section of a store. There are two fat mannequins dressed in exercise clothes, and a sign on the wall announces a sale on XL exercise clothes.

WOMAN: I’ve got nothing against fat people! But I hate it when they glorify obesity.

PANEL 3

Three white people dressed in 1940s clothing stand on a lawn, holding protest signs. The man in the center is speaking.

MAN: I have dear friends who are Jews! But the INTERNATIONAL JEWISH CABAL will destroy America!

The woman’s sign says: I DID NOT RAISE MY BOY TO DIE FOR UNCLE SHYLOCK

The man’s sign says: HITLER HAS NOT ATTACKED US. WHY ATTACK HITLER?

The third protester’s sign says: AMERICA FOR AMERICANS*

PANEL 4

A man in nineteenth-century clothing, wearing a huge stovepipe hat and a long blue coat, strides down a street while confronting a startled woman in an enormous hoop skirt. He carries a large sign.

TOP HAT: Understand I bear no ill will for the GOOD Catholics. But I abhor papist Romanist conspiracies!

CAPTION AT BOTTOM OF STRIP: RECYCLING.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is obscure cartoonists’ lingo for obscure details hidden in the art.

In panel one, the news chyron says “STUDY: EVERYONE IS JUDGING YOU.” Smaller print underneath says, “‘Shouldn’t You Be Working Now?’ asks Handsome Chyron Writer.” The recommended videos are titled “Hate is love,” “Vegan TERRORIST,” “This puppy hates libs,” and “Clickbaiters HATE this.”

In panel two, a poster headed “INSPIRE” continues, “…you to spend more money.” A warning sign says, “CAUTION: Pulling large pants size from bottom of pile may result in injury.” A poster showing a jogger and a dog in front of a beautiful lake scene says, “This could be YOU! …if you buy the right PANTS.”

In panel three, a poster in a store window says “DOCTORS LOVE SMOKING.” The “America For Americans” sign has a small print disclaimer: “*The white Protestant ones.”

In panel four, the horse is looking with alarm at the racist “IRISH MENACE” sign. The “Know Nothing Party” sign says in small print “*Most on-the-nose name ever.” There is a pig in a pinstriped waistcoat holding a pocket watch. A terrified-looking kitten is clinging to the hoop skirt. And several piles of horse manure litter the street, but is that chicken fat or just period detail?

Recycling | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Anti-Semitism, Cartooning & comics, Fat, fat and more fat, Transsexual and Transgender related issues | Leave a comment

The Art of Persuasion

Posted on September 22, 2026 by Ampersand

I’m really happy with the art in this one, especially the first two panels. In fact, because I was having so much fun drawing that double-panel background, I forgot about the word balloons and wasted some time drawing distant houses that ended up completely covered.

I’m also feeling very smug about how nicely the color scheme came out. And I know — it’s possible that I’ll hate this art when I look at it again a few years from now. But heck, I might as well try to enjoy the good feelings while they last.

(Did you catch my use of an em dash? Obviously I must be an AI!)

Two things that are true:

1) It will be awful for trans people if the Republicans win the midterms.

2) It will be awful for trans people if Democrats become anti-trans rights, and we wind up with what the UK now has: Both major parties being anti-trans.

Too many centrist Democrats arguing 1) seemingly have a hard time acknowledging 2).

My issue isn’t that some centrists disagree with trans people who are saying they’ll refuse to vote for anti-trans Democrats. I personally disagree with that tactic; so do some trans people I’ve read (trans people don’t have a groupmind). Tactical disagreements happen. They’re inevitable.

But refusing to acknowledge that there’s a problem isn’t a tactical disagreement.

I’ve seen too many centrist Dems sneering with hatred at trans people who are angry and scared by seeing some prominent Dems taking up anti-trans arguments. But why shouldn’t trans people be angry about that?

“I know — all I have to do is tell frightened people who see Dem support for their rights starting to slip away that they’re Trump-supporting morons! THEN they’ll support Dems!” is not the persuasive argument that some centrist Dems apparently believe it to be.

The prospect of the Dems moving away from their commitment to trans rights — as some prominent centrist Democrats have advised — is genuinely terrifying to trans people. And it’s too easy for cis people to say “that’ll never happen” when it’s not our rights tumbling off a cliff.

It’s striking that too many cis centrists are saying, in effect, “why can’t angry trans people just put aside their emotions and fears and think of the greater good?” when they themselves are terrible at putting their emotions aside.

If you want to read more about this issue, I recommend Julia Serano’s essay “On Democrats Who Cave in Response to Anti-Trans Attack Ads,” with the arch subtitle “and more importantly: a response to all the cis people responding to the way that trans people are responding to said Democrats’ responses.”

If you think your favorite candidate enacted the correct political strategy, then there is no reason to berate trans people for protesting it, as those protests should already be baked into your candidate’s calculations. So why are you berating trans people then? (Unless, of course, you enjoy berating trans people just for the sake of it.)

Alternatively, if you think trans people are capable of tanking your favorite candidate via our criticisms and protests, doesn’t that imply that your candidate (and their consultants and strategists) totally fucked up in their political calculations here? And if they did fuck up, shouldn’t you be reaching out and complaining to them (rather than berating trans people), in the hope that they might reverse their bad decision?

