Puppies To The Rescue?

Michael Steele's "I do SO love puppies" ad ran eight years ago when he was trying to become Maryland's next senator. The ads were widely praised as "highly effective" even after Steele lost "by a landslide" to "a complete nobody".

But, hey, eight years? That's long enough. Now it's Republican Martha McSally of Arizona's turn to use the puppy idea.

Congratulations go out to Ron Barber, her opponent.

GOP Gets Squirrely

On Friday at Wonkette, I made a particularly dumb post where I imagined a parallel universe in which the GOP embraced cat memes to spread their message. Within hours, amazingly, reports started filtering in about a Republican operative roaming around in... a squirrel costume, delivering meme-y platitudes against Hillary Clinton. What's a satirist to do when his job is being done without him?

So anyway, just as I demonstrated at Wonkette that I can produce better cat memes than the GOP, it behooves me to also demonstrate that I can create squirrel memes better than they can:

Cuccinelli Seals Fate With Dangerous Puppy References

OK, say you're a desperate political candidate. Nothing is working, you're behind in every poll, and you really need a way to appeal to more voters. It's time to evoke puppies:

“He’s been very clear that he doesn’t like my plan, but I have one,” Cuccinelli responded. “I like puppies, but I don’t bring a puppy home if I don’t have a plan for how I’m going to deal with that puppy. … He’s all puppy and no plan.”

No, no, no! Look, if there's one thing I've proven here at PSP, it is that puppy politics are poopy politics. It doesn't work.  Puppies, so cute and delightful, may as well be rattlesnakes to the unsuspecting politician. Ask Rick Santorum. Ask Michael Steele. Rudy Giuliani was correct to ignore Mark Halperin's naive puppy advice. Even Joe Biden knew to keep his puppy interactions on the down-low until the election was safely over. And Sarah Palin –Sarah Palin!– kept puppy metaphors to a bare minimum before wisely abandoning them forever.

Some people say that Social Security is the third rail of American politics; I say it's puppies. It's too late for Cuccinelli, but you can save yourself!

My Most "Successful" Image Meme Goes Horribly Awry

Perhaps you've seen the image above somewhere on the internet over the past ten years? I saw it just a few weeks ago, being used as a stock "OMG" image on Buzzfeed, and I've rarely lacked for gazing at its horrifying hellstare for more than a few months at a time. It is, I suppose, a classic of a kind.

I made needledog.jpg, the "Hypodermic Chihuahua," as I've always called it, in November of 2003 for a Fark Photoshop Contest. It was a simple, quick idea, and I felt no need to execute it carefully. The topic was, basically, "make a scary-looking animal." I had already found the Chihuahua image*, complete with its insane red eyes, and wanted to push the image where it obviously already wanted to go, thus the addition of the needle. It's not very well done; I hate looking at it now and wondering why I didn't at least color-correct the syringe the tiniest bit to blend into the surrounding photo more convincingly. Likewise, it would have taken only minutes to add the needle into the shadow in the background. Lazy!

I only got third place in the contest, but it didn't take long before HC started popping up everywhere. Whatever. You never know what's going to end up sticking. You can spend hours and hours on a beautiful/hilarious image, fully convinced that this one is going to go viral, absolutely, for sure, no question, and then... nothing. And then the dumb thing you dashed off in five minutes ends up exploding all over the place. It's fun!

All the same, I'm not sure I feel so good about this:

Somebody actually managed to make HC more dreadful. Uhhhh... well done? I don't believe anybody has ever gotten an artwork of mine emblazoned permanently on their body before, so of course I'm honored, but... that one? Couldn't you have picked Kiss Condi?

There's a whole thread about it at the Reddits. Gahhhhhh.

Thank you (?) Pony Pal Dave B. for gently breaking this to me.

*I've never again been able to locate the source of the original, unaltered Chihuahua image. 

Head Trauma (Illustrated!)

(Illustration by Marv Newland. Click for bigger.)

