The Cities Are Full Of, uh, “Crime”

Posted on September 8, 2025 by Ampersand

This cartoon is by me and Becky Hawkins.

From an article by Sara Libby in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Trump and other members of his administration, while often using false or misleading statistics, have cited rampant crime as the justification for deploying federalized troops within U.S. cities.

But these cities share another commonality: They’re led by Black mayors.

Critics don’t think that’s a coincidence. Trump’s focus on Washington D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, New York and Oakland is part of a larger pattern in which the president has suggested cities with majority-Black populations, or those led by Black leaders, are hotbeds of crime and corruption and symbols of American decline.

Right-wing fear and hatred of American cities is a theme Becky and I have explored before – see here and here.

It’s no surprise that Trump’s authoritarian attack on cities is rooted in racism. Trump has always relied on racism in his political demagoguery, going back to at least 1989, when he bought full-page ads in several New York newspapers calling for the Central Park 5 to be executed. (Trump’s ad didn’t explicitly name the Central Park 5 – five Black teenage boys falsely convicted of raping a woman in Central Park – but in context that’s clearly what the ad was about.) Then he rose to political prominence as the face of the “birther” conspiracy theory, suggesting Barack Obama isn’t actually an American. More recently, Trump campaigned successfully for re-election by slandering immigrants with hateful lies about Haitians stealing and eating housepets.

(That was, of course, far from a comprehensive list.)

In a better world, Trump would have been permanently shunned from public life for his over the top racism. Instead, he’s found a welcoming audience for his racism on the right, and their support for racism has been crucial to Trump’s rise to power. In a 2022 study in the journal American Politics Research, James Piazza and Natalia Van Doren summed up some of the research:

Several studies demonstrate that these racist and xenophobic utterances and policies were key to garnering the support of Trump’s electoral base. For example, Schaffner et al., 2016 found that racist and sexist attitudes were the most important predictors of voter support for Trump in 2016, eclipsing economic grievances and mistrust of politics and politicians. Trump’s explicitly bigoted appeals were a particularly crucial aspect of his popularity with less educated White voters in the 2016 race (Glick et al., 2002). Sides et al. (2019) demonstrate that Trump supporters in 2016 were animated by racism against African Americans, Islamophobia, anti-immigrant xenophobia and a fear of “demographic displacement” by non-White individuals. In a longitudinal study comparing the attitudes and voting behaviors of a cohort of respondents in 2011 and 2016, Mason et al. (2021) found that respondents who expressed racist and xenophobic attitudes in 2011 were significantly more likely to have voted for Trump in 2016, but not other Republicans running for office.

These findings are consistent with research in other democracies showing that xenophobia – particularly anti-immigrant attitudes – drive electoral support for extreme right populist political parties.

In their own study, they found that

…individuals who approve of former President Trump are more likely to endorse political violence, and to positively assess the events and participants of the January 6 event. We also find that Trump approvers are motivated by racial animus and mistrust and hatred towards immigrants and foreigners, and that these attitudes, in part, may make them more accepting of political violence.

This is the sort of comic that makes me both grateful to have a collaborator like Becky, and green with envy for her ability to draw city architecture so well. Just look at those windows and awnings in panel two! Or all the storefront details in panel one! Aaargh!

While working on drawing panel four, Becky texted me “Fuck you for putting that muscular Trump poster in the script. :-p And you’re welcome.”

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

PANEL 1

A white man wearing a baseball cap looks around nervously as he walks on a city sidewalk. Behind him, we can see storefronts and pedestrians. All the people are brown-skinned, enjoying their day, including an adorable family with a toddler riding on her mom’s shoulders.

PANEL 2

A residential city neighborhood. The same white man presses against a wall, trying not to be seen, as he watches a little girl playing hopscotch, while another girl sits on a stoop reading a book. Nearby, a middle-aged woman waters some potted plants on a low wall. Again, the white guy is the only white person in the panel.

PANEL 3

The white guy peers out from behind a tree at a piragua cart, where the piragua vender is smiling as he talks to a customer. In the background, we see a man walking a three-legged pitbull, and a couple of people playing basketball. Again, everyone but the white guy is a person of color.

PANEL 4

We see the white guy in a professional-looking podcast studio, clenching a fist and talking intently into the microphone.

WHITE GUY: I’ve been to the city, and it was full of, uh, crime.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is bygone cartoonists’ lingo for unimportant details snuck into the art.

PANEL 2 – The woman’s bathrobe and turban in p2 are modeled after one of Barbara Howard’s outfits in the season two finale of the TV show Abbott Elementary.

PANEL 3 -A tree by the piragua cart has #avanine carved into the trunk. Avanine is a portmanteau of Ava and Janine, used by the small but enthusiastic number of Abbott Elementary fans who think that the plucky teacher and chaotic principal should date. The piragua guy looks like Lin Manuel Miranda as “Piragua Guy” in the movie version of In The Heights.

PANEL 4 – A poster on the wall shows an extremely muscular shirtless Donald Trump in a royal crown and wrestling belt, carrying a scepter with a carved American eagle head on top. Another poster shows a cartoon narwhal saying “If EDUCATION Makes People SMART, Why Are Most Educated People LIBERAL?” And a paper taped to the wall says “SCHEDULE. 10am: Anger. 11am: Pissed. Noon: Fury. 1pm: Lunch. 2pm: Wrath.”

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Race, racism and related issues, Racism | 17 Comments

Slashing Medicaid: Your Loss Our Gain

Posted on September 7, 2025 by Ampersand

My new cartoon collection, Why Must They Shove It In My Face?, is out. It’s about 200 pages of cartoony goodness, featuring 100 cartoons, plus text pieces and oodles of behind-the-scenes sketches. You can download the PDF if you join my Patreon at the $3 level. In fact, you get to download four different book collections if you join at the $3 level — about 700 pages of material!