In other words, why are we blaming trans people for a decision that was made by cisgender politicians, consultants, and strategists?

TRANSCRIPT

Panel 1:
A woman and a man sit on a low stone wall in a park. The woman is upset; the man listens.

WOMAN: And now the Democrat in the race is backing some anti-trans laws! I’m not sure I can vote for that.

MAN (thinking): Uh-oh. Democrats need every vote. How can I convince her to vote for the Democrat anyway?

Panel 2:
The woman and man walk through the park, the woman ahead of him.

WOMAN: Of course, the Republican is even worse. But if Democrats turn against trans people… I’m so frightened.

MAN (thinking): I’ve got to be empathetic and persuasive.

Panel 3:
Close-up of the man, looking thoughtful with his hand on his chin.

WOMAN (off-panel): Look at what happened to the UK — they’ve now got two anti-trans parties. If we let that happen here, trans rights are dead.

MAN (thinking): Okay, I think I know how to reassure her and get her vote.

Panel 4:
The man is suddenly furious, leaning toward the startled woman and pointing at her.

MAN: You’re a Trump supporting moron and you deserve to die!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

PANEL 1:
A good dog with a halo peers out a window. A hand sticks out of a hole in a tree holding a sign that says SEND CANDY.

PANEL 2:
Groucho peeks from behind some bushes. A poster nailed to a tree reads “Background gag to come and it’ll be so funny!” A bad rabbit (we know it’s bad because it’s smoking) sits beside a bad worm (also smoking). A bottle lying in the grass is labeled “BARRY BEER” and has a disturbed-looking drawing of Barry. A mouse holds a knife to a cat; the cat raises its front paws in surrender.

PANEL 4:
A giant mouse (?) in a shirt and tie sits on the wall reading a newspaper, called “Daily Blah Blah,” whose headline says “Literate Rodent Escapes Lab.”

The Art of Persuasion | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

 

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Elections and politics, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer issues, Transsexual and Transgender related issues | 4 Comments

The Basic Barrier

Posted on September 2, 2026 by Ampersand

Another collaboration with the chicken-fat-mad Mike Lawrence! That trap-filled hopscotch board was entirely Mike’s idea.

This is something I’ve suspected for a while—that the core reason many liberals don’t support a universal basic income (UBI) is that it just sounds too wonderful to happen. Especially when many of us have been conditioned, over the past decade or so, to expect nothing but the worst.

It turns out I’m not the first to have this thought (although I wonder if I’m the first to do a cartoon about it). In 2017, Alyssa Battistoni wrote:

The problem isn’t that basic income doesn’t sound good enough—it’s that it sounds too good to be true.

But James Surowiecki, writing in 2016 in The New Yorker, pointed out that utopian ideas sometimes surprise us by becoming mundane:

The most popular social-welfare programs in the U.S. all seemed utopian at first. Until the nineteen-twenties, no state in the union offered any kind of old-age pension; by 1935, we had Social Security. Guaranteed health care for seniors was attacked as unworkable and socialist; now Medicare is uncontroversial… It’s easy to imagine a basic income going overnight from completely improbable to totally necessary.

If you’re interested in the research on giving people money, a good overview is “A Summary of Existing Research on Guaranteed Income,” published by the University of Chicago Inclusive Economy Lab. The section on employment effects is on pages five and six. Generally, studies find “that cash transfers had either no effect or a positive effect on adult labor force participation,” although one study found a 2 percent-point decrease in labor market participation and a five percent decrease in earned income.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each panel shows two friends walking through a wooded park. One is a man wearing a baseball cap and an orange T-shirt, so I’ll call him ORANGE. The other is a woman wearing a red plaid shirt, so I’ll call her PLAID.

PANEL 1

Orange smiles as he reads something on his smartphone. Plaid looks interested.

ORANGE: Look at this! Another study found that basic income works!

PLAID: What’s basic income?

PANEL 2

Orange explains while Plaid hops through a hopscotch grid drawn on the path.

ORANGE: It’s the government giving everyone a basic income, so we’re all guaranteed enough to live on.

PLAID: That sounds amazing. But… if we had that, why would anyone work?

PANEL 3

Orange gestures emphatically with his free hand. Plaid walks with one hand thoughtfully against her chin.

ORANGE: That’s been studied so much… Over and over, when people are given basic incomes, they don’t stop working!

PLAID: Hmm… I’m still against it.

PANEL 4

Orange looks baffled. Plaid shrugs.

ORANGE: But why?

PLAID: I just can’t believe anything that good is possible.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is an obsolete cartoonists’ term for unimportant but fun details slipped into the art.

PANEL 1: A little gray alien is flying a flying-saucer-shaped kite.

PANEL 2: The hopscotch grid is full of traps, including a spider, tacks, a Lego brick, a mouse frantically waving its arms as if to say “Don’t step on me!,” a pile of poop, a whoopee cushion, a mousetrap, and a bear trap. A “wanted” poster for a raccoon with an eyepatch is nailed to a tree.

PANEL 3: A sasquatch and an Ewok are hiding behind trees; the sasquatch signals to the Ewok to be quiet.

PANEL 4: The raccoon from Panel 2’s “wanted” poster is hiding in the bushes.