The early 1990s was such a strange time for me. I was working as a promoter for Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation, and to say my memories of this time are deeply conflicted and ambivalent is a gross understatement. On the one hand, animation! Travel! Meeting animators! Visiting Disney production warehouses! Hanging out with John Lasseter, Pete Docter, and Andrew Stanton! On the other hand: INSANE bosses! Living out of suitcases! Having bottles broken over my head! Wait, what? Let me explain.

We were presenting the show at our home base, the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (now the San Diego MoCA). When working in San Diego, I would ride my bicycle from my house in Mission Beach to the Festival office in La Jolla. Sometimes at night after the show, we'd briefly gather at Spike's nearby home to go over the evening's receipts. I wasn't wild about Spike (more on that below), but on this particular day, Canadian animator Marv Newland, one of my favorites (see here and here), was visiting, so any excuse to socialize with him was enough for me.

Eventually I said my goodbyes and hopped on my bike to head home, pedaling along the winding side-streets of tony La Jolla. Just a couple of blocks away from Spike's house, I encountered a car idling in the middle of the road, with a gentleman going through the trunk. As I slowed to pass, he looked up at me and mumbled something. I stopped and asked if I could help. Before I knew what was going on, he knocked me down, bike and all, and four other guys jumped out of the car and started... well, beating me up, grabbing at me, generally fucking me up. I struggled. And then CSHHHH! one of them smashed a wine bottle over my head. I remember thinking, "Oh, wow, this is wild, I just got a bottle broken over my head! Just like in the movies!" I continued to struggle, and then CSHHHH! another bottle smashed over my head, followed, amazingly, by CSHHHH! yet another bottle. Crazily enough, I distinctly remember thinking, "Jesus, there are five of you, and I'm a skinny runt, and this is really overdoing it!" I also remember being startled that having three wine bottles smashed over my head didn't really hurt all that much. "Why am I still conscious," I wondered. Finally, they got my wallet out of my back pocket, jumped back into the car, and drove away. I could feel blood running down my face, and my bicycle and I were a tangled mess in the middle of the road. I managed to sit up and look at the car driving off, and was surprised to see that I had a clear view of their license plate, which I immediately committed to memory. I felt oddly triumphant, and even a little smug at my ability to concentrate on this important detail.

I groggily and painfully stood up, all the while repeating the license plate number over and over in my head (number number number), took stock of myself, decided that I was surprisingly undamaged, and decided (still repeating to myself, number number number) to head back to Spike's house, only two blocks away, to get help. I walked in without ringing the doorbell (number number number) and entered the living room, where Spike and Marv were still where they had been when I left. They both looked up and I believe Spike said something like, "Did you forget something?" (number number number). Within seconds, their eyes widened and jaws hit the floor. I was a bloody mess. I turned to Marv, who always, always had a pen and sketchbook in his hand, and blurted out, "Write this down right now: NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER! NUMBER! NUMBER!" He did.

There's some more unpleasantness to come, so let's take a brief intermission and look at a picture of a cute puppy:

Before I continue the story, I have to tell you something about Spike: he is the most openly, enthusiastically racist/xenophobic person I have ever encountered (and I'm from Arizona, so that's saying something). He had a special name for each group: African Americans were "nigs," Mexicans were "beaners," gays were "fudge-packers" or "carpet munchers," Indians (from India) were "spots" (har har), Middle Easterners were "towel-heads," etc., etc. He used all these terms openly, loudly, and frequently. Most of all, Spike really hated black people. If he saw you giving a flyer for the show to an African American, he would furiously chastise you. "You just threw five cents down the toilet," he'd scream. "Nigs don't come to see the show. What are you, an idiot? DON'T GIVE THEM FLYERS."

So when it became obvious to Spike that I had been mugged, the first thing he asked, rather than, "Are you OK?" was "Were they nigs? They were, weren't they?" I stammered, "Yeah, but...." That, predictably, set him off: "See? Of course they were! Fucking nigs! Goddamn nigs!" I could see Marv rolling his eyes, and he diplomatically interrupted, "Uh, let's get Peter to the hospital, Spike, OK?" So off we went, Spike raving the entire time, which didn't exactly make me feel better.

