Yet article about Muslims getting treated like shit in the military.

What the hell were these idiots thinking? Don’t. Enlist.

Given the intense interest in my plans to seek, or not seek, or avoid, running for president next year, I would like to announce here that I will tweet an update to facebook about my campaign, or not, at some point.

Also, I will apparently need one billion dollars. Please send via PayPal.

You can’t be fired–or refused employment–because of your gender, race, sexual orientation, or (if you’re over 50) age.

How about politics?

Currently it’s legal to discriminate against someone because they’re a Democrat, Republican, or whatever.

I think that should change.

Just saying.

WASHINGTON–The new Revolutionary Council announced that pornography has been found in the compound of deposed US president Barry Obama.

Among the titles of films found on thumb drives in Obama’s lair were “Nude Ninja Assassins,” “Lusty Libyans,” and “Milton Friedman Meets Long Dong Silver.”

“Since he didn’t lift a finger to work on the nation’s problems, he had lots of time on his hands,” said Mike McGee, a spokesman for the revolutionary government. “And that’s not all he had on his hands.”

I wonder if editors who cancel cartoons know the effect they have on the profession. Hardly a month passes when a colleague doesn’t call to tell me that he or she just got that one cancellation that pushed them over the edge into making their strip or editorial cartoon unviable.

It’s death by a thousand cuts. Or maybe a dozen. Editors have to balance their budgets. Hard to believe, but for some that $15 a week just has to be cut. So cut they do.

If they think about the cartoonist they probably think, it’s just one paper. He’s in 140 papers. He’ll be fine. And other editors think the same thing. The next thing you know, you’re down to 90. And 80. And 50. That’s what Tony Ortega, editor of the Village Voice, tweeted about me recently. You’re doing fine. Why are you complaining? He canceled me a few years ago. After cutting my pay from $100 to $50. I still get emails from Voice readers asking why I’m not in there. I wish they’d write him, not me.

So cartoonists are quitting. They have bills to pay, and families to feed, and they have to do their best to make ends meet. The ranks are thinning. Among some of the good cartoonists whose work we have lost recently are Lloyd Dangle and Tim Krieder. Funny Times runs an old comic strip by Nina Paley. It’s so fucking good. But it never got off the ground because editors didn’t want to buy it. Have to keep Apartment 3-G.

That’s the killer part. If the economic shakeout were hitting crappy cartoonists hard, while elevating good ones, it would be fine with me. In fact, the exact opposite is happening.

The cartooning award season just ended. It was depressing. Almost all the major awards went to old-fashioned cartoons whose humor is out of Bob Hope or the Three Stooges. “Alternative” cartoonists—i.e., those who do decent work—were locked out.

That’s the way it has been in the big newspaper round-ups. New York Times Week in Review, Newsweek, Washington Post, USA Today on Friday—all are dominated 99.99% by hackwork. If anything, they’re becoming more small-c conservative. The editors actively discriminate against good work. It’s crazy, because it drives away readers. They still do it.

Same thing with hiring. Good cartoonists like Jen Sorensen and Matt Bors aren’t able to get staff jobs. Good cartoonists like Stephanie McMillan don’t get picked up for syndication. All the high-paying gigs, and many of the little ones, are going to unadulterated hacks.

The only wonder is, in such a Bizarro World of Aesthetics, in which the better you are the worse you do, why anyone still sticks around.

I don’t normally post the work of other cartoonists, but this piece by Scott Stantis is so brilliant that I can’t resist.

As promised, I’m offering up my services as an editorial cartoonist to the highest bidder again.

Bidding begins at 99 cents, the Buy Now price is $500, and the auction runs the usual week.

To recap the first two auctions:

Doug K paid $335 for a cartoon about hemp

Tom Schmidt paid $227 for a cartoon about animal rights

If you’ve ever wanted me to draw about a given subject, and you want to support my work, this is something to consider.

Offer IS open to publications of all kinds. Winner gets reprint rights and the original artwork.

Josh has been kind enough to supply photos of a tattoo I designed for him. It’s a shark, always on the move, never stopping, drinking coffee. One of the pics shows how it looks as it wraps around Josh’s arm.

The winner of this week’s Cartoon Auction is Tom Schmidt. He has asked for a cartoon about animal rights and given me the choice of two animal rights-related stories in the news to tackle. I’ll do the cartoon next week.

For his winning bid of $227 Tom gets computer files AND the original artwork signed to him.

If you bid but lost, don’t worry—I’m starting another auction later today. Watch this space.

P.S. Last week’s “hemp” cartoon goes online Monday.

My second cartoon auction has finished. The winning bidder pays $227 for a cartoon based on the topic of his choice, which will be related to animal rights. He plans to donate the right to reprint the cartoon to an animal rights group of his choosing. He receives the original artwork.

I will be doing this again starting tomorrow, so if you bid but lost on this one, you’ll have another chance to pick a topic for me to draw about.