Kody Kinsley and Dan Rusyniak – former Secretaries of Health for North Carolina and Indiana – wrote about Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill”:

…the bill’s $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid would pinch state budgets, forcing governors and state legislators to make tough decisions that are certain to be costly to the health of residents in both the short and long terms. …

People without health insurance still get sick. Hospitals, which are legally required to treat individuals in an emergency, would be forced to weather uncompensated care that is predicted to increase by $83 billion over the decade. In the same period, the bill would cause all providers to lose out on $1 trillion in revenue. Providers have little option but to cover losses by raising prices, which increases costs for everyone.

So why write such a terrible bill? Partly, of course, it’s just that Republicans are ideologically opposed to Medicaid, no matter how much good it does. But it’s also a desperate attempt to partly offset the enormous costs of tax breaks for the rich.

From a CNN report on a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the effects of the BBB:

Those at the bottom of the income ladder, who earn less than $24,000, on average, from wages and other income streams, will see their projected incomes drop by about $1,200 a year, or 3.1%, between 2026 and 2034 – mainly from reductions in benefits, including Medicaid and food stamps.

Middle-income Americans, who earn about $86,000, on average, will get an $800 bump, or about 0.8%, according to the analysis.

But the highest earners, with incomes of nearly $700,000, on average, will see a $13,600 jump in their incomes, or about 2.7%.

The cruelty of it all is hard to comprehend. (“The cruelty of it all is hard to comprehend,” I’ve been told by a reliable source, by which I mean, myself, is the Republican party’s official motto).

In this cartoon and “You Only Think You Liked It!” I’m playing around with a new color palette. I’ve always liked the way limited palettes look; there a fun challenge in trying to make a very small number of colors stand for everything.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, each featuring the same two characters: A representative of the Republican party, a middle-aged man wearing a jacket and tie, and a diabetic with spiky red hair. I’ll call them “Tie” and “Spike.”

PANEL 1

We’re in a grassy area, with trees and a fence in the background. Tie is speaking to Spike sternly, and Spike replies anxiously.

TIE: You know how much insulin costs? Throwing freeloaders like you off Medicaid will save tons of money!

SPIKE: But if I can’t afford insulin, I’ll wind up in the E.R., which costs a lot more!

PANEL 2

As they continue talking, they are now in the E.R..

SPIKE: Since I won’t be able to pay, the costs will be passed onto hospitals, other patients, and state governments.

PANEL 3

Spike is now in a hospice bed, wearing a patient’s gown. Tie is by Spike’s bedside, still speaking sternly.

SPIKE: And the sicker I get, the less I can work and contribute to the economy, right?

TIE: Maybe that’s all true.

PANEL 4

We’re back in the grassy area. Tie is grinning hugely and skipping. Spike has been replaced by a gravestone marked “R.I.P.”.

TIE: But have you considered how huge my tax cuts will be?

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is moribund cartoonists’ jargon for little extras in the artwork.

PANEL 1 – A tree has a sign saying “Do not climb – tree is only a drawing.” Below the sign is an evil bunny smoking a cigarette.

PANEL 2 – There are framed portraits of Dr. Hibbert from The Simpsons and Dr. Benson Honeydew from the Muppets. A spy with a walkie-talkie is peering out from a hole in the floor.

PANEL 3 – Outside the window, we can see the Grim Reaper approaching. Woodstock from Peanuts sits on the window frame. A hand holding a lit cigarette is sticking out of a drawer. One of the flowers has a smiling face. A sign on the wall says “Sign all forms before dying.”

PANEL 4 – The Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland is perched in the tree. A sign on the tree says “FOR SALE: “For sale” sign. Barely used on smoke-free tree. Will trade for weed.” The small print on Spike’s gravestone says “suffered a politically illustrative demise.”

Slashing Medicaid: Your Loss Our Gain | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc. | Leave a comment

You Only Think You Liked It!

Posted on September 1, 2025 by Ampersand

My new cartoon collection, Why Must They Shove It In My Face?, is out! It’s about 200 pages of cartoony goodness, featuring 100 cartoons, plus text pieces and oodles of behind-the-scenes sketches. You can download the PDF if you join my Patreon at the $3 level. In fact, you get to download four different book collections if you join at the $3 level — about 700 pages of material.

(700 hundred pages! See that, brain? I’m not entirely unproductive.)

Check out the timelapse video of me drawing this comic strip. (If you have pot handy, consider getting stoned for it, that might enhance the experience.)

This strip was inspired by a kerfuffle in the comics community. A white cartoonist, who had gotten a lot of attention for her award-winning first graphic novel (published by a prestige publisher), posted a comic strip on her Instagram about how comics fans, due to white guilt, felt forced to pretend excitement about the work of presumably undeserving nonwhite cartoonists.

A pseudonymous cartoonist commented on Reddit:

I was a fan of her (mostly her paintings— I’ve never felt very compelled to read her comics to be honest) and it just really sucked to read that comic. I’m in the industry and it felt so extremely pointed at some of my peers. It was so stressful as a POC cartoonist reading all of the positive comments rolling in right after it was posted because I just felt like “wow, is this how people feel about me?” It really, really sucked.

I’ve always found the right-wing theory that people don’t really like what they like, but are only saying so to appease the “woke,” hilarious. (“You Only Think You Liked It!” might make a good title for the eventual reprint collection). In the last couple of months I’ve been hearing people say this about James Gunn’s allegedly “woke” Superman movie. (“Woke” because of its radical message that empathy and immigration are good things). But there have been many previous examples – I’ve seen similar claims made about Black Panther, The Barbie Movie and HBO’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

There’s also a catch-22 – when “woke” or “diverse” media does well, the anti-woke scolds crawl out of their internet forums to declare that people are just pretending to like it. But when a piece of “woke” media does poorly, the same people crow “go woke, get broke.”

(I ought to define what “woke” means, since I’ve typed “woke” seven times in two paragraphs. Alas, I can’t – at least, not with any specificality – because what’s meant by “woke” is an ever-moving and opportunistic target. But, generally speaking, “woke” means anything to the speaker sees as being too friendly to the interests of women or minority groups.)