At the hospital, the doctor examined me and determined that I didn't even have a concussion, but that I'd need a few stitches on my head. He proceeded to sew me up. Police arrived and took a report, and were impressed that I had managed to get the car's license plate number. Everyone was amazed that I wasn't hurt a lot worse. "Are you sure you had bottles broken over your head? Three bottles? Really?"

I had been thinking about that, too. How was it that I had never lost consciousness? "You know what I think it was?" I offered. "They brought down the bottles as hard as they could. Because the wine bottles were cheap and thin, and the impact was so strong, all the energy was dissipated by the bottles exploding outward as they totally shattered, rather than the force being directed into my skull." The doctor shrugged, "Yeah, that actually makes sense; I think you're right." So if there's a lesson to be learned from my experience, it is this: if you want to knock somebody unconscious with a wine bottle, don't swing it with all your might, because it probably won't work. Now you know! News you can use (service journalism!).

The other good thing that came out of the experience was that the next day, Marv presented me with the drawing featured at the top of the post, showing what he was thinking about (Ew! Riverside!) when I interrupted his wool-gathering with my dramatic, blood-soaked entrance. Thanks, Marv!

I also decided that I simply couldn't stand to be around Spike any longer, and shortly thereafter switched to working for another division of the Festival of Animation so that I wouldn't have to listen to my boss going on and on AND ON about how I was a "nig victim" every chance he got. I didn't want to be his "exhibit A" in his never-ending quest to enlighten those around him to the dangers of the scary mud people. Sheesh! I was honestly upset at myself to lend ammunition to Spike's virulent racism.

In the end, the police traced the license plate. Unfortunately, it belonged to a car owned by a rental agency in Los Angeles which the cops said was known to rent cars to gang members so that they could go on "field trips" to rob people in fancy neighborhoods like La Jolla. They had "no records" of who had rented the car, and it was a dead end. It certainly explained why they didn't seem to be terribly concerned that the plate was readable as they drove away from the gooey mess they had left on the road.

Oh, and my wallet? The one they had expended so much energy to obtain? I had three dollars in it, not even enough for a buck apiece. Not even enough to buy another bottle of wine.

Art Collection: "And His Name Was Bunk" Comic Strip Drawing By "Tad" Dorgan, Ca. 1907

(Click for bigger.)

The rest of the drawings in my Tad collection all date from 1918-1929. This one is quite a bit earlier, and a little larger, about 10.5" x 17" (and with a vicious mat burn). Note that the drawing features no brushwork, unlike his later cartoons.

Tad had already made a name for himself at the San Francisco Bulletin when William Randolph Hearst lured him to New York in about 1904, and there he continued to draw his popular sports cartoons for the NY Journal alongside comics legends Jimmy Swinnerton, Frederick Opper, and another relative newbie from California named George Herriman.

Jimmy Swinnerton was the pioneer of "talking animal" comic strips, and it seems likely that the older cartoonist's success inspired Tad to take a crack at the genre. The result was And His Name Was Bunk, a Sunday feature which ran from April-September, 1907. The titular character was a kind of indeterminate terrier named Bunk, and apparently the feature failed to set the newspaper world on fire, and it fizzled out quickly. A little later, Tad revived Bunk and gave him a strong supporting cast of misbehaving, carousing alcoholic canines which quickly eclipsed him, especially Judge Rummy and Silk Hat Harry, in a daily feature which had various titles until it became the tremendously popular Silk Hat Harry's Divorce Suit, and later Judge Rummy's Court. In the later strips the characters are drawn like humans with dog heads, but in the earlier ones, such as the very early example shown here, Tad depicts them more or less accurately as real dogs walking awkwardly around on their hind legs.

Placing this drawing on the calendar is difficult. It's the same format as the Sunday "Bunk" feature, but the Christmas theme makes it unlikely that it was used between April and September. Perhaps Tad produced more of the feature than was used, or maybe this drawing was published later as a one-off feature during the holiday season in 1907 or 1908. The lack of a syndicate label on the front, and no evidence that engraving orders were ever pasted on the back (a hallmark of Tad originals) make it possible that this strip was simply never published at all (until now!). [UPDATE: See comments. The strip ran in December of 1908, so I was pretty close!)