CLOTHES: Orange’s T-shirt shows a smiley face in Panel 1, an alien smiley in Panel 2, the blood-spattered Watchmen smiley in Panel 3, and the Hitchhiker’s Guide smiley-faced planet in Panel 4.

Plaid’s T-shirt shows an ear of corn in Panel 2 and a human ear in Panel 4.

Orange’s cap has a picture of a fly (insect) in panel 1, and a picture of a fly (pants) in panel 2.

The Basic Barrier | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Economics and the like | 10 Comments

Those Poor, Poor Billionaires

Posted on August 31, 2026 by Ampersand

Drawing the “Muppet Gothic” in the background was so much fun!

It’s funny when the extremist rhetoric I make up for my caricatures of rich right-wingers is less extreme than what some real billionaires say. In 2014, billionaire Tom Perkins wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal:

I would call attention to the parallels of Nazi Germany to its war on its ‘one percent,’ namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the ‘rich.’ …Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent ‘progressive’ radicalism unthinkable now?”

Billionaire Sam Zell rushed to defend Perkins, adding: “The 1 percent are being pummeled because it’s politically convenient to do so.”

Billionaire Leon Cooperman, reacting to Elizabeth Warren’s proposed wealth tax, said “this is the fucking American dream she is shitting on.”

To be fair, not all billionaires are such bad people (although it’s bad that any exist at all). In 2024, over 250 million- and billionaires signed a letter called “Proud to Pay More,” calling for taxes on extreme wealth and saying such taxes would not change their standard of living.

We ask you to tax us, the very richest in society. This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. The first three show a wealthy, middle-aged couple in their luxurious living room with their poodle. I’ll call them MAN and WOMAN.

PANEL 1

The man leaps up from the sofa, staring with horror at his phone. The woman, sitting beside him, looks concerned.

MAN: Oh my God!! How could they do this?

WOMAN: What? What’s happened?

PANEL 2

A close-up of the anguished man holding his phone toward us. The phone displays a news page with the giant headline “NEW TAX.”

MAN: They’ve passed a new tax on billionaires!

PANEL 3

Back in the living room, the man sits hunched forward with his face in his hands. The woman throws her arms into the air, wailing.

MAN: Why are they doing this to us?

WOMAN: Because billionaires are the only minority it’s still acceptable to pick on! They won’t stop until we’re absolutely crushed!

PANEL 4

A large caption says “TWO YEARS LATER.”

The Woman from the first three panels is with a friend, relaxing in swimsuits on cushioned lounge chairs on a yacht, beside a swimming pool. A waiter approaches with a tray.

FRIEND: So how did that “billionaire tax” turn out for you two?

WOMAN: Devastating! We still haven’t recovered.

WAITER: Hors d’oeuvre?

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is old-fashioned cartoonists’ slang for little unimportant but hopefully fun details in the art.

Panel 1: The painting on the wall is American Gothic, but with Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show. The coffee-table books are titled “RICH: YOU DESERVE IT!,” “POOR: THEY DESERVE ZIP!” and “MIDDLE CLASS: WHO CARES?” A poodle naps beside the couple, while a Koons balloon-dog sculpture is on the coffee table. Outside the window, a giant hand atop a building flashes a peace sign.

Panel 2: Other stories on the phone include “ABE VIGODA FOUND ALIVE,” “SHOCKER! RICH IDIOT BUYS $40,000 PHONE!” and (in a partially cropped off thumbnail) “CROP truncate shorten cut off.” The “$40,000 phone” image shows the same phone the man is holding up —and even the same hand. (And yes, that phone — the “Agent Q Himalaya Alligator Gold & Diamond” — is real.)

Panel 3: The coffee-table books now refer to Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” routine: “WHO — FIRST,” “WHAT — SECOND” and “DON’T CARE — SHORTSTOP.” A framed photo of the Monopoly Man sits on the end table. A rat in a tux holds a cocktail. The poodle pees on the Koons sculpture.

Panel 4: The poodle wears sunglasses and reads a magazine. The Loch Ness Monster (but with a duck head) swims in the ocean. The rat from panel 3, wearing swim trunks, is doing the back float in the pool.

Those Poor, Poor Billionaires | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Economics and the like | 17 Comments

Can We Call It Fascism Yet?

Posted on August 3, 2026 by Ampersand

Another strip drawn by the amazing Mike Lawrence.

From an official press release on whitehouse.gov, July 16 2026:

Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller made clear there must be no retreat: “One of the hallmarks of left-wing violence and terrorism is its completely pre-textual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence… When the leftist — who does not believe in freedom, who does not believe in civil rights, who does not believe in any ordinary notion of justice — protests that we are violating his rights, understand the [sic] he is lying to try to persuade people who are not closely following the political scene that some injustice has perpetrated [sic] against him. We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization.”

The rhetoric is unambiguously fascist. A typical fascist move is to describe their own community – however they conceive it – as the authentic national identity, and to then define out-groups or political opponents as existential threats to that nation. From there, it’s a short step to seeing state suppression of those groups as necessary for the nation to survive, and even to call that self-defense.