The specific dust-up that inspired this comic is obviously a flash in the pan, but the attitude is common enough to be worth drawing a comic about it. Naturally, I considered switching the specifics from comics to a more popular and thus generic feeling art form – novels, say, or movies.

But I’d already thought of panel three, and I was very excited about drawing a comic-within-my-comic. So comics it remained. I tried to write it so that people unaware of the specific case I was responding to (a group which comprises approximately 99.99999999999% of humanity) would still be able to enjoy the strip.

I also thought for a long time about whether criticizing another cartoonist (even without naming her or drawing a caricature of her) was something I even wanted to do. At some level, is this unprofessional of me? And shouldn’t I be aiming my critiques at genuinely famous people, not a relatively unknown cartoonist?

In the end, I decided it was okay (I mean, obviously, since you’re reading this). If political stances people go out of their way to take in public aren’t fair game, what is? And Graham is probably more successful as a cartoonist than me (admittedly a low bar), so it’s not punching down.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel under the bottom of the strip. Each panel features two women talking on a suburban sidewalk. One woman has glasses and a red t-shirt; the other has short dark hair and torn jeans. I’ll call them “RED” and “TORN.”

PANEL 1

Red, angry, is holding out a comic book towards Torn. Torn crouches to examine the comic.

RED: Look! A “diverse” artist’s comic book won an award, but their work is garbage!

TORN: I liked that comic.

PANEL 2

Red tosses the comic away over her shoulder, while producing another comic and handing it to Torn.

RED: You only think you liked it!

RED: No one actually liked it. They just said they did because they’re afraid. Here, read my award-winning comic, it’s actually good.

TORN: Um… Okay.

PANEL 3

In the foreground, we see Torn is reading the comic. In the background, Red continues to rant.

RED: You know why they give awards to middling “diverse” artists? White guilt! It’s pathetic!

PANEL 4

Torn, amused, hands the comic back to Red. Red looks suspicious.

TORN: Have you noticed that when middling white artists win awards, no one thinks that needs an explanation?

RED: Sure, but– Wait, what are you implying?

TINY KICKER PANEL

Torn talks to Barry the cartoonist.

TORN: You’d know all about middling white cartoonists winning awards, right Barry?

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is obsolete cartoonists’ terminology for unimportant (but hopefully fun) details in the artwork.

PANEL 1 – The comic book’s title is “Minor Detail Comix,” and has a sedate dog on the cover. One of the spies from “Spy vs. Spy” is in a hole in a tree in the background. An open can on the ground is labeled “Ant Food” and has a trail of ants leading to it.

PANEL 2 – The dog on the cover of the comic being tossed away now has a panicked expression. The new comic she’s holding out is entitled “Changing Details Comix,” with a skeleton in a suit on the cover.

PANEL 3 – We see some of the panels of the comic Torn is reading. “Hey, wanna have some ill-advised sex? But in an artsy and highbrow way.” “No, I’d rather do it with Mr. Stephen Sondheim.” “I understand. He is the greatest songwriter ever. Maybe I could have sex with Andrew Lloyd Webber instead?”

Also, the Evil Bunny – a character I frequently draw into backgrounds – can be seen in panel 1 of the comic-in-a-comic.

PANEL 4 – The comic now shows the famous painting “The Scream,” and is entitled “Still Changing Comix.”

TATTOO – The tattoo on Torn’s left arm forms a three panel comic strip. In panel one, a moon and a sun, both with smiling faces, face each other across the arm. In panel two, they’re dancing with each other, holding hands, with little hearts floating in the air. In panel four, they’ve floated apart and look heartbroken.

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Race, racism and related issues | 13 Comments

At Least The Fruit Subscription Services Run On Time

Posted on August 28, 2025 by Ampersand

For the record, it’s a myth that Mussolini made the trains run on time. From Snopes:

The Italian railway system had fallen into a rather sad state during World War I, and it did improve a good deal during the 1920s, but Mussolini was disingenuous in taking credit for the changes: much of the repair work had been performed before Mussolini and the fascists came to power in 1922. More importantly (to the claim at hand), those who actually lived in Italy during the Mussolini era have borne testimony that the Italian railway’s legendary adherence to timetables was far more myth than reality.

In 2017, Political Science professor Thomas Pepinsky wrote an article entitled “Life in authoritarian states is mostly boring and tolerable“:

Everyday life in the modern authoritarian regime is, in this sense, boring and tolerable. It is not outrageous. Most critics, even vocal ones, are not going to be murdered, as Anna Politkovskaya was in Russia; they are going to be frustrated. Most not-very-vocal critics will live their lives completely unmolested by the security forces. They will enjoy it when the trains run on time, blame the government when they do not, gripe about their taxes, and save for vacation. …

Most Americans conceptualize a hypothetical end of American democracy in Apocalyptic terms. But actually, you usually learn that you are no longer living in a democracy not because The Government Is Taking Away Your Rights, or passing laws that you oppose, or because there is a coup or a quisling. You know that you are no longer living in a democracy because the elections in which you are participating no longer can yield political change.

Eight years later, in February 2025, he wrote a follow-up:

This time around, I am less optimistic that life under authoritarianism will be boring and tolerable for most people. … I was wrong about how visible an end to democracy would be.

All of this happened in the open. None of this is a secret, and there are no consequences. In the meantime, the administration has articulated a frightening interpretation of the architecture of the U.S. Constitution, holding that—in the words of the Vice President—“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Everyone knows this is false. And yet we must hear it.

Life is neither boring nor tolerable right now, just maddening and stupid.

For now – for me at least – life is tolerable. Honestly, my life is really pleasant. I’ve got decent health, we can pay our bills (including our skyrocketing grocery bills) each month, and I get to draw cartoons and hang out with friends and sometimes go see musical theater.

And all the while, I read the news which seems to be on an infinite “getting worse than I imagined it could” cycle and I sometimes go to protests and I doomscroll too much and it really does seem like democracy is crashing down around us.

It’ s all so surreal, and that’s the feeling I was trying to illustrate with this comic strip.