This drawing also shows how remarkably similar Tad's style was to George Herriman's during this period when they were working so closely together. In particular, the third panel looks virtually identical to a Herriman drawing:

The professional alliance between Tad and Herriman has been touched upon by many comics historians, but the characterizations of their professional relationship vary widely. Some refer to Herriman as Tad's assistant, unlikely since both were at roughly the same stage of their careers. Most others describe their dynamic as following a mentor/student model, but there is no evidence that this was the case. Tad was a little older and had the more domineering personality of the two, and I believe that is the source of these ideas. My impression is that they were peers and fed off and influenced each other in a much more fruitful, mutually beneficial way. I believe Herriman was a more natural draftsman, but Tad was perhaps a more sophisticated technician. Whatever the case, towards the end of the first decade of the 20th century, the two artists' styles were so similar that I've seen a few which, were there no signatures, would be difficult to assign to either artist. To further complicate matters, they occasionally borrowed characters from each other; you can see Tad's Bunk character appearing in a Herriman drawing from 1907 here, and Dorgan sneaked Krazy Kat and Ignatz into at least one Indoor Sports panel. I'm pleased to report that Pony Pal Michael is currently writing a biography of Herriman for Harper Collins and seems keen to get to the bottom of the Dorgan-Herriman dynamic.

Clearly Tad had a way to go before he fully matured as a cartoonist. The layout and design here is fairly artless, some of the drawing surprisingly clumsy (like the stockings on the mantlepiece and the puppies), and his reluctance to use heavy blacks creates a lack of focus in the individual panels. That third panel is just killer, though, and... well, dogs dressing up as Santa and spanking puppies... what's not to love?

Big thanks to comic strip historian Allan Holtz for providing me with dating info on the "Bunk" series. Allan's incredible new reference book, a 600+ page (!!!) authoritative history of American newspaper comics, is now available and highly recommended.

Random Nancy Panel

Random Nancy Panel

(1971)

It's Already Time For ANOTHER Callista Gingrich Roundup

(All photos AP Photo, 12-21-11, cropped details)

Callistamas celebrations continue! Enjoy it while you can. OK, so first it's the Washington Post, because Jennifer Rubin and Kathleen Parker writing about Callista wasn't enough, I guess. It's a good thing, though, because this time it's Amy Gardner, on the ground in Des Moines, and there are fun new Callista quotes and you will just love this article, I guarantee it. At one point she says that something "was totally Newt's idea," (a website called "Pets with Newt," I kid you not), calls campaigning "fun," and, best of all, describes the important job of designing Newt's Ugly Tour Bus:

It’s clear that Gingrich is taking the job seriously and even enjoying it, focusing on particular projects such as the videos and the design of the Gingriches’ new campaign bus with a zeal and attention to detail. Showing a reporter a photograph of the bus design, which features the slogan “Rebuilding the America We Love” and an enormous picture of her husband’s head, Gingrich said with a laugh, “There’s the Newtster!”

And it turns out that Callista's big project is about music education in schools, which I can't find anything snide or mean to say about, so yes, you go, Cally! This is actually the first article I've read about her which makes her seem fun and kind of airheaded, so these are promising developments.

I'm a little worried about the whole "Pets with Newt" thing, especially after reading this bit at Politico in which Maggie Haberman brings up the specter of the political use of puppies. Longtime readers of this blog know that I'm somewhat of a specialist in the treacheries and futility of using puppies as political props: it generally doesn't work, even when every bone in your body tells you it should. In fact, the Gingrich YouTube Christmas card includes a stuffed puppy! Tread carefully, Newt. Try kittens.

Elsewhere, the Telegraph meanly describes Newt 'n' Cally's video Christmas card as "sickly sweet," and Pony Pal™ Jim at Gawker explains accurately how all this "running for president" stuff is really just a front for Callista's video 'n' book home shopping network. And finally for today, NPR goes on and on about Newt's conversion to Catholicism and how it's all Callista's fault here.

Everybody hop on board the Callista train! Toot! Toot!

Art Collection: "Nuts And Jolts" Gag Cartoon By Bill Holman, 1956

Click for bigger, screw-ballier.

