CSotD: I’ve got the Sun in the morning and also the Moon in the morning.
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Start with an explainer from Brewster Rockit (Tribune). The strip is usually an absurdist laff-fest, but it breaks from time to time for an explanation, which goes to show that humor is funnier when the joker understands the topic.
And, boy, would I like to carve that in stone. The cartoons that work are the ones by cartoonists who understand what they’re joking about.
I don’t know what Christopher Weyant knows about astronomy or teaching, but he’s got a good grasp on politics and he did a nice job of mashing up the two. He’s hardly — as you’re about to see — the only cartoonist to make this general point, but he managed to do it in a way that is immediate and human.
We don’t all own telescopes or understand the facts Brewster Rockit’s Dr. Mel explained, but we’ve been to school and we’ve read the news. This is a level of relatable sarcasm that political cartoonists should want to match.
An extraordinary number of cartoonists used the eclipse itself as a metaphor, and I’m giving Pedro X. Molina (Counterpoint) first place in the line-up because he’s seen this happen for-sure in his native Nicaragua, and had to flee as a result.
Which is not to suggest that it isn’t a genuine threat here, but, for Pedro, it’s a prediction fulfilled, and he’s referencing not what might happen but what has happened.
IOW, he’s warning us against thinking “It can’t happen here.” He’s seen it happen.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Several cartoonists specifically singled out Trump as blotting democracy and fair government from the skies. It’s not that their accusations are ungrounded, as is obvious if you seen the plans that pass for a platform in the MAGA world. But they’re somewhat heavy-handed.
Perhaps that’s appropriate.
Nick Anderson (Tribune) approaches it from another direction, suggesting that the MAGAts are already so blinded by loyalty that blotting out the Sun makes no difference in their world.
While John Deering makes a more pointed suggestion, which is that Trump has blotted out the Republican Party and turned it into cult of personality with a loyalty oath, which is hard to refute, though, of course, this has gone on for some time and isn’t just a four-minute phenomenon tomorrow.
I almost led with this Graeme MacKay piece, because, while he accuses Trump of stealing the spotlight, he also hints that maybe all these eclipse cartoons do not represent the finest work possible.
I can’t quite identify all the rejected panels here, but I see Putin and Hitler and I appreciate his elbow in the ribs to cartoonists capitalizing on the astronomical phenomenon to make a political point.
It’s not that they oughtn’t to. After all, that’s the job.
But it’s also not like it took a genius to see all these cartoons coming.
Kevin Kallaugher suggests that Trump himself is planning to benefit from the moment.
And Bill Bramhall similarly suggests that the right wing will stretch not simply to make a metaphorical point but to actually capitalize on the event.
And if you think that’s ridiculous, well, Clay Jones points out that Marjorie Taylor Greene genuinely, sincerely cited the eclipse and last week’s minor tremor as signs that God hates Democrats or woke people or liberals or somebody.
Her asinine remarks — upon which she has doubled down — are so divorced from science, logic, reality and plain common sense as to inspire guffaws, until you remember that there are enough equally delusional nincompoops in Georgia to have voted her into office.
“Did you not see a false vision and speak a lying divination when you said, ‘The Lord
declares,’ but it is not I who have spoken?” ‘” — Ezekiel 13:7
At which point Michael de Adder begins making sense, since it’s easier to avoid hearing the insanity than to attempt to refute people whose heads are similarly encased in boxes, perhaps not all with pinholes from which to see out. And it’s impossible to do either.
There are less partisan directions to go, and Michael Ramirez (Creators) offers the opinion that conspiracy theories are blotting out the Sun of Truth.
While Steve Breen (Creators) uses the moment to point out the growing dangers of Artificial Intelligence.
And Joy of Tech, alas, predicts the likely fate for those of us in my part of the world. I had planned to drive four hours — likely longer with the expected traffic — to view the eclipse in my old hometown with high school friends in the zone of totality, but the prospects do not look so good, and, worse, the clouds are forecast to set in somewhat after I’d started out but before the show begins.
But wotthehell, while the fellow in Peter Kuper’s cartoon may have needed a little help from an earthquake, I have never ever needed either clear skies or tectonic plates to stake out my place in the world.
Ask anybody!
Okay, ask a few people.
Better yet, don’t ask them. Just ask me.
And I may have changed a couple of things.
And then …
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