Of all the comics I’ve drawn this year, this one was definitely the most work. All four panels have detailed backgrounds, each requiring its own perspective grid; there are a lot of figures in there; and some of the things I drew (a bus!) are situated well outside my comfort zone.

As usual, I’ll have to wait to see if I still like it in a year. But for now, I’m really happy with how this strip looks. I’ve been working on leveling up my ability to draw environments, and a strip like this one makes me feel I’ve made real gains. I honestly don’t think I could have drawn it as well five or ten years ago.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each is a different scene, but they all focus on the same character, an ordinary-looking white guy with glasses, wearing a polo shirt. I’ll call him “Glasses.”

PANEL 1

Glasses is walking in a city as he reads his phone. In the background, across the street, we see a group of protestors with signs saying “Stop It!” and “Enough Already!”

GLASSES (thought): Bills, bills… Oh, well, whatcha gonna do?

PANEL 2

Glasses is sitting on a bench at a bus stop, still reading his phone. There are a couple of sleeper tents on the sidewalk.

GLASSES (thought): Oh, wow, the news is awful… We really are descending into fascism.

PANEL 3

Glasses is stepping off a bus, while still staring at the phone in his hand. In the foreground, a couple of men wearing backwards baseball bats, their faces hidden by balaclavas, are wrestling a woman into submission.

GLASSES (thought): I should put my phone away… Can’t lose another day to doomscrolling.

PANEL 4

Glasses, now in sweatpants, is on a sofa in his living room, still reading his phone. Through a window behind him, we can see masked soldiers marching by.

GLASSES (thought): Should I join a fruit subscription service?

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is moribund cartoonists’ lingo for unimportant but hopefully amusing details slipped into a comic.

PANEL 1 – The protest signs are ridiculously vague: “Stop it” and “I object” and “enough already!” The protestors include a man with a crescent moon for a head, Jezanna from the comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For,” and Wendel from the comic strip “Wendel.” There’s an evil bunny glaring out of the sewer.

PANEL 2 – There’s a man with a rifle in a window on a building. A poster on the wall says “Jesus wants you to be nice – by reporting illegals to ICE.” The illustration shows a smiling teddy bear with a halo crucified on a cross.

A newspaper, “The Daily Weekly,” is lying on the sidewalk. The main headline says “President’s Birthday Declared a Holiday,” with a subheadline saying “Real Americans are thrilled.” Another headline says “Tiny Headline Contains No Real Info But Does Fill In Blank Space,” and the last headline says “Cartoonists go on Strike: No One Notices.”

PANEL 3 – The woman being kidnapped by ICE is wearing a “Captain Hammer” t-shirt, a reference to “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.”

PANEL 4 – There are portraits on the wall of the main characters of Asterios Polyp and Gasoline Alley. A book on a table is entitled “Book You Still Haven’t Got Around to Reading Volume 1.” A second book is entitled “Book Volume 8. Admit It, You’ll Never Read This.” A third book, in the background, says “it’s so weird that people actually read this very tiny print” on the cover.

At Least The Fruit Subscription Services Run On Time | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics | 5 Comments

(Not) All Jews Are Welcome

Posted on August 5, 2025 by Ampersand

Check out the timelapse drawing video for this cartoon!

From an October 2024 article from In These Times:

U.S. Jewish Institutions Are Purging Their Staffs of Anti-Zionists

In These Times interviewed 18 Jewish professionals with 16 different Jewish organizations across the country, all of whom describe being fired, quitting under pressure, or seeing their roles disappear since October 7 for issues surrounding criticism of Israel or support for a permanent cease-fire. These stories are just a snapshot of what appears to be a growing trend across the Jewish professional world. At the time of publication, In These Times was continuing to receive tips about similar cases.

They largely tell similar stories. They care deeply about working in Jewish communities and were devastated at having to leave their positions for caring about Palestinian rights and liberation. Among their transgressions: Going to a protest, wearing a keffiyeh to work, liking an Instagram post.

These purges have been going on for years; see, for instance, this 2017 story about a student group for queer Jews, which was kicked out of Hillel for co-sponsoring an event with Jewish Voices for Peace.

In an interview, Peter Beinart said:

In a lot of American Jewish institutions, you get in more trouble if you question the legitimacy of the State of Israel than if you question the authority of the Torah, right? Which is just a very strange thing.

Hillel, which serves Jewish college students, basically has this statement of radical pluralism. It’s, like, We don’t care if you keep kosher. We don’t care if you keep Shabbat. None of that’s important. Bring your whole self. Except if you’re anti-Zionist.

As I drew this, it was becoming (even more) impossible to deny the tragedy being inflicted upon Palestinians by Israel’s government, and some organizations seem to be changing their positions to one more critical of Israeli policy. For instance, for the first time this week, two Israeli human rights organizations – B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – have said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

So maybe things are changing, and this cartoon will soon become moot. I’d love that to happen.

I wanted to draw this cartoon in black and white.

And, at the same time, I wanted white highlights on the figures.

So I compromised by using extremely limited color. I hope you like the look!

(Update a few days later: I didn’t like the colors, and redid them three times before settling on a color approach I liked.)

For the background, I downloaded a three-dimensional model of a brownstone and picked out angles that fit with my layout for each panel, using a program called sketchup. Then I traced those images to produce the final linework. I don’t trace often – I like the results better when everything’s coming from my head, plus it’s simply more fun to draw that way – but sometimes a form is just too complicated for me to figure out the perspective on my own. (Especially if I want the same setting shown at four different angles.)

(In case you’re wondering, this is not the same thing as A.I.. – 3d models are decades old and are built by humans, not by generative iterations.)

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, all showing the front steps of a brownstone building.

PANEL 1

A middle-aged man wearing a kippah stands on the landing atop the steps, making an expansive, welcoming gesture. A woman is standing on the steps talking to him.

MAN: Welcome to the Jewish community! All Jews are welcome!

WOMAN: Are you sure? I’m Jewish, but I don’t keep kosher.

MAN: No matter! A Jew’s a Jew.

PANEL 2

The same man is now talking to someone else, a young guy in a striped t-shirt.