The extreme fascist rhetoric we’ve seen this month is, I suspect, the administration testing the waters to see if they have enough support to blatantly overturn the results of the midterm elections, which most people expect to go badly for Republicans. Heather Cox Richardson commented:

[Trump ally Stephen] Bannon argued in Tuesday’s War Room podcast that the idea of “communists” threatening to take over the United States through corrupt elections is “a predicate for immediate action.” That immediate action, he said, would be for Trump to declare “a national security emergency executive order…that took all of SAVE America plus plus plus plus.” And then, we can be sure, the Republicans will win the 2026 elections and, as Trump keeps saying, all the elections for the next 100 years.

I still think (or hope) this won’t happen – not because the Trump administration is above it, but because I think they’re shackled by Trump’s unpopularity. As Jim Stewartson points out, one key difference between Hitler and Trump is that Hitler was popular.

Incidentally, this strip was written and drawn well before that Trump Administration press release. Panel three’s original dialog referred to Trump’s plans for an “Election Integrity Army” for the 2026 election. But – as so often seems to happen with this administration – if you just wait a little while they’ll say something even worse.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

Panel 1

The year is 2024. A WOMAN and a MAN sit at a table in a coffee shop, looking at their phones.

WOMAN: The Supreme Court says no official act by the president can be a crime! Can we call it fascism yet?

MAN: Of course not. Don’t be hysterical.

Panel 2

The year is 2025. The WOMAN and MAN stand outside in snowy weather; the woman is pointing to something on her phone.

WOMAN: ICE invaded Minneapolis! Masked government agents are kidnapping people! Can we call it fascism now?

MAN: No! It’s bad, but let’s not exaggerate.

Panel 3

The year is 2026. The WOMAN and MAN sit on a park bench. She reads from her phone.

WOMAN: The White House says it’ll eradicate “Antifa militants” and ignore civil liberties. Can we call it fascism yet?

MAN: Enough with the doomerism!

Panel 4

The year is 2030. Armed, armored government troops stand nearby. The WOMAN begins to speak, but the frightened MAN stops her.

WOMAN: Can we—

MAN: Shhh! Do you want to get us arrested?

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is an ancient cartooning term for fun but unimportant details in the art.

PANEL 1: The coffee shop is called “Bump & GRIND (not a strip club).” The menu offers “brewtentious latte, true brew, vessel w/ pestle, dragon flagon, palace chalice, hot tea” and in a section marked “Pies,” offers “whim pie, pup pie, gup pie, hip pie, and yup pie.” Groucho Marx’s decapitated head is in the pastry case. The extremely embarrassed-looking barista is reading a book called 5000 Shades of Gray. The coffee mugs have a logo consisting of the words “BAD LOGO” arranged around a pile of poop. A tentacle is reaching up from under the table to grab the pie.

PANEL 2: There’s a “Calvin and Hobbes” snowman in the background. The logo on his jacket says “pradagonia.” A bird in the tree is bundled up with a scarf and knit hat.

PANEL 3: Fozzie Bear peers out of a hollow in the tree. A groundhog emerges from a hole in the ground. The MAN’s boba tea appears to be filled with eyeballs. The man’s t-shirt says “REBEL ™”.

PANEL 4: Graffiti reads “Romanes Eunt Domus” and “We ♥ Leader.” There appears to be a shark swimming in the filthy water beside the sidewalk.

Can We Call It Fascism Yet? | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc. | 54 Comments

You’re Not Fat, You’re Beautiful

Posted on August 2, 2026 by Ampersand

This cartoon is by me and Becky Hawkins.

Becky and I were working together at a coffee shop, and Becky was talking about the movie The Devil Wears Prada. Or, more specifically, Becky was describing a podcast she’d listened to in which the podcasters were talking about that movie.

During the movie, people keep saying Anne Hathaway’s character is fat, and the hosts of the podcast kept saying, “She’s not fat, she’s beautiful!” Becky told me she wished she had the power to deliver a mild electric shock to the speaker every time that was said.

I said, “Excuse me,” and three minutes later I shoved this script under Becky’s nose. Sometimes they come really easy!

Becky adds:

Did I need to go for an authentic Pittsburgh skyline? No.

Is that why this cartoon is getting posted on the last possible day? Maybe.

I drew this while listening to What to Carry, What to Burn, a podcast of wilderness survival stories by Blair Braverman. If that doesn’t strike your fancy, Blair also wrote Small Game, a biting/gripping/sweet novel about a survivalist reality show where everything goes wrong.

Transcript of Cartoon

Panel 1

A fat woman is shopping in a clothing store, flipping through dresses on a rack and looking annoyed. A thin woman beside her, trying to be reassuring, touches her shoulder. A little lightning-bolt like zap emanates from the thin woman.

FAT WOMAN: Why don’t they make nice clothes for fat women?

THIN WOMAN: You’re not fat! You’re beautif—

THIN WOMAN: AAAAGH!

Panel 2

A city skyline. Lightning-bolt like “zaps” are emanating from two different places in the city.

VOICE 1: You’re not fat, you’re bea— Ow!

VOICE 2: You’re not fat, you’re— GHAAAAH!

Panel 3

A hand holds up a phone showing a nervous looking TV news anchor.