I don't really have much to say about this one; it doesn't pose any mysteries like the last drawing I showed you from my collection. This is the original pen-and-ink drawing by Bill Holman for his daily "Nuts and Jolts" newspaper gag panel published on January 12, 1957 (but drawn, as a stamp on the back proves, in 1956). It's about 9"x11".

Holman is best known for his incredibly, relentlessly wacky "Smokey Stover" comic strip, as well as "Spooky," a side feature. In fact, that's Spooky the cat observing the goings-on in the right foreground. This panel shows the kind of giddy nihilism characteristic of his work.

One thing this original drawing shows that isn't evident in published versions of his comics is that he really labored over his work: the whole thing is a mass of chaotic pencil scribblings, scraped-off parts, and endless corrections and refinements. It's amazing that the finished drawing comes across as spontaneous and fresh as it does. A close-up detail of Spooky really shows the wonderfully spastic qualities of his technique:

Why isn't there a huge, multi-volume set of his work? Too nutty for most to take seriously, I guess.  God, I love his stuff.

Book Shelf: Fabric Painting Transfers, Volume 1, Craft Publications, 1975

Reprint: Interview With Patrick McDonnell, 1996

I conducted this sprawling interview with Patrick McDonnell in September, 1996, when his superb daily comic strip, Mutts, was barely two-years-old. It was published in Fantagraphics Books' Comics Journal #197,  July 1997. I've always been an obsessive fan of newspaper comics, the Great American Art Form, and when Mutts debuted, I immediately recognized it as an example of the form in its purest state. Fantagraphics was initially dubious; they almost never, at the time, acknowledged the existence of newspaper strips, and I clearly remember that Fantagraphics muckety muck Gary Groth had never even heard of McDonnell, although the young strip was already a huge success and McDonnell was already an acclaimed illustrator and cartoonist. Eventually, however, they agreed to run the interview, and were a joy to work with after the amateur hour I had endured at low-rent Hypno Magazine. This was by far the longest, most thorough cartoonist interview I ever conducted, and it was great to be given the space to cover every aspect of McDonnell's career, from his childhood to his time at the NY School of Visual Arts, his success as an illustrator, his co-authorship of the first major monograph on George Herriman's Krazy Kat (still available!), and even his short-lived career as a punk rock drummer in the band Steel Tips, fronted by artist/wild man Joe Coleman. I'm very proud of this interview, and it may be, if I don't say so myself, the most in-depth look at what it's like to be a daily cartoonist you'll ever read. Each of the pages below may be clicked on for a readable enlargement. Enjoy:

By The Time The Republican Primaries For 2012 Begin, Sarah Palin Will Be In A Feud With Absolutely Everybody With The Possible Exception Of Ted Nugent

Rocker Ted Nugent and Sarah Palin laugh before a rally for Republican senate candidate John Raese at Haddad Riverfront Park in Charleston, W.Va., on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2010. (AP Photo/Jon C. Hancock)

Isn't she something? In just the past few days, Sarah Palin has launched frenzied feuds with CBS for saying mean things about Joe Miller, with NPR for firing whats-his-name, with some other radio station for some other reason (sorry, it's hard to keep up), and now with Politico with saying mean things about her. Doesn't the lamestream media know that to be truly unbiased, they must always say nice things about Sarah Palin and her friends? It's in the Constitution!

Lashing out at Politico, however, is truly odd. Yes, they wrote two unflattering long things about Palin over the past week (This one is about her being impossible to deal with, while this one is about all the old school Republicans hating her), but Sarah! Sarah, Sarah, Sarah! Politico is SO your friend! Basically, if you clean your glasses, Politico "reports" on it. Sarah, to paraphrase somebody you've never heard of, the only thing worse than  Politico saying mean things about you is Politico saying nothing about you at all. You don't want them to stop breathlessly, exhaustively "reporting" your each and every Twitter twat and Facebook tantrum, do you? Haven't you heard Media Matters describe them as "basically a GOP bulletin board"?***

At the rate Sarah's going, she isn't going to have a friend left by the time she gets around to running for president. It's only a matter of time before she starts getting in fights with the National Review, Rush Limbaugh,  the Beck guy, etc., etc., and then what? She thinks she's getting negative press now?