YOUNG GUY: I don’t observe Shabbat. And I never had a Bar Mitzvah.

MAN: That’s no problem! Judaism is for all Jews!

PANEL 3

The same man is now talking to a young woman with curly black hair.

WOMAN: I was raised Jewish, but now I’m an atheist.

MAN: You’re still one of us!

WOMAN: And I strongly support Palestinian rights.

PANEL 4

The woman, looking dizzy, is lying on the pavement at the bottom of the stairs, her purse a few feet away. The man, off-panel, yells from the top of the stairs.

MAN: AND STAY OUT!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is long-hibernating cartoonist slang for funny but unimportant details in a comic.

PANEL 1: The back of the woman’s hoodie says “BAND NAME.”

PANEL 3: Tattoos on the woman’s arm say “This That Other.” There’s also a tattoo of Ignatz Mouse from Krazy Kat.

PANEL 4: There’s a rat on the sidewalk, who is wearing glasses and smoking a pipe. The woman’s tattoos now include a light bulb with a thought balloon showing a lit-up light bulb, Leela from Futurama, a razor crossing a rolling pin, and a slice of pie. On her other arm, tattoos say “Pow Zap” and there’s a tattoo of Krazy from Krazy Kat.

A newspaper lying on the sidewalk is called “Daily Backgrounder.” The top headline is “Wayward Song To Carry On: Forecasters Predict Peace When Done.” Smaller headlines says “Hidden Pigeons Emerge For Cyanide-Coated Peanuts: Bird Community Vows Revenge” and “Body Found In Chicago: Victim Looks Like Jigsaw Puzzle With Pieces Missing.” (All three headlines are references to songs I like; I suspect my younger readers will have a tougher time identifying all three songs.)

(Did you recognize all three songs? Post them in the comments. It’s possible you’ll win one hundred dollars! Although there’s no connection between posting the songs in the comments and you winning $100, it’s just two entirely unrelated things that could both happen.)

(Not) All Jews Are Welcome | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Palestine & Israel | 5 Comments

Trust Us, We’re Doctors

Posted on August 5, 2025 by Ampersand

This cartoon is by me and Becky Hawkins.

Dylan Scott wrote an article on Vox entitled “The One Big Unanswered Question About Ozempic.” Ozempic seems to take away urges, and not only hunger related urges. And no one seems to know what that means yet.

“What are the very long-term effects of these drugs? The literature will say, ‘Well, there isn’t really bad long-term effects because some people have been taking it for diabetes for 10 years, and they don’t have bad effects,’” Kent Berridge, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, told me. “And I think that’s a fair argument. But then 10 years is not 20 years or 30 years.”

Maybe twenty years from now, we’ll all agree that Ozempic is great. I’m certainly not advising anyone not to take it; that’s a decision individuals have to make for themselves. But miracle weight loss drugs don’t have the greatest track record.

In the same article, Scott brought up a study which – I’m pretty sure unintentionally – underscores the need for caution.

Research has consistently found that weight loss tends to be more sustainable when it includes behavioral changes in addition to pharmaceutical interventions.

The link goes to a 2005 study in the highly respected New England Journal of Medicine, “Randomized Trial of Lifestyle Modification and Pharmacotherapy for Obesity.”

(Contrary to Dylan Scott’s claim, the study isn’t about “sustainable” weight loss. In fact, it only followed subjects for a year. It’s a study of how effective different weight loss approaches are, not how well they’re sustained.)

They found that pharmaceutical plus “lifestyle modification” (exercise, talking to nutritionists, etc.) led to more weight loss than other approaches – 26 pounds loss, versus 15 pounds for those who only made lifestyle modifications. (Although keep in mind, it’s likely most of the subjects regained the weight in the long run.) The study concluded that “the results underscore the importance of prescribing weight-loss medications” in combination with lifestyle change.

26 pounds – that’s amazing! And this was in 2005! So why isn’t everyone today losing weight taking that miracle pill?

Because the miracle pill in question was sibutramine, also known as Meridia, and it was banned in 2010 because it was causing patients to have heart attacks and strokes.

In 2005, doctors were recommending sibutramine for weight loss. In 2010, after doing no one knows how much damage, sibutramine was banned. And now it’s forgotten. We’ve gone through this cycle a lot.

Horrifyingly, all the treatments mentioned in this cartoon were real historic weight-loss treatments. And honestly, we could have done twice as many panels. Here are some links in case you’d like to read more:

The Seesawing History of Fad Diets

History of Slimming Diets up to the Late 1950s

Fad Diets and Weight Loss: From the 1800s to the 1930s

Deadly Diet Culture Throughout History

Becky writes:

I love drawing a “thingie through the ages” comic. They take a lot more time to research than a comic set in one period, though. I had about 30 tabs open while I was drawing this!

I know that we’ll always see fashion through a present-day lens. For example, someone might see flannel and wide-legged jeans as “90s fashion” instead of “clothes that indicate a high schooler is into grunge music, smoking pot, or is just on stage crew,” which was what that meant in my high school in the 90s.

That said, I have a specific pet peeve: when a period film is thoroughly researched and lovingly presented, everything is authentic and gritty except that the leading lady’s hair and makeup looks Good ™. Dare to make historical characters look a little funny!

The ideal woman has VERY SLOPEY SHOULDERS, okay?

I’m really pleased with the graphics I drew around the captions. I got the idea for them when I saw this old ad and thought that the leafy pattern could nicely fill the space to the right of “1850.”

I realized that every panel was in danger of having dead space at the top, and I thought that different colors, textures, and shapes would be a great way to indicate different eras. The 1912 and 1928 graphics also come from advertisements; the 1970s one just lives in my brain. Barry found this design blog to help with the 1996 graphic. Just seeing those colors and textures brought back vivid memories of notebooks, magazines, and TV commercials!

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels. Each panel has a large caption at top, indicating the date.

PANEL 1 – 1850

Three people in 1850s clothing, two women and a man with a fantastic mustache, sit at a table. A tray in front of them is piled high with wafers.

