I spend most of my time doing commercial work for my job, but sometimes I daydream of actually having the time to work on my own projects. Most of them never get past the doodle stage; yet in this age of short attention spans, these doodles might as well be the equivalent of a TikTok vine -- as long as they're still entertaining and get an idea across.

Discovered in an old notebook, this doodle dates back to around 1997. This was a concept idea for a short comic story about a dystopian future in which the USA had become fragmented. The young female protagonist is living in a violent country dominated by gangs and corporations. But things have gotten out of hand, so she tries to escape to the country her brother lives in, a right-wing extremist nation called "Arya" (formerly the states of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas). This only presents a different set of problems.

...So the undercurrents of discontent were already in place ... and then the Internet happened...

This One's Way Older Than The Previous One

My distaste for those of a certain political persuasion go WAY back. In junior high school I started drawing a series of comic books based on a group of boys (some of them bullies) who would sit together talking loudly about guns and killing animals. This was also when I started doing satirical cartooning.

At the time, I was too young to know what "left wing" and "right wing" were, but their personalities fit the stereotypes. Today, these guys would probably be going to Trump rallies!

Sketchbook: The Twitter Era

A bunch of stuff I never got around to finishing or posting. Mostly inspired by comment threads on Yahoo, Facebook, etc. The Trump era was a gold mine of inspiration for any creative person, so there's a lot of Trump-related stuff, but my target was really more about the mentality fed by internet rabbit holes and pop media.

IMO liberals lost the plot when they lost their sense of humor and became too defensive and "politically correct". Satire and mockery can be a powerful weapon, so the challenge was to figure out how to "one-up" the pervasive and tribalistic "playground" atmosphere that had taken over American political discourse. Instead of the point/counterpoint debates of the past, contemporary politicians can simply sum-up or dismiss their opponent with a grade-school-level name or label - a tactic that has more recently been exploited by certain politicians and pundits and aided in no small part by media-for-the-attention-challenged (i.e. Twitter and other social media platforms).

[more to come]

....

They target 'em young!!!

A rebellious and anti-establishment ethos pervades the American mentality. What "establishment" does the Denialist rebel against? 2+2=4?

No, this one isn't politically correct, and if this offends you in any way, that's the point. Inspired by reader comments on various forums, this was kind of a "back atcha" at the often-parroted "liberalism is a mental disorder". Because... yeah. They do check a lot of those boxes. ...Getting down-and-dirty on THEIR level.

(FYI I'm a "classic liberal", which might even be viewed as "conservative" in this day and age; while those who claim to be "conservatives" are actually right-wing reactionaries.

...and then there was that time when the estate of Theodore Seuss Geisel (aka "Dr. Seuss") decided they would no longer publish certain titles due to outdated racial stereotypes. Of course, the right-wing media was all over that one, crying about "government censorship" and other scenarios that had no basis in fact. ...Of course followed by various parroted sentiments posted on social media.

One of those titles was "If I Ran the Zoo", which was about a boy who dreamed about acquiring fantastical species never seen in zoos before.