Dark Matter

Cartoonists are natural contrarians. To paraphrase John Mellencamp, we smite authority, but authority always wins. Irritatingly, the authority in question often wants a signed copy of the cartoon. Authorities tend to have big egos.

Ours is a world of worst-face scenarios. To Tony Auth, Uncle Sam is a duplicitous sneak, stage-managing the darkest aspects of a disastrous war. And Tom Toles sees the leader of the free world as a patsy in Vladimir V. Putin’s freedom roadkill photo op. To us, it’s a bad, bad, bad world out there, and as we stoop to smell the roses we detect a vague hint of herbicide. But sometimes, like Chip Bok, we snap out of our persistently agitative states and actually defend authority. What a contrarian. Can I get a signed copy?