NEWS ANCHOR: Scientists are baffled by a sudden plague of minor but extremely painful shocks whenever anyone says… uh… never mind.

Panel 4

Two women sit at a cafe table. One looks at her phone, talking to the fat woman from panel 1, who smiles contentedly.

FRIEND: You had one magic wish you could have used on anything, and this was your choice?

FAT WOMAN: No regrets.

You’re Not Fat, You’re Beautiful | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Fat, fat and more fat | 2 Comments

A Brief History of Brief Wars

Posted on August 1, 2026 by Ampersand

Wow, did this cartoon take forever to make!

So why did it take so long?

First of all, history-based cartoons always take more time to research. But the research was really fruitful, because I found quotes that let me arrange the war predictions as a series of ever-shrinking time frames — weeks, days, an hour — which is the sort of thing that delights me.

(Scroll to the bottom of this post to read the quotes I paraphrased in this cartoon.)

Second, SO MANY CARICATURES! A few years ago, I would have tried to recruit Kevin Moore or Becky to draw it for me, because I would have been intimidated by the caricatures. But I’ve gotten a lot more confident with caricature — or at least, more confident that readers are willing to accept less-than-stellar ones. And it’s fun!

The most difficult caricature in this cartoon was one most readers won’t notice: The tiny Alan Alda on the MASH lunchbox in panel two, which I redid four times before drawing something I could live with. This supports my theory that exceptionally good-looking people are the hardest to caricature.

Third, Rachel Swirsky and I are currently working on a script for a new Wings of Fire graphic novel, which cuts into the time I can spend drawing cartoons. (Bright side: New Wings of Fire graphic novel!)

And fourth, the aforementioned vacation. As I write this, I’m visiting my family. Which is lovely, of course (and I’m not just saying that because my Mom will read this). But that meant taking a day and a half off for traveling.

Fifth and finally, there’s lots of chicken fat in this one! Which always slows me down. But it’s totally worth the time.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels. Each panel shows a powerful leader early in a war.

Panel 1

A smiling King George III sits at a fancy writing desk, feather quill in hand.

CAPTION: King George III. November 1776.

KING GEORGE: We’ve taken the city of New York! The rebel army will surely quit soon!

CAPTION: All dialogue paraphrased from real statements.

Panel 2

General MacArthur, seen from behind, stands admiring himself in a mirror, grinning around his famous corncob pipe.

CAPTION: General MacArthur. November 1950.

MACARTHUR: Our troops in Korea will be home by Christmas!

Panel 3

Vice President Dick Cheney, grinning broadly, sits in an office.

CAPTION: Vice President Cheney. March 2003.

CHENEY: Iraq will take weeks, not months.

Panel 4

On a Fox News TV broadcast, President Obama smiles while holding up a forefinger.

CAPTION: President Obama. March 2011.

OBAMA: Libya will take days, not weeks.

Panel 5

President Trump sits in bed, wearing pajamas and tapping on his phone.

CAPTION: President Trump. March 2026.

TRUMP: We won! In the first hour it was over!

Panel 6

AI President Lincoln, a cartoon Abraham Lincoln head on a round video screen, held suspended in the air with tubes, is speaking in front of a podium.

CAPTION: AI President Lincoln. May 2045.

AI PRESIDENT LINCOLN: The war on Canada will be over fifteen minutes before it begins!

Chicken fat watch

In the King George panel, a bottle is labeled “Royal Brain Tonic. Contains arsenic and mercury.” A strange tentacle is reaching up to the window. The note George is writing says “I have no idea what,” an allusion to my brain drawing a blank when it was time to fill that in. A crown is hanging on a coat rack. The dog is wearing a peruke (aka a curly white wig). There’s a framed portrait of Lucy from “Peanuts,” wearing a crown.

In the MacArthur panel, MacArthur is admiring himself in the mirror (MacArthur was famously an egotist). A “MASH” lunchbox has a picture of Hawkeye holding a cocktail. The bird on MacArthur’s hat is holding some marijuana and a missile. There’s a baseball above its head, and the ribbon it’s holding says “Most Overdone Hat.”

In the Cheney panel, there’s a trophy labeled Best Sneer 2003. A framed note says: Dear Dicky, please don’t shoot me in my face and then make me apologize. Love, Harry.

In the Obama panel, the Fox News logo actually says “New Foxes.” The chyron says “Obama declared king of snobs,” and the second line says “fam tortures cartoonist with incessant sports TV.” On the wall in the background is a basketball hoop, and a framed Nobel Peace Prize, labeled “Presented to Barack Obama in recognition of his achievements in not being George Bush.” A mouse in the foreground is reading “The Cider Mouse Rules.”

In the Trump panel, a huge container on the nightstand is labeled “Tub o’ Orange: executive face goop.” Trump’s pajamas are covered with his “T” logo, which is also on his pillow. There’s a framed picture of Greenland inside a heart. There’s a framed print of Trump’s sketch of a woman’s nude torso (which he infamously sent to Jeffrey Epstein). A note lying on the bed says “Dear Don, you are the GREATEST smartest strongest leader EVER! Yrs, Don.” There’s a hole in the wall near the floor, and we can see an eye peering out.

