coalition of the willies

Well, what an exercise in frustration. I am stuck on Blair. Friends tell me they don't recognise him in this sketch:


















So I tried him again tonight but only ended up with this:













which is not much of an improvement. His eyes look evil, no?
Unfortunately I can't continue my cut'n'paste toons without an adequate sketch of Tony, but now I find that my multifuction printer's ink supply is so low that everything's coming out in different shades of gray, which isn't working for me. Never mind. Will try again next week, or whenever the new toner arrives.

when God's away, the Devil will play

John Howard in that speech last night:

"We should have been more humble. We have our Katrina here and now. That it has unfolded more slowly and absent the hand of God should make us humbler still."

Absent the hand of God? I thought God had His fingers in all pies. If He was absent, where was He? Busy elsewhere in the world causing freakish weather--hurricanes, tsunamis and the like--and the ensuing human misery, as part of His Grand Plan?

comic strip show

of rats and goats

Beautiful, Spud. Thanks to Sean for the link.

who's loathing who?

Why do Miranda Devine and Janet Albrechtsen hate women so much? And why do they loathe Western culture so much, while projecting this loathing onto progressive Western women?
Each of these conservative commentators wrote a piece last week cynically using Hiyaan Hirsi Ali as a tool to attack progressive women, while under the pretext of championing the rights of Muslim women around the world.
Their argument is so convoluted it baffles me.
Continued at Surfdom (where over-long posts can be neatly concealed under a fold...).

(PS. More toons on their way.)

no, i have not disappeared into my navel

And I will be posting again soon, not that I think anyone believes a word I say anymore, as far as promises to blog go. I have not been writing for a few reasons which I'll try and explain soon. I haven't been sketching either, but I have been cartooning myself into a frenzy, and I'll put up a couple soon, despite the danger that they're unintelligible to anyone but myself. (Tried one out on my folks today. First I had to explain it. Then my mum goes, "Ha, ha. So, which one is supposed to be Bush?". But they're being very encouraging, actually.)
On the subject of toons, I was amazed at the Leak/Herge controversy the other day. I would've thought if anything Bill Leak would be helping to market Tintin, by reminding his newspaper's audience of the classic character. Mightn't the publishers even enjoy a sales spike in Australia from this?
I also enjoyed David's post on the Big Donor. It's not the first time BB has achieved a social purpose, as I vaguely recall there was the UK asylum seeker case but I'll have to dig out the clipping as I've forgotten the details.
And Helen had a fantastic post at surfdom. My thoughts on education are that the Howard Government's tendency to view education simply as a commodity only further entrenches disadvantage, since socio-economically disadvantaged kids can only access poor resources. I don't believe public schools should be devalued to the point where they become a place of last resort, yet the only place for anyone who can't afford to pay a premium for decent schooling. (And Helen, the thing about the Superior Mums was funny. Just recently I had a woman who doesn't like me say, "What, your son still wears nappies sometimes and he's three? Well, my daughter was completely toilet-trained by the time she was two!". To which I didn't retort, "And does it not occur to you that every child is different and such comparisons are arbitrary, you silly twit?").
Well, if anyone's still reading me despite the extended and unexplained absences, I really appreciate it and I'll be back soon. In the immortal words of the PM, trust me...