This cartoon is by me and Becky Hawkins.

Becky commented, “It’s always fun and challenging to come up with enough unique character designs for these cartoons. All resemblance to acquaintances living or dead is entirely coincidental. Maybe not coincidental, but not at all a reflection on their character.” So please don’t sue us!

Neither Becky or I are parents, and when I showed Becky the script she eagerly said something like “time to get my secondhand anger on!” (Except what she said was funnier, and I didn’t think to write down the exact wording at the time, and now I’m annoyed with my past self for not being considerate enough of my future cartoon-introduction-writing needs.)

The research for a comic like this is always fun. I dive into online discussion boards and I’m guaranteed to learn something new – or many something news.

For instance, I would never have guessed that strangers actually come up to new parents to criticize them – sometimes quite harshly – if their baby isn’t wearing socks or a hat. But I read multiple people complaining about just that! (Becky here! Panel 6 is dedicated to Jackie, who learned about this phenomenon mere weeks into parenthood.)

And while of course I knew that sleep schedules are a major issue, the full extent of it – and the extent to which many parents feel overwhelmed by all the contrary advice they’re given, including from medical professionals – was eye-opening to me. I didn’t even know what “wake windows” were before I wrote this cartoon (ah, those innocent days of youth).

The title of one Reddit thread really says it all: “I was not prepared for society making you feel like a bad parent NO MATTER WHAT you do.”

The pressure on new parents to do everything perfectly – even though perfect parenting isn’t something that ever has or ever can exist – is ridiculous. And, predictably, that pressure is even greater on mothers.

Becky originally put Big Bird as one of the crowd in the final panel, just as a joke. But – as much as it kills me to remove chicken fat – I was worried that people would read that, not just as a fun cameo, but as a pointed criticism of Sesame Street. So Big Bird was out, alas.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has nine panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel at the bottom.

PANEL 1

A mother in the middle seat of an airplane is holding her crying baby, while the annoyed women on either side of her offer their advice.

AISLE SEAT LADY: If you let your baby cry in public you’re a bad mother.

WINDOW SEAT LADY: If you quiet them with screen time you’re a bad mother.

PANEL 2

A smiling woman wearing a mint green gi sits crosslegged next to a potted plant, holding a mug of tea. A large picture window faces a natural scene.

WOMAN: Formula is poison! Quit your job and breastfeed at least every two hours or you don’t love your baby.

PANEL 3

A woman in business wear and red glasses speaks directly to us.

WOMAN: If you really love your baby, spend more time at work and start their college fund.

PANEL 4

A middle-aged man is carrying a tall stack of books and pamphlets, so heavy that he’s bent backwards.

MAN: I brought you some light reading about “wake windows” and optimal nap schedules.

PANEL 5

Most of this center panel is taken up by the title: HELPFUL ADVICE FOR NEW MOMS. Below that, a blonde woman in a green jacket smiles.

WOMAN: Trust your instincts! Which are terrible and wrong.

PANEL 6

A mom has her baby in a stroller in a park, and is just kneeling down to put on some socks. A woman behind her turns red and curves over the mom in an impossible arc to get in her face and yell.

WOMAN: Why isn’t your baby wearing SOCKS?!?

PANEL 7

A couple relaxes on a sofa, her head resting on his shoulder. They talk to us, his expression genial, hers angry.

HIM: Co-sleeping is the natural way to teach your baby to sleep!

HER: Until you roll over and smother them, you murderer!

PANEL 8

An older woman leans close to us and holds up a finger as she gives advice.

WOMAN: Wean too soon and he’ll grow up sickly. Wean too late and he’ll grow up weird!

PANEL 9

A large crowd of people, of various ages and ethnicities and fashion choices, speak in unison. Some are angry, some friendly. One is a mother with a baby in a sling.

EVERYBODY: And remember: Whatever happens, it’s your fault!

“KICKER” PANEL AT THE BOTTOM

Barry is talking to a woman who looks absolutely exhausted.

BARRY: Do you know what “catch 22” means?

TIRED WOMAN: Is it minutes of sleep I caught last night?

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

Chicken fat is ancient cartoonist lingo for fun but unimportant little details in the art.

In panel six, the sockless baby is kicking their feet so much that Becky drew the baby with six adorable little feet.