In the AI Lincoln panel, protesters hold signs saying “Don’t blame me, I voted for AI Nixon” and “Unfair, Unreal, Unplug.” The podium has a seal with the X (formerly Twitter) logo and the words Formerly Known As The United States of America. The AI Lincoln on the screen is not wearing a hat, but a stovepipe hat is perched atop the screen.

RECEIPTS

Panel One: In a letter to Lord North, dated November 4, 1776, King George III wrote:

Nothing can have been better planned, nor with more alacrity executed, than the taking of the city of New York, and I trust the rebell [sic] army will soon be dispersed.

Panel Two: On November 28, 1950, General MacArthur wrote:

“You tell the boys that when they get to the Yalu River they are going home. I want to make good on my statement that they are going to eat Christmas dinner at home.”

Panel Three: On March 16, 2003, appearing on “Face the Nation,” Cheney was asked if he thought the war would be “a long war or a short war?” Cheney said it would go “relatively quickly.” Pressed for more specifics, Cheney said “Weeks rather than months.”

Panel Four: From ABC News, March 18, 2011:

President Obama told a bipartisan group of members of Congress today that he expects the U.S. would be actively involved in any military action against Libya for “days, not weeks,” after which he said the U.S. would take more of a supporting role, sources tell ABC News.

Panel Five: In a speech in Kentucky on March 11, 2026, Trump said:

Let me tell you, we’ve won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the — in the first hour, it was over. We won.

No receipts for panel six. :-p

A Brief History of Brief Wars | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Iran, Iraq, Korea | 7 Comments

Two Toms Talking Theology

Posted on July 10, 2026 by Ampersand

This comic was drawn by R.E. Ryan, who did a great job rendering my silly version of Colonial America.

In 2023, Senator Josh Hawley posted this quote, attributing it to Founding Father Patrick Henry:

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Patrick Henry didn’t actually say that – the quote comes from a 1950s white nationalist magazine.

Representative Lauren Boebert went even further, saying that the Founding Fathers intended the church “to direct the government.”

The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it, and I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk. That’s not in the Constitution.

(Compare that with Madison’s belief that “religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together. “)

Unfortunately, a lot of influential conservatives have expressed similar beliefs. Christian nationalism is increasingly powerful on the right.

As Senator Hawley (or, more likely, his staff) was quick to point out, some Founding Fathers did connect the founding of the USA to Christianity. But that certainly wasn’t something all the Founding Fathers believed, let alone agreed to when they wrote the nation’s founding documents.

Some receipts:

Thomas Jefferson really did physically slice out miracles and the like from his copy of the Bible. Jefferson believed that cutting out “nonsense” and leaving only what he judged to be “evidently” authentic sayings of Jesus would produce a “sublime and benevolent code of morals.” He added that the genuine material in the Bible was “as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill.”

In Age of Reason, Paine famously wrote:

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

Regarding the kicker:

Paine wasn’t the strongest antislavery voice among the Founding Fathers – that would probably be John Jay – but he was one of the strongest, and he never owned slaves.

Jefferson, judged only by what he wrote as a young man, would also be a strong antislavery voice.

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other… Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.

(Note the God reference. Jefferson seems to have been more a deist than either a Christian or an atheist. But also, he was too good a writer to let such technical considerations get in the way of a good phrase.)

But no one should be judged only on what they say. On slavery, Jefferson was America’s greatest hypocrite, owning hundreds of slaves in his life. As he aged, he became more consistent, but not in a good way: his writing and rhetoric became increasingly defensive of slavery.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

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

PANEL 1

In colonial times, Thomas Jefferson is walking after Thomas Paine, holding up an open bible.

JEFFERSON: Hey Thomas Paine — check this out!

PAINE: Hey yourself, Thomas Jefferson. It’s the Bible, but… you’ve cut it up?

PANEL 2

A close-up on Jefferson. We can now see that his copy of the Bible has been cut up; Jefferson is holding scissors in his other hand.

JEFFERSON: Precisely! I cut out the bullshit: miracles, the virgin birth, Jesus being God. What’s left is the good stuff—love your neighbor, give to charity.

PANEL 3

Jefferson tucks his bible under his arm. Paine looks very conceited.

JEFFERSON: I call it “separating diamonds from dunghills.”

PAINE: Nice! You’ve obviously been reading MY work. “Religion was invented to enslave people.”

PANEL 4

We switch to the current day; we are looking at a hand holding a smartphone. On the phone’s screen is a YouTube-style app, playing a video of someone sitting in his car yelling at his camera.

MAN: FACT! The Founding Fathers meant the USA to be a CHRISTIAN nation devoted to our lord JESUS CHRIST!

KICKER PANEL

Paine folds his arms and looks at Jefferson sternly. Jefferson looks abashed and turns away.

PAINE: So Jefferson — have you freed your slaves yet?

JEFFERSON: Oh dear, I’m suddenly needed in Monticello.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is an obscure term once used by cartoonists for irrelevant but fun details in the art.

PANEL 2: A bird on the fence is wearing a white wig with elaborate curls, aka a Founding Father wig. Graffiti on the fence shows a heart with “GB + US 4VR” written inside but the heart is crossed out.