Girl, to paraphrase somebody you actually have heard of, but only vaguely, sometimes you just have to turn the other cheek.

***Whoa, off-topic grammar note! This is such a good example of when it's not only OK, but actually more correct to put the punctuation mark outside the quotation marks, something still controversial among elderly grammarians (like ending sentences with propositions, which I did, totally, like ten times in this post). The point is that Media Matters didn't describe Politico as "basically a GOP bulletin board?" but as "basically a GOP bulletin board." See how that works? Sometimes I think about these things!

UPDATE – Uh, oh, she had to bring puppies into it, via the Daily Tucker:

“I suppose I could play their immature, unprofessional, waste-of-time game, too, by claiming these reporters and politicos are homophobe, child molesting, tax evading, anti-dentite, puppy-kicking, chain smoking porn producers…really, they are… I’ve seen it myself…but I’ll only give you the information off-the-record, on deep, deep background; attribute these ‘facts’ to an ‘anonymous source’ and I’ll give you more.”

Oh no, it sounds like a high school student is very angry! But Sarah! Don't use puppies! Puppies are political poison!

PSP Efforts To Make Surroundings More Fabulous Started Early

I took the above snapshot in about 1975, I'm guessing. That's Violet, our beloved German Shepherd, wearing a wig. Looks like it was the early stages of Xmas madness!

I still have that great chair, circa 1956, thoughtfully reupholstered for me by my parents several years ago as a surprise gift. Earlier, the dogs had taken over that chair and its mate, leading us to refer to them as the "tick chairs," because if you dared to sit in them you'd pick up parasitic hitchhikers (Ew! Ew! Ew!). I wish I had that lamp in the background.

Happy Friday!

How Not To Stage A Photo-Op

Gov. Paterson makes an appearance at the opening of Palm Bar and Grille in Kennedy Airport. (Goldfield for NY Daily News)

This guy should take some lessons from Condi:

For an already under siege Paterson, the planned photo op couldn't have gone worse: He stood beneath a mural depicting a belching dog at the event at the Palm Bar and Grille.

A belching dog AND Paris Hilton (not that there's much of a difference).

Art Collection: Korner Kitty by Gig

Click for lots bigger.

Awwww. I mean, really! This cat will be dead within days.

Gig's kitties probably had the largest eyes-to-body-weight ratio of any of the big-eyed artists' critters. So soulful, so pitiful. In fact, "Pity Kitty" is a title I've often seen applied to this one. Isn't that strange? The popularity of abused and neglected animals as decoration?

I mentioned before that nobody has been able to find "Gig," the master of saucer-eyed puppies and kittens. Here's another mind blower: what happened to the original paintings? Forget Leonardo's lost Leda and the Swan, forget the hoopla surrounding rediscovered Caravaggios... where are the lost Gigs?

Art history, I weep for thee.

Art Collection: "Potato Chip" By "Gig"

Click for bigger, print out immediately for your cubicle.

Ah, Gig, the master of the big-eyed puppies and kittens! How I love thee! How I long to know who you are! Indeed, Gig is one of the most elusive of the big-eyed masters, but it certainly wasn't for lack of effort! A dozen or so of Gig's huge, huge-eyed puppy and kitten designs were apparently quite successful, resulting in many different format prints and a series of Milton Bradley puzzles.

This print is quite large, a color litho mounted on thick particle board and with a textured clear top coating (visible in the scan). It's also quite yellowed, owing to the top coating, no doubt, so I've color-corrected it in Photoshop.

The name for this one, Potato Chip, is apocryphal; I got it from the illustrator Mitch O'Connell, whom I interviewed for a magazine feature on big-eyed art*. He saw it called that in a magazine ad.

I've always admired the sort-of "Ashcan school meets Salvador Dali" quality of the background in this one.

*This feature, written in 1994, features interviews about big-eyed art with O'Connell, Bill Griffith, John Waters, and "Tom Tomorrow," and will be scanned in the weeks ahead.

Photoblogging: A Poignant Moment

Click for bigger!