Bors Blog
Archive for February, 2009
Sketch
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was recently given a dead by dawn diagnosis from Senator Jim Bunning after she had surgery for cancer.
How To Save Print
Hearst, Zell, Murdoch, Scaife, Sulzberger–Here it is. Behold my completely serious, entirely workable, fail proof plan for saving newspapers. Free papers should go this route as well. Why deny yourself the revenue stream?
Looks like I’m not a moment too soon. The SF Chronicle might go on the block. Either someone’s going to buy it or the kids in the local school district will be be getting some more computers. There’s no reason why my idea won’t save it.
Please Recycle.
Sketches
Pretty good speech. Lots of “Yes We Can” type motivation in there. We never quit. We keep going. We’ll get through. I was so amped I started working while he was still talking!
Work for me is drawing funny pictures so I felt I was doing my part to help the country. I would have drawn more but it’s kind of a visually boring event.
I like how everyone stood and clapped when Obama said we should end tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas. I never knew Republicans supported that. I assume that law will get 100 votes then.
Obama really brought the thunder down on slacker dropouts, pulling the ol’ Patriot card. It was his “with us or with the terrorists” moment. You don’t spell America with an F, kids. Although “Freedom” does start with one so never mind.
I needed an excuse to draw McCain again. He looks pretty bad without the makeup he caked on during the campaign. Now he’s just a crotchety old gasbag shaking his fist about the price of Obama’s copters.
Well Put
I was poking around the internet reading about Alan Keyes because, well, he’s hilarious and I came upon a quote he made after losing both the Republican and Constitution Party nominations for president in the 2008 election.
“It seems that the pattern of my political careerI have experienced this pattern on several occasions in the course of my political life, where people invite me in, and then they kill me, they invite me in, and then they kill me, they invite me in and then they kill meI kind of represent, in political terms, the abortion.”
The New Surge
Barack Obama has kept good on his campaign promise to escalate the occupation of Afghanistan by sending 17,000 additional soldiers. Oddly, I don’t hear conservatives complaining about this massive expenditure being “generational theft.”
Sending your kid off to war probably seemed patriotic and necessary in 2002. As families lose their houses, jobs, 401ks, health care and everything else they worked their entire lives for, the thought of losing your child to a foreign adventure becomes less appealing.
Maybe Obama will get around to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” one of these days so all our gay guys and gals can serve openly and miserably in the 120? heat. That will present an interesting conflict for conservatives. Which do they like more: oppressing gays or lobbing bombs at Al Qaeda?
Afghanistan is known as the “good war” because it had more to do with 9/11 than Iraq–something we like to congratulate ourselves on regularly. It’s also known to be more “winnable” by the chattering pundit class, which is interesting considering that Afghanistan has been nicknamed “The Graveyard of Empires.” Conventional wisdom in Washington is so often correct that I’m sure we’ll be the exception to history on this one. Afghanistan will become the first Jeffersonian Democracy built on heroin exports!
Read All About It!
A lot of ink is being spilled on the death of newspapers. Every day there’s a new “The End Of Print” article which begs for someone to figure out a way for newspapers to turn a profit. Will it be micro-payments, web ads, iphone apps, lemonade stands, restructuring as a non-profit or partnering with organized crime? The speculation is endless.
Well, you can stop writing that stuff because I’ve figured it all out.
Wednesday’s comic will lay out a simple plan that will get papers back in the black with higher profit margins than they ever thought possible. Publishers who don’t want to go out of business and want to get filthy rich like an old-timey newspaper man should check this site in two days, which is when I will spark the Platinum Age of Print. I expect full credit when the history books are written.
War Is Boring
I’ve mentioned that I’m working on a graphic novel with David Axe, but I thought I’d make a more official-sounding announcement about the project. David and I have been working together for a few years and what started out as a strip has now evolved into a full-length book.
“War Is Boring” will be published in 2010 by New American Library, their first graphic novel. The book will detail Axe’s adventures in war correspondence over the last few years, going through Afghanistan, Chad, Iraq, East Timor, Lebanon and a few other places. The story follows Axe’s evolution from a thrill-seeking journalist to one with a full understanding of the humanitarian crises and complicated politics in the world’s worst conflict zones.
I’m hard at work on the art chores. Below is a page from the introduction.
Chimp
Can a monkey crazily flinging shit at a wall come up with worse editorial cartoons than Sean Delonas. I don’t know the answer.
Who knew a bullet-riddled chimp would end up being the American equivalent of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban? Actually you could probably predict that we were going to be dealing with stuff like this under our first black president. We’ll see more of it as the nearly all-white profession struggles to explain their political metaphors involving primates and Gangsta Rap over the next four years. Socialist Godzilla destroying America? Fine. Comrade King Kong capturing a white woman labeled “American Values.” That’s bad.
To tell you the truth I don’t think Delonas’ intent was to portray the chimp as Obama at all. But when shit blows up in your face this bad, you know you overlooked something in the idea phase. But I can’t really call for editorial oversight of Delonas when I think, like a crazed chimp, he shouldn’t be allowed to hold a pen in the first place. It becomes a danger to people’s eyes.
Pope Praises Pelosi
Joe Ratzinger’s in the news:
Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday told U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic who supports abortion rights, that Catholic politicians have a duty to protect life “at all stages of its development,” the Vatican said.
Then they drew attention to the post-larval adult stage of human development, blasting the U.S. for its support of the death penalty. He reminded judges and politicians that it is their duty to oppose the death penalty at all costs, reading a long list of names of all Catholics that serve in public office. “You should be ashamed!” he bellowed, causing his large hat to shift about his head.
A number of the bishops in the United States have questioned Pelosi’s stance on abortion, particularly her theological defense of her support for abortion rights.
While noting her stance on abortion, much of their time was spent lavishing praise on Pelosi for her belief in evolution, opposition to the death penalty and child molestation, as well as her support of the poor through social programs–all in line with Catholic church doctrine. “It’s just amazing how in touch she is with the theological justifications for all of these wonderful things.” said Cardinal O’Rhorty. “We spend so much time railing against conservatives for their un-Jesusy beliefs–it’s nice to meet someone who is so close to our core beliefs.”
Actually, I’m making all that up.
Bluffer’s Guide
Why be informed when you can sound informed? That’s what Newsweek will be asking when they launch their new feature, “The Bluffer’s Guide” which “will tell readers how to sound as if they are knowledgeable on a current topic, whether they are or not.” I suppose they needed something for people who can’t slog through their 300 word articles.
This is where news is headed. If it doesn’t fit into a text message it can’t hold people’s attention.