PANEL 3: A beer cart is in the background, with a sign saying “BEER: It’s what’s for breakfast.” A drunk child sits against the cart, drinking from an enormous mug. On the cart’s other side, a cat is lapping at some spilled beer, while a drunk rat has passed out. A smaller sign on the cart says “HEAD CHEESE – Made from REAL calf head!”

PANEL 4: The website is called “ScrewLoose.” The video channel is named “MrBased.” The thumbnails for other videos say: “ANGER: I will NOT let them CANCEL me,” “FEAR: How WOKE is COMING for your KIDS,” and “BUY VITAMINS: THEY don’t want you to KNOW about these PILLS!”

Two Toms Talking Theology | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Atheism, Cartooning & comics, Religion | 1 Comment

Wishing Immigrants Away

Posted on July 8, 2026 by Ampersand

I’m always amazipalled (portmanteau between “amazed” and “appalled” that I don’t expect to catch on) at how willing MAGA is to demolish the US’s future prospects and economy. Their own children and grandchildren will be poorer for it, and they simply don’t care.

A clear example of this is the extreme cuts to science funding under Republican rule. In 2025 alone, the administration terminated or froze almost four thousand NIH and NSF grants. This is an attempt to destroy a major source of economic growth:

Experts broadly agree that taxpayer investments in science can yield substantial economic returns by supporting new technologies and encouraging private investment. For example, a Brookings Institution analysis cited one recent paper showing that federal research and development investments have “been responsible for at least one-fifth of overall postwar growth of total factor productivity in the United States.” Similarly, a 2019 study found that every dollar spent on NIH grants leads to $2.34 in drug sales alone, before accounting for broader social benefits. Collecting the evidence, the Congressional Budget Office recently concluded that every dollar of federal nondefense research and development investment creates as much as $12.50 in economic growth over the following 30 years by encouraging capital expenditures and job creation.

Another major engine of US economic grown that Republicans are determined to destroy is immigration.

I can already hear my conservative readers objecting that the GOP has nothing against legal immigration. But that’s simply not true. The RAISE Act in 2017, endorsed by major Republicans like Trump, Tom Cotton, and David Perdue, would have cut legal immigration in half. Although the RAISE Act didn’t pass, their crusade against immigration – legal immigration included – continues to this day.

Attacking immigration is a direct attack on all Americans’ economic future. Immigrants are vital to the economy for many reasons: That many immigrants are entrepreneurs and innovators, that immigrants are on average younger than the US’s aging population, through paying taxes, and simply because it’s good for the economy to have more willing workers.

The attacks on immigration will make average Americans poorer over the long term – poorer culturally, and poorer in wealth.

But all of this is simply less important to most GOP voters – even those who claim not to have a racist bone in their bodies – than getting rid of brown people.

I considered making the magic wishing ball in this strip a little winged fairy or a talking fish – something with a face and expressions. But somehow, a floating shiny ball just seemed funnier to me. Plus, drawing a shiny ball is oddly fun.

The magic ball has appeared in one of my strips before, back in 2019. I was planning to color it gold this time, but I accidently switched the color to hot pink and liked it so much I kept it.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels. They all show the same scene – an ordinary-looking white guy in a living room, talking to a shiny floating pink ball.

Panel 1

MAN: Magic wishing ball! Of course I’ve got nothing against brown people, but I’m desperate to fix unemployment and the deficit — so I wish all the immigrants gone!

Panel 2

The man is eagerly looking at his phone.

MAGIC BALL (thought): I’ll teach this rube a cruel ironic lesson!

MAGIC BALL: Wish granted!

MAN: Oh boy! I’ve gotta see this!

Panel 3

The man has a betrayed expression as he reads his phone.

MAN: Hey! Unemployment and the deficit are both much higher!

Panel 4

MAGIC BALL (thought): Buh bu bum! My trap is sprung!

MAGIC BALL: That’s right! Taking away millions of workers shrunk the economy. There was a major recession! The economy crashed!

Panel 5

MAGIC BALL You also made the country whiter — but those white people will be poorer for generations because of your bigo—

MAN: The country’s whiter?

MAGIC BALL: Yes, but—

Panel 6

The man jumps happily, clicking his heels together.

MAN (shouting): Success!!

MAGIC BALL (thought): Fuck.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is an ancient cartoonist term for unimportant details in the art.

PANEL 1: Woodstock from Peanuts is standing on the window. The empty cardboard box the Magic Wishing Ball came in has the slogans: “Fun!” “Amaze your friends!” “Irony!” and “Fake true love!”

PANEL 2: The cat on the sofa has two heads. In a table in the background, a mouse stands a bowl of nuts, holding up a knife and fork.

PANEL 3: Beaker from The Muppets is peering in the window.

PANEL 5: The character in the framed picture on the wall (last seen in panel 2) is climbing out of the frame. One of the flowers in the carpet pattern is smiling and smoking a joint.

PANEL 6: A bird flying outside the window has Groucho Marx’s face. A tiny Harpo Marx is peering out from behind the throw pillow. The corpse of Micky Mouse is lying under the sofa (we can only see his hand). The figure from the framed picture on the wall is now standing on the sidetable. (He has a letter on his shirt in every panel he appears: The letters spell out W O R D.) The three books in the lower shelf of the side table are entitled “Who Cares?” “Irrelevant” and “Unimportant.” And Itchy (from “Itchy and Scratchy”) is also on that shelf.