In panel nine, one woman is wearing a T-Shirt design that’s a mix of an anarchy symbol and a cat’s head. That same design showed up as a poster on the wall in a previous Becky cartoon.

Also in panel nine, one man in the crowd carries a “World’s Best Dad” mug, and the baby’s eyes are hilariously wide and shocked-looking.

Helpful Advice For New Moms | Patreon

When Kamala Harris lost the election, a lot of centrist Democrats blamed progressives (as they did when Hillary Clinton lost in 2016), and it’s been a constant drumbeat of recrimination ever since. I’m talking about folks like Quentin Fulks, who blamed Harris’ loss on activists forcing politicians to apologize and “men don’t like people who apologize.”

Personally, I blame Trump’s election first and foremost on Trump voters. Wacky of me, I know.

A lot of people (including me) have blamed 2024 for being a terrible year for incumbent parties worldwide – but I just read an argument that the popular wisdom is wrong about that one.

A lot of people blame stay at home voters – but the problem with that is, stay at home voters would probably have voted for Trump.

(I’d definitely blame the press’ determination to sanewash Donald Trump, but that’s a subject for another cartoon).

But if I had to blame Democrats, I would blame the people who actually ran the Harris campaign. People like Quentin “men don’t like people who apologize” Fulks, who was Harris’s deputy campaign manager.

Progressives didn’t select Clinton, Biden, or Harris (all of them centrists). Progressives didn’t decide to have Biden run for a second term – or for Biden to drop out less than four months before the election. Progressives didn’t select the very centrist Harris, didn’t decide on her campaign strategy, didn’t write her speeches or choose her issues.

I don’t really blame the centrists for Harris’ loss. Maybe there was no way for Harris to win. She had less than four months to go, and swing voters seemed really down on the Biden administration.

But the self-serving pretense by centrists that progressives are to blame – when they themselves made every decision in the Harris campaign – is ridiculous.

Man, the dude’s office in panel three was a pain to draw. But it gave me a lot of opportunity to put in chicken fat.

The most fun bit? Probably the woman’s tattoos. Frank Young did a bang-up job coloring them, too. (One reason I enjoy drawing fat characters: More room for tattoos.)

What’s the origin of the idiom “bang up job”? I wasn’t able to find it. But it’s been in use since the early 1800s.

I don’t have a cartoon syndicate and I’m not in newspapers. But I get to do this for a living because lots of readers support my Patreon with mostly small pledges! I also have prints and books for sale.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four regular panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel under the bottom.

PANEL 1

A large caption says “PRE-ELECTION.”

Two people, a casually dressed woman and a more business-dressed man, are talking in an office. The man makes a dismissive gesture.

WOMAN: Progressives have some ideas for this election…

MAN: Here’s my idea. Step one: donate to our campaign. Step two: you get lost.

PANEL 2

The man pushes the woman out of the office.

WOMAN: Hey!

MAN: No insult, but you woke special interest social justice freaks repel normie voters. Leave us in charge of this election so we can win!

PANEL 3

The man sits behind his desk, looking very pleased.

MAN: Good riddance! Now we can run a winning campaign – a centrist campaign with a centrist candidate and centrist strategies!

PANEL 4

A large caption says “POST-ELECTION”.

The same man and woman are in a hallway. She glares at him, while he yells at her, jumping with fury.

MAN: WE LOST AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!

KICKER PANEL

The man smiles as he talks to Barry the cartoonist.

MAN: Centrist Democrats can’t fail! We can only be failed.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is archaic cartoonist-speak for fun little details that don’t matter.

PANEL 1: On the shelves in the background: A book called “Really Big Book.” A framed picture of Tintin. There’s a framed picture of Amy from “Futurama” on the wall. The woman’s shirt says “Woop Woop.”

Her arms are covered with, well, random doodles, including a Rubik’s cube flying on angel wings, a cloud that says “meh,” a sake, and a explosion with a “BOOM” sound effect.

PANEL 2: The snake tattoo has moved to her other arm, which also features a hand hatching from an egg and a paper saying “8675309.” Her shirt now ways “Hi Mom!” There’s a framed picture of Groucho Marx on the wall.

PANEL 3: There are framed photos on the wall of Kermit the Frong, Marcie, Peppermint Patty, the Mayor from “Nightmare Before Christmas,” and Mayor Quimby from The Simpsons.