MAN: Dr Simm’s Arsenic Wafers will safely make you slender and beautiful! Trust me, I’m a doctor!

PANEL 2 – 1912

A doctor in a white lab coat talks to us. He stands with his arm around a gigantic tapeworm, which is about as tall as he is.

DOCTOR: You just swallow tapeworm eggs. These sweet creatures are nature’s path to slimness!

TAPEWORM: What could go wrong?

PANEL 3 – 1928

A man in a tux lights a cigarette for a glamourous woman in a flapper-style dress.

MAN: Light a Lucky Strike and you’ll never miss sweets that make you fat!

PANEL 4 – 1975

A doctor in a white lab coat grins at us as he holds up a pill bottle. Behind him, a beautiful woman sleeps on a bed.

DOCTOR: Sedatives! Sleep twenty hours a day and you won’t be eating! Nothing could be healthier!

PANEL 5 – 1996

A man talks to us while holding up a Time Magazine cover. The cover shows the body of a slim woman in a bathing suit, with the caption “Hot New Diet Pill.”

MAN: It’s called Fen-Phen! What a fun name, right? You’ll lose weight and it definitely probably maybe won’t cause heart attacks!

PANEL 6- TODAY

A doctor holds up a syringe, as he talks to us with a grin.

DOCTOR: Just inject once weekly for the rest of your life and you’ll stop wanting to eat. Totally safe! Trust us, we’re doctors!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

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

PANEL 1: One of the women has died.

PANEL 2: A box on a little table is labeled “WYRM” and has an illustration of a tapeworm framed by laurel branches.

PANEL 3: There are six ashtrays, overflowing with cigarette butts, on a table in the foreground. The entire panel is laid out to resemble a 1920s magazine ad.

PANEL 4: The sleeping woman is dressed like a flower child, and her hair is drawn with spirals, which illustrators did a lot in the 1970s. Outside a window, we can see Merryweather and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty enjoying eating cake; Maleficent is feeding a bit to her pet raven Diablo.

PANEL 6: The doctor’s necktie has a pattern of cartoon tapeworms.

Trust Us, We’re Doctors | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Fat, fat and more fat | 29 Comments

Beware God’s Sock Puppets

Posted on August 3, 2025 by Ampersand

This cartoon is by me and Kevin Moore.

From the Bible (2 Kings 2, specifically):

He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.

To modern readers, that sure seems like a disproportionate punishment.

Some apologists make interesting points about this passage (like suggesting “small boys” may not be the best translation). But I enjoy the less erudite defenses. Here are five real quotes found online, from sincere defenders:

The real question is this: Why doesn’t God send bears to maul all of us?

The text nowhere says they were killed.

Let’s be realistic—42 kids are going to run in 42 different directions. Two bears are only going to get two kids.

Because it says Elisha cursed them, and then it says the two bears split the children, we assume cause and effect.

But seriously, are you going to take the side of the 42 kids ganging up on an old man?

Honestly, if I had the ability to send bears to maul strangers who “LOL” at me online… well, I probably still wouldn’t do it. But the temptation would be there.

In my script for panel three, I just said two bears attack the boy. So it cracked me up when I saw Kevin’s pencils, and he’d drawn the bears, not mauling with claw and teeth, but stomping and punching like a couple of mob enforcers.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels.

PANEL 1

A smirking teenager sits at a table, typing on a laptop. A caption lets us see what’s on the laptop screen.

YouWho: God is loving and merciful.

FRIEDFRED: shut up baldy lol

PANEL 2

The teen jumps in fright as a huge bear breaks through the window in the background. We can see a second bear behind the first bear.

BEAR: RAWR

TEEN: Eep!

PANEL 3

Punching and stomping, the two bears beat the crap out of the teenager.

TEENAGER: Aaah! Aaaah! Help me! Oh God! Why?!

PANEL 4

In a coffee shop, a giant man, wearing sandals and a purple robe, sits at a table typing on a laptop. The giant man, who is God, is bald on top, with long gray hair and a long gray beard. He’s grinning sadistically. The table and laptop look tiny next to him.

GOD: LOL AT ME, WILL HE?

CAPTION AT THE BOTTOM

BEWARE GOD’S SOCK PUPPETS

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is what we called fun little details before the world starting calling them “Easter eggs.”

PANEL 1: A poster in the background shows two football players crashing helmets together, with the caption “Football: Get Some Brain Damage!” The bag of chips is called “Zit-O’s.” A sticker on the laptop says “Fall Out Boy,” which (Kevin informs me) is an actual emo band.

PANEL 2: The cat, which had been napping on the windowsill, leaps high into the air with a hilarious expression of terror. The laptop sticker now says “All Time Low” (another emo band), while the chips are now named “Uh-O’s.” The poster has changed to show a superhero with huge muscles and the caption “He’s So Super!”

PANEL 3: The cat, now calm, is taking a video of the fight.

PANEL 4: God’s laptop says “YHWH Or The Highway” on the back. The menu in the background lists “sex toys” as an option.

Beware God’s Sock Puppets | Patreon

Posted in Atheism, Cartooning & comics, Religion | 6 Comments

Comic: We’ve Got Nothing Against Immigrants, Except the Immigrant Ones

Posted on July 29, 2025 by Ampersand

I’m chuffed to again collaborate with R.E. Ryan, whose last cartoon with me was “Let’s Outlaw Being Homeless” over a year ago. I love the way his drawing recalls the style of classical cartooning. (Or so it looks to me, I haven’t actually discussed this with him).

I don’t drink and consequently rarely think of setting my cartoons in bars. (Before this one, the last one I recall is Sheeple!, in early 2023). But I should do it more often – it looks really sharp. And it’s an environment where it’s plausible that strangers would end up chatting or arguing, which is the premise of an embarrassing number of my comics.