Wishing Immigrants Away | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Economics and the like, Immigration, Migrant Rights, etc, Race, racism and related issues, Racism | 20 Comments

What Will Future Archeologists Say?

Posted on July 6, 2026 by Ampersand

Thanks to R. E. Ryan for his wonderful sci-fi art on this one!

I originally posted this on Patreon in 2024, but apparently I spaced out on posting it on Alas and Leftycartoons at the time. (Glares in annoyance at own brain.)

In comments, Beth points to this excellent wiki article she wrote on the “future archeologist argument.”

It’s weirdly common to see someone try to prove that a trans person is “really” not the sex they say they are by saying something like “in a hundred years, anthropologists will be able to sex your skeleton.” (Here’s a video of professional anti-trans activist Riley Gaines bringing this point up.)

Even putting aside the ridiculous implication that “sex” comes down to the shape of our pelvis bones and nothing else, it’s simply not true that the sex of all skeletons can be identified.

In a 2018 article in “Sapiens,” a trade magazine for archeologists, anthropologist Alexandra E. Kralick pointed out that admitting that some skeletons are “indeterminate” – rather than insisting every skeleton can be determined to be male or female – has increased accuracy in sex identification of skeletons.

In 1972, Kenneth Weiss, now a professor emeritus of anthropology and genetics at Pennsylvania State University, noticed that there were about 12 percent more male skeletons than females reported at archaeological sites. This seemed odd, since the proportion of men to women should have been about half and half. The reason for the bias, Weiss concluded, was an “irresistible temptation in many cases to call doubtful specimens male.” For example, a particularly tall, narrow-hipped woman might be mistakenly cataloged as a man. […]

Allowing skeletons to remain unsexed, or “indeterminate,” reflects an acceptance of the variability and overlap between the sexes. It does not necessarily mean that the skeletons classified this way are, in fact, neither male nor female, but it does mean that there is no clear or easy way to tell the difference. As science and social change in the 1970s and 1980s revealed that sex is complicated, the category of “indeterminate sex” individuals in skeletal research became more common and improved scientific accuracy.

Similarly, a 2015 study in “Journal of Anthropology” showed that when anthropologists use different methods of testing on the same skeletons, it’s common for one test to say “male” while another test says the same skeleton is “female.”

Not that this generally matters. Although some people might be asking these questions sincerely, for anti-trans activists like Riley Gaines, the question is nothing but bad faith. In the video I linked above, Gaines asked an anthropologist if skeletons can be ID’d by sex after 100 years. The anthropologist said a single word – “no” – before being drowned out by jeering and laughter. Gaines could have done follow-up questions; she could have asked what he means. She could have given him more than a single word to answer. But for her, it was about the mockery and the sneering; a desire for actual knowledge never entered into it.

(My guess is that he had been allowed more than one word, he might have pointed out that sex is more complex than pelvic bone shape; that even ignoring that, not all skeletons can be definitely sexed; or many other things. But we’ll never know, because he wasn’t allowed more than one word.)

Anyway, in a way this cartoon makes me a hypocrite, since it’s obviously about making fun of transphobic gotchas rather than gathering knowledge. But 1) it’s a cartoon, not a public lecture and 2) the idea made me laugh.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels.

PANEL 1

A man with a big mustache, wearing jeans and a button-down shirt, has a sneery grin as he points at a woman. The woman, whose back is to us, listens with her hands on her hips. Let’s call the man “MUSTACHE.”

MUSTACHE: In a thousand years, scientists will be able to tell your skeleton was male! HA!

PANEL 2

The same scene, but now the woman’s body language is surprised, and Mustache is grasping at his chest and has an expression of agony.

MUSTACHE: ACK! Heart attack!

PANEL 3

We are viewing Mustache in his open coffin; there’s a casket spray (that’s what the traditional flower arrangements that lie on top of coffins are called, and that’s something I didn’t know until I googled it two minutes ago because I was writing this transcript)  on the coffin. There’s a photo of him when he was alive on a tripod next to the coffin. His eyes are closed and he looks at peace. Ironically, his hands, folded on his chest, are in almost exactly the same position as in panel 2.

PANEL 4

We are looking at a cross-section view of a grave in a graveyard. We can see that a coffin is buried sex feet under. In the background, we can see the skyscrapers of a city.

PANEL 5

We are looking at the same scene, from the same angle, but now a hole has been dug and two sleek white floating robots are lifting the coffin out of the grave. In the background, we can see a sci-fi cityscape, with lots of tiny spaceships in the sky.

PANEL 6

We are in some sort of sci-fi medical research lab. In the background, we can see screens with various graphs and readouts on the wall, including one with a diagram of a skeleton surrounded by labels. One of the robots we saw in panel five is working at a panel of buttons. In the foreground, two scientists with sci-fi looking eyewear are thoughtfully examining a skeleton on an examination table; one of the scientists is scanning the skeleton with a handheld device.

The skeleton is Mustache’s (we can tell because his mustache has somehow survived).

SCIENTIST: The scans are conclusive – this skeleton was an asshat.

What Will Future Archeologists Say? | Barry Deutsch on Patreon

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