newyorkette

According to my calendar, it’s Immaculate Conception Day. Albertus Magnus makes for some interesting reading on the subject of how Immaculate Conception is possible, if you can manage the Latin. And if you can, have fun! I might add that the Immaculate Conception was conceived well after it supposedly happened, and that the word for “maiden” in Ancient Greek (in which language the first Bibles were written), was usually the same word as the word for “virgin.” The idea being that a maiden was usually a virgin, because she was unmarried. That’s all I’m gonna say about it. Except that the very first Christians were not so quick to judge and unwed mother as some of the latter day ones.

Another way we cartoonists make money is by being paid to draw at high end events where a New Yorker cartoonist is just the thing.  I got a reputation for making people look good, so I hardly ever get to just draw cartoons at these events. People love having their portraits drawn, even by bad portrait artists, isn’t that funny? It’s a bit like having their palm read, irresistible, even if it’s obviously a scam. And it’s fun, anyway. How many artists get interesting people to sit for them for free, and even get paid to draw?  This is one of the portraits I was most proud of, from an event the other day. This guy was a dream to draw—great face, great style.

I put this up on my salon blog. Everybody’s doing blogs on these net magazines, so why not me?

What about the others?

Now, on the Huffington Post.

Click on the image to go to The New Yorker.
(Or if by any chance you’d like to buy it (or a print of it), click here instead.)

This is my cartoon in this week’s “style issue” of The New Yorker! Click on it to go to the online magazine, and see it and others by my esteemed colleagues.

On the Huffington Post:

On Salon.com:

Based on a true story. This happened to me about every ten feet when I lived on 156th Street and Broadway. But it also happened in many other locations around the city, and, I have it on good authority, to many other women!

To see this on the Huffington Post’s site, click here.

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My week began on the subject of death. Let’s hope it ends in something more cheerful, like the successful neutering of our dog!  We’ve been thinking about replacing his nuts with some tiny wind chimes.

Anyway, here are this week’s Huffington Posts, exceptionally there are two, due to Ted Kennedy’s demise. See what I (and quite a lot of commenters) think of death panels by clicking on the image below.

And see what I think of Ted Kennedy, by clicking on the image below. Full disclosure: I’m 44, and the first time I heard about Ted Kennedy, it was for Chappaquiddick. So, for my generation, his life began with that moment, and the rest of his life has been about atoning for it. I’d say he did a good job, and that it diminishes his efforts if you forget that he was actually redeeming himself in the world’s eyes nonstop, and inexhaustibly. Plus, you can’t have one Ted Kennedy without the other Ted Kennedy.

We honor the fallen today. David Fischer, who faithfully catalogued all the New Yorker caption contests in his Blog About Town, left us early. He was a good guy, and in the habit of offering extra tickets to plays now and then by mass email to his friends, which is the kind of thing a cartoonist on a budget really appreciates. Bob Mankoff, revered cartoon editor of The New Yorker, had a few words about David, which can be found on Emdashes, here. Or just click on the cartoon below, which is an example of one of David’s own caption contest submissions, and which I think is a winner!

I’m sure right about now David is discovering whether or not God really does have a long, white beard, and a golf bag full of lightening bolts.

It appears that people are trying to scare seniors into thinking they’ll be put on a “death list” that will ration life-sustaining treatment and medication in order to save money for the proposed national health system. The specter of “Logan’s Run” and “Soylent Green” has been raised. “Kill granny,” and other such nonsensical words have been thrown out there. All I can say  is maybe these fearful people fear things that they themselves would do to others if they had the chance. I know for a fact (since he’s always said as much) that my dad wouldn’t want to give a dime to pay for anyone’s health other than his own, and yet I’m sure he would probably not hesitate to benefit from national health insurance if he had the chance. Some people will complain about anything, anyway: if it’s not national health insurance, it’s private health insurance they’ll rail against. Grump, grump, grump.

I happen to have benefitted from national health care for 13 years in France. Socialist? Maybe! I also had a free university education, an excellent one, I might add. And when I was a full-time legal employee in a French company, I earned two days of paid vacation every month, till I had my five weeks of paid vacation like all the other French people. They never let me bring work home, and said if I couldn’t do my job at the office alone, it was the wrong job for me. And they were right. I learned to do my work at the office more efficiently. My office was a happy, productive place.

People who are greedily and angrily demanding that not a thing change so that their lives (and insurance coverage) may continue exactly as it does now, rather than suck it up and take the risk with all of us so that we have a better life for all simply deserve to have this fact pointed out to them. The fearful die a thousand deaths, and the courageous only die once.  And yes, I’ll happily pay into a national health system that covers even these annoying people. Because it was GREAT. When everyone pays into the system, it’s actually CHEAPER. Not more expensive. I had excellent care at very low (compared to here) prices. I didn’t even need to ask for my reimbursements. I was happy to leave my money in the system.

And can I just say how many times I’ve heard people with health insurance say, “I put all this money into my insurance, I’m going to get my money’s worth?” These are the people who are making it expensive. Me, I never go to the doctor. NEVER. I am the health insurer’s dream. Well, the hell with private health insurance’s wet dreams. I’m staying out of it. I’m a socialist!

When did “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” only apply to offering to go kill people in other countries? When did it turn into “ask not what your selfish, self-destructive ass can get for itself and nobody else at the expense of future generations?”

I was in a car and in front of us there was a guy with all sorts of really belligerent bumper stickers which made me wish he’d run out of gas in a really easily provoked neighborhood, so that anyone who came to help would see his bumper stickers and beat the shit out of him instead. Okay, maybe it just made me want to do a cartoon about it (click on the image and you get to my Huffington Post page):

I’m convinced this is what I’ll see pass before my eyes just before I die:

Hmmm, let me think about that.

Duh!

(as seen on my Huffington Post’s comedy site blog, 236.com)

This is my most recent post on the Huffington Post’s comedy site.

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Rough sketches with my new brush pen:

Above, the George Washington Bridge as seen from one bank of the Hudson River (the bank that’s popular with geese).

Below, a broader view:

Facebook has taken over my life, it seems! I completely forgot to tell here about the stuff I’ve been posting to the Huffington Post’s comedy site! So, here we go!

The latest asks: Where do summer colds come from anyway? Here are some haunting possibilities:
Who gave me this nasty cold?

Another addresses the free entertainment provided on the subway by (possibly yours, possibly other) people’s asses, in “Things you can do with your butt on the subway.”

And if you want to know what the names of the cars of the future green economy will be, here are some of my ideas.

A little silliness.