In June 2025, Congressman Charles “Chuck” Edwards, a Republican, posted on Facebook that “Republicans aren’t anti-legal immigration, we’re anti-illegal immigration.” This is something a lot of Republicans have said, including from the stage at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

But it’s more important to look at what the GOP does than what it says. The GOP has become a party of fanatical immigrant hatred, driven not by logic or economics but by spite and bigotry. Against all immigrants (and especially non-white immigrants), not just undocumented immigrants. (With a few exceptions, like white South Africans, select right-wing pundits, and Donald Trump’s wife.)

On Govtrack, a website tracking the Federal government’s actions, Amy West and Joshua Tauberer responded to conservatives claiming “that the Republican party is only opposed to immigrants who are present illegally” with a lengthy yet far from comprehensive list of recent “Republican legislation and executive orders [which] have sought to limit legal immigration, limit benefits for legal immigrants, and limit the rights of legal immigrants.”

And that was several months ago – before the State Department said that they’d revoke Visas for criticizing Israel. Before Republicans voted to give ICE a budget larger than that of most countries’ militaries. Before Alligator Alcatraz – a literal concentration camp for immigrants – was announced. (This isn’t saying it’s a death camp; “concentration camp” and “death camp” aren’t interchangeable terms.)

Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, wrote:

I visited four continents to write a global history of concentration camps. This facility’s purpose fits the classic model: mass civilian detention without real trials targeting vulnerable groups for political gain based on ethnicity, race, religion or political affiliation rather than for crimes committed. And its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country. […]

What will happen in the U.S. if the pressure to self-deport fails, as it did nearly a century ago? We’re already seeing aggressive moves against people living in the U.S. legally. The administration is still trying to strip legal status from half a million Haitians who were allowed in before Trump’s return. The DOJ is prioritizing cases involving the possible revocation of citizenship, working to undo birthright citizenship itself and targeting the citizenship of political enemies. The administration wants to define who can be an American in ways that appear profoundly racist, and it seems immigrants are the most politically advantageous large population to target.

All of this is terrible for immigrants. And that alone would be reason enough to oppose it.

But we shouldn’t forget that it harms all Americans, non-immigrants included. Our economy depends on immigration, and in the long run this resurgence of nationalism will make all of us poorer, including our children and grandchildren.

It remains to be seen how permanent the damage is. Will future Democratic administrations be able to undo the attack on all immigrants? And even if they’re able, will they have the political will?

There is one bit of good news this week, which I’m hoping will turn out to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Most Americans don’t support the extremist attacks on immigrants.

A majority of Americans also disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, with 53 percent giving him negative marks and only 42 percent approving of his approach, according to the poll. […]

Brad Jones, professor of political science at the University of California Davis, told Newsweek that other than “MAGA diehards,” most Americans “probably bought into the narrative that immigration enforcement would be focused on violent criminal offenders.”

“This is not what we are seeing. Instead, we’re seeing indiscriminate round-ups, raids, and detentions of individuals ICE and other immigration officials deem to be immigrants. This includes individuals with no criminal backgrounds and even US citizens. The increased focus on this kind of draconian immigration enforcement is revolting to many Americans…”

Frank and I have been making good progress on the new book collection! I’ll post more about that soon, including a preview of cover art.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus a tiny fifth “kicker” panel underneath. All panels show the same scene. Two men are sitting at a bar, nursing beers. The first man is wearing a purple zip-up jacket; the second a green t-shirt.

PANEL 1

“Purple” looks suspiciously at “Green” as he asks an unfriendly question; Green replies angrily.

PURPLE: Why do you guys hate immigrants so much?

GREEN: That’s unfair! Conservatives have nothing against immigrants!

PANEL 2

Green lists off items on his fingers.

GREEN: We’re only against immigrants who sneak across the border, because they’re lawbreakers. Oh, and ones who overstay their Visas.

PANEL 3

Green looks up a bit, concentrating, as he continues his list.

GREEN: Plus those here legally as refugees… Student op-ed writers… Those brought here as kids… Latino guys with tattoos… Harvard students… Ones who are only “American” cause they were born here… People who criticize Israel…

PANEL 4

GREEN: But other than that, when have conservatives ever gone after law-abiding immigrants?

TINY KICKER PANEL UNDERNEATH THE COMIC

GREEN: These people should just use the legal pathways to immigration! Which we’re closing!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is an old-fashioned cartoonists’ term for unimportant but fun details in comics.

PANEL 1: On a shelf below the bar, a mouse is guzzling beer.

PANEL 2: There’s a framed picture of Sam Eagle (from the Muppets) on the wall. A highway route sign on the wall says “Route 65 ½.” Fry and Bender, from the TV show Futurama, are sitting at a table.

PANEL 3: Green is still counting points off on his fingers. To facilitate that, he now has nine fingers on his right hand.

PANEL 4: The drinking mouse has passed out.

We’ve Got Nothing Against Immigrants, Except the Immigrant Ones | Patreon

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc., Immigration, Migrant Rights, etc | 1 Comment

Cartoon: They Will Never Be Shown

Posted on July 16, 2025 by Ampersand

This cartoon is by me and Becky Hawkins.

Becky writes:

I often choose which cartoon to draw based on personal grievances—I mean, I carry my wealth of life experience into my art. I worked as a cruise ship musician for a few years, and the work environment had all the fatphobia of the entertainment industry combined with the international pastime of mocking American tourists. Once, I interrupted a fat-shaming session to say “Hey, a bunch of my family looks like that.” My coworkers swore up and down that they’d never make fun of my family—that would be mean!—They only make fun of lazy people who deserve it…which they can tell by looking, apparently.

Barry recently got into a long internet debate about whether it’s broadly possible for fat people to become not-fat over the long term. By “debate,” I mean Barry presented study after study showing that weight loss almost always plateaus at a certain point, and the stranger kept saying “Nuh-uh.” This person confidently explained that someone of [coincidentally my exact height and weight] could permanently drop one-quarter of their weight by making some simple lifestyle changes, like exercising a few days a week and not eating meat every day. Both of which I already do. I’m not saying this to get a Virtuous Fattie Award. Just pointing out that people’s assumptions can be SO OBJECTIVELY WRONG and they use those assumptions to justify being jerks.