On the shelves are: A globe with a goldfish-shaped continent; a stack of three books: Really Big Book, RBB Strikes Back, and Return of the RBB. The photo of Tintin has been replaced with Tintin’s dead, decapitated head. A photo of a seagull with a fish in its beak. A mouse with a bow and arrow, taking aim at an apple on the head of another mouse. A mouse painting a picture of cheese. A napping cat.

On the desk: The book says “Scary” on the spine and “Boo” on the front cover. The icon on the back of the laptop is a cracking egg.

Finally, a mouse or rat is clinging to the arm of the chair in the foreground.

PANEL 4: The snake tattoo is back! Now looking at a tattoo of a mug of steaming liquid. There are framed pictures of Popeye and Olive Oil.

Taking Responsibility | Patreon

Yes, this comic was inspired by evil non-genius Elon Musk. No one better epitomizes money cosplaying as competence.

As Richard Carrier wrote:

He fell ass-backwards into big money, and our system protects big money. …Literally everything he touches gets fucked up, from self-driving cars to Twitter to the government, or almost anything at all; even PayPal—that’s why they fired him. He was so bad at it that his own staff revolted and insisted he be canned. Indeed, nearly everyone who has ever worked for him says he is a shitty leader who has no business running companies. But alas, like other rich people who fail upwards, Musk’s contracted severance package for being axed from (what was then) PayPal for incompetence launched his entire career as a moneybagged gunknozzle.

Musk hardly stands alone. Private Equity’s business model is for people who know nothing about an industry to buy out existing companies and often destroy them. Although with private equity, it’s often more like piracy than actual incompetence.

Why did Sears tank? Everyone knows that the 19th century business was an antique, incapable of mounting a challenge in the age of e-commerce. That was a great smokescreen for an old-fashioned bust out that saw corporate looters make off with hundreds of millions, leaving behind empty storefronts and emptier pension accounts for the workers who built the wealth the looters stole.

And of course, Donald “six bankruptcies” Trump is a tragic example of how inherited wealth (to the tune of $413 million) and a staggering ego can give an utter incompetent a rep as a business genius. Trump’s actual talents in are self-promotion and dodging taxes, not in creating value.

The challenge of drawing this cartoon was the factory setting, which is a zillion miles outside my comfort zone. I doubt I’ve ever drawn the interior of a factory before, and I wasn’t sure how to begin. I looked at photos of factories online and they seemed impossibly complex, and my attempts to streamline them just didn’t look good.

What finally got me over the “factories are too hard to draw! Waaaah!” wall was looking at the graphic novel Factory Summers by the brilliant cartoonist Guy Delisle. I didn’t directly copy Delisle’s drawings, but I took a lot of instruction from how he simplified factory interiors to make them work in comics.

Once I got started, it was fun. A factory setting in two-point perspective provides so many ways to fit in little visual gags.

I was worried about panel four. For the gag to work, readers definitely had to notice the burning factory disaster in the background, but a lot of readers kind of skip noticing the backgrounds. I asked Frank Young, who colored this cartoon, to make the conflagration in the distance impossible to miss, and I think Frank really delivered.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel.

PANEL 1

Two workers in reflective vests and hard hats are on a factory floor when a man wearing a blazer over a t-shirt walks in, arms spread wide.

BLAZER: Greetings, workers! I just bought this weezotski factory.

WORKER: Oh, uh… Welcome! So you must have lots of experience with weezotskis?

PANEL 2

Grinning, Blazer keeps talking, looking very smug.

BLAZER: None! But success in an unrelated industry has made me freakishly wealthy! And that makes me a business genius who can run anything!

PANEL 3

Blazer puts his arm around the worker and makes a grand “envision the future!” gesture.

BLAZER: I’m gonna disrupt this company so hard! It’ll be amazing! You’ll see! (Not you personally. I’m firing you.)

PANEL 4

CAPTION: SIX MONTHS LATER

Blazer, still grinning, flees from a burning factory building.

BLAZER: Another business brilliantly saved!

KICKER PANEL

Blazer, looking smug, is talking to Barry the cartoonist.

BLAZER: Maybe I should run the government!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is long-obscure cartoonist talk for fun but unimportant details in the art.

Panel 1: A limp hand is sticking out a hole in the huge factory machine. A panel of the floor is missing, and a corpse in a funeral suit lies within. The box the worker is carrying is labeled “Caution: Irrelevant Prop.”

Panel 2: In the background, in supervisors windows, are Homer Simpson and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew.

Panel 3: An opening in the side of a big factory machine contains Brain, of “Pinky and the Brain.” A vent hose has a distressed face on it. In a window in a machine in the background, a grinning stoned person hands upside-down. The paper on the clipboard says “this text is way too small to be read, sorry”.

A sign says “URGENT: Always complete your shift and clean your area before fighting demonic forces.” Another says “WARNING: Studies show that most people’s largest deathbed regret is time not spent working.” A sign on a large red button says “NO. Do not press button. Nope.”

Panel 4: The dark cloud in the sky, if you rotate it 90 degrees to the right, is an enormous face in profile.

The tattoo storyline: In panel one, the worker has a tattoo of a snake on his right arm, and a tattoo of an apple on his left arm. In panel two, the snake tattoo has crossed to his left arm and is examining the apple. In panel 3, the apple has been eaten, and the snake – no longer merely a tattoo – is crawling out of a hole in a big factory machine.

The Business Genius | Patreon

This cartoon is by me and Nadine Scholtes. And just look at how adorable the wolf pups she drew are!

The term “alpha wolf” was coined in 1947 by biologist Rudolph Schenkel.

At that time, science knew very little about wolves. About all science knew–and that means that’s all Schenkel would have known–is that they live in a pack. He knew they howled and all that. But as far as their social structure was concerned, they live in a group of animals. And he wanted to study the behavior of animals in a group–in this case, the wolves–and so he wanted to do that in captivity.

To do that, he had to make a pack. And so he just got a bunch of wolves– one or two from some zoo somewhere, another couple from another place– threw them all together, and that was his wolf pack.

Schenkel then observed the wolves fighting for dominance – but a wolf “pack” formed in captivity, with unrelated wolves thrown together willy-nilly, won’t act like wolves in nature do. But Schenkel didn’t know that.

When keeping wolves in captivity, humans typically throw together adult animals with no shared kinship. In these cases, a dominance hierarchy arises, Mech adds, but it’s the animal equivalent of what might happen in a human prison, not the way wolves behave when they are left to their own devices.

In contrast, wild wolf packs are usually made up of a breeding male, a breeding female and their offspring from the past two or three years that have not yet set out on their own—perhaps six to 10 individuals. …Infighting for dominance is basically unheard of in a typical pack.

Wildlife biologists have known the “alpha wolf” is a myth for decades. But the term persists, mainly because some people really like the myth. They’re really excited by the image of a strong, dominant man dominating others through sheer physical strength.

To be fair, a lot of people are excited by that image – which is why we see it over and over in action movies, and of course, in superhero stories.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having fun watching a Jason Statham movie. But for some people, the alpha wolf myth is compelling not just because it’s fun to watch a hero kick a heel, but because they use it to legitimize their sexist beliefs as natural. I don’t say men should dominate because I’m a misogynist – I’m just reporting what nature says! Don’t shoot the messenger!

And even people who aren’t that extreme might still be influenced by a watered-down version of the alpha male myth. Men – to be properly male – are expected to be confident, strong, take-charge, and emotionally muted. That stereotype long precedes the term “alpha wolf,” of course; but I think that pre-existing cultural belief is one reason the alpha wolf myth took off.

This is an aside, but do you ever wonder why Superman is so muscular? It’s not like he exercises to be able to juggle trucks; there’s no in-story reason he can’t be a scrawny dude with a bit of a potbelly juggling trucks. The answer, obviously, is that comics artists and readers – and also, filmmakers and film audiences – want to be able to see Superman’s power and dominance at a glance.

I offered this cartoon to Nadine to draw because I thought she’d have fun drawing the wolves in panel four. As expected, she did a terrific job with the whole cartoon. For some reason the blatant way the “alpha” and the maid are eying each other in panel two really cracks me up.

Hey, while we’re doing animal myths:

1) Ostriches don’t bury their heads in the sand when frightened. (They do bury their nests and stick their heads in the hole now and then to turn their eggs).

2) Bats aren’t blind.

3) Elephants, like humans, can be startled by unexpected scurrying near the ground, but no, they’re not terrified of mice.

You may have already known all that. But did you know that every time you debunk an animal myth, you’re harