The Hooded Utilitarian website asked me to list my Top Ten Comics of all time for a survey.

Here are mine, what are yours?

The cave cartoons at Lascaux, France, because cartoons invented Art

The obscene political cartoons about Roman officials found on walls at Pompeii, the oldest known editorial cartoons and bawdier than anything a newspaper would run today

The postwar editorial cartoons of Bill Mauldin, roughly 1945-1955 (many are collected in the book “Back Home”), which are constructed using modern tropes and bravely call out American cultural hypocrisy

“Peanuts” by Charles Schulz, the first truly modern comic strip, and consistently entertaining and philosophical

“The Far Side” by Gary Larson, often forgotten today but still the most consistently funny comic I’ve read

Jules Feiffer’s cartoons from 1955 to 1975ish, which established the genre of alternative newspaper comics

“Life in Hell” by Matt Groening, particularly the 1980s era that opened the field to new artistic approaches

“Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel, the first graphic novel to fulfill the form’s potential as literature

“Weird War Tales” comics of the 1970s not because they’re objectively great. I just love them. So trashy, so fun. I wish there was a reissue.

“Tom the Dancing Bug” by Ruben Bolling, the best syndicated cartoon in the US

Honorable Mentions:

Stephanie McMillan’s experimental environmental comics

Matt Bors’ editorial cartoons and graphic novel(s)

Tom Tomorrow

Ward Sutton’s Onion satires

Cenk Uygur will be interviewing me for 15-20 minutes on his online Young Turks Show on Monday at 9:20 Eastern time. You can listen online by following the link.

We’ll be discussing my column this week about the Rise of the Obamabots.

Just testing out the WordPress app. It has been buggy in the past.

Once again I am auctioning off my services as a political cartoonist. Starting bid is 99 cents; Buy It Now price is $500 if you like a sure thing.

If you win this auction I will draw a cartoon about a topic of your choosing, which I may or may not syndicate but that you will have the right to print in a venue of your choice.

You would also win the original artwork. Considering that I usually sell originals for $500 each; previous winners, who have won with bids between $200 and $350, have done well.

Happy bidding, and thanks for your support of my work.

The winner of last week’s “Have Ted Rall Draw a Political Cartoon Just For You” eBay auction was Dr. Marc A. Wessels.

The winning bid was $200.22.

Dr. Wessels’ Space Exploration Archive discovered and shared publicly in January 2010 the only known amateur video taken of the Challenger space shuttle disaster. The video went viral and was featured on many TV programs.

Dr. Wessels has asked, not surprisingly, that I draw about the end of the space shuttle program and the lack of manned exploration—a topic that interests me, so I look forward to drawing the cartoon. He will receive the right to post and print the resulting cartoon in the publication of his choice, plus the original artwork.

I am beginning a new auction in a few minutes.

You can weigh in by voting “yes.”

Here’s an interview recorded yesterday in response to online chatter about this week’s syndicated column.

The brilliant conservative cartoonist Mike Lester drew this cartoon in response to my column this week. Part of me feels badly for giving ammo to the Right, but hey, when it comes to The One’s cult of personality I’ll freely admit that they’re…right.

UPDATE: Actually, it was pre-inspired. He drew it April 25th.

Told you he was brilliant.

The always useful website Antiwar riffs on my column and tells of their own marginalization by the “War Party”. Definitely an interesting read.

Noooooooo! Say it isn’t so! I still haven’t caught up with Season 2, but Season 1 was awesome. Why is it so hard for politically-tinged dystopian sci-fi to stay on the air?