Barry writes:

My experience is that when someone plays “let’s interrogate the fatty” – discovering what it is we’re doing so wrong that explains the fat – there is no possible right answer.

How often do you eat fast food? Maybe once every two weeks. Well, what’s your most frequent meal? A spinach salad. Do you put dressing on that salad? Yes? Ah-HAH!

How often do you exercise? Daily, usually six days a week. What kind of exercise? A walk around the block? HIIT and shadowboxing, enough to be sweating and panting, and lifting dumbbells every other day. How many hours a day? Thirty to forty minutes a day. Ah-HAH!

No matter how allegedly “virtuous”* one’s exercise and food habits, it won’t matter to this type of person. They already know you’re doing something sinful and wrong – just look at your fat! The only purpose of the discussion, for them, is ferreting out exactly what our sin is.

*It’s worth repeating that no one is obligated to exercise, to eat “healthy,” or to make being healthy a goal. It’s fine if you want to, but it’s also fine to have other priorities, and screw anyone who says otherwise.

Interestingly, their sudden strict standards when they find out a fat person does exercise and doesn’t eat at McDonalds every day shows that they don’t genuinely believe the pro-diet ideology that says that all fat people have to do is make a few tiny, easy lifestyle changes and soon we’ll be skipping through the gates of Holy Thin Land.

Not even losing weight satisfies these people. You could lose fifty percent of body weight – an incredible amount – but if you’re still fat, then they still consider you weak and assume you eat nothing but ice cream and bon bons.

For the people interrogating fat people, nothing will ever be good enough. Therefore, the only solution is to not give a fuck what they think or say.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has five panels. All feature the same woman, a fat woman with neck-length blonde hair.

PANEL 1

A fat woman has just exited a grocery store carrying a bag of groceries. A thin couple, walking out behind her, looks at her scornfully. The fat woman doesn’t turn to face them, but we can see in her expression that she’s overhearing their conversation.

THIN MAN: Oh my god, just look at her! Does she ever exercise?

THIN WOMAN: She must have zero willpower.

FAT WOMAN (thought): I’ll show them!

PANEL 2

The fat woman is seated in a diner, looking at a little book entitled “My Daily Food Journal.” In the foreground we can see a juicy burger and a slice of chocolate cream pie, both delicious looking. A waitress is taking the fat woman’s order.

CAPTION: NEXT…

FAT WOMAN: Could I get a half cup of oatmeal instead of a full cup? No butter.

PANEL 3

The fat woman, cross-eyed with exhaustion, is in a gym, using a stationary bicycle.

CAPTION: She does this for an entire year

FAT WOMAN: Puff… puff…

PANEL 4

The fat woman, wrapped in a towel in a locker room, is standing on a scale and looking very pleased.

CAPTION: Until at last…

FAT WOMAN (thought): Wow! I’ve lost thirty pounds! “Zero willpower.” I’ve certainly shown them!

PANEL 5

The fat woman is walking out of the grocery store and the same couple walks out behind her. The fat woman facepalms.

CAPTION: VINDICATION!

THIN MAN: Oh my god, just look at her! Does she ever exercise?

THIN WOMAN: She must have zero willpower.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

Panel 1: The posters in the supermarket window say “seasonal meat” and (with a picture of an apple) “Doctors HATE this one weird trick.” The beer the thin guy is carrying is named “bière.”

Panel 2: The posters in the background are all about how great the food at this diner is. A first-place ribbon is framed next to an article with the headline “Local Restaurant Named Best In US” and a photo of an adorable chef captioned “Proud Chef Grandpa.”

Panel 3: The brand on the bike is “Belleville,” a reference to the movie The Triplets of Belleville.

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

Cartoon: The End of PEPFAR

Posted on July 14, 2025 by Ampersand

Check out the timelapse drawing video (including video of Frank Young’s coloring process).

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. All of them show three people – a casually dressed woman, a politician type in a suit, and a doctor type in a white lab coat – on a city sidewalk.

PANEL 1

POLITICIAN: Lefties say conservatives are racist monsters who don’t value human life – but what about PEPFAR here?

DOCTOR TYPE: Hi! I’m Pepfar!

PANEL 2

A close up of the politician, with a hand held over his heart.

POLITICIAN: PEPFAR was founded by the Bush administration to help people with AIDS. And it’s saved over 25 million lives, mostly in Africa!

PANEL 3

The woman smiles. Everyone’s smiling. The politician reaches for something inside his jacket.

WOMAN: I do have some issues with PEPFAR… but overall, you’re right. PEPFAR does a huge amount of good and saves tons of lives.

POLITICIAN: See? We’re not such monsters.

PANEL 4

The politician, still smiling, has drawn a gun and shoots the PEPFAR dude over and over – he’s clearly dead. The woman is horrified.

POLITICIAN: But I’ve got tax cuts to offset, so…

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken Fat” is a long-dormant cartoonists’ expression for little unimportant details in the art.

PANEL 1. Woodstock and Opus are sitting together high on a building. A “wanted” poster on the building shows someone named “A. C. Ute” with a triangle-shaped head. A grumpy mouse is running away, with a bag on a stick over a shoulder. A piece of litter shows a cartoon bug and the words “get it?” A snake is coming out of a sneaker. The woman has a tattoo of a bundle of TNT. Travel stickers on the doctor’s roller bag say “Alderaan: It’s a Blast!” “Iowa: 75% Vowels!” “Sodom: Try Our Salt” “Gotham: Nana nana nana Batman,” “Place,” and one that’s cut off by the corner of the bag that says “Cut off Tr-”

PANEL 2. A poster in the background says “CHEESE is kinda gross if you think about it but so is most food.”

PANEL 3. The woman’s tattoo, instead of TNT, now shows an explosion sound effect.

PANEL 4. A spy is hiding behind a pillar in the background. Travel stickers on the suitcase say “Tiny Text that no one reads except U,” “Avoid Florida,” and “Hi Frank! Thanks for the colors!”

Posted in Africa, Cartooning & comics, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc. | 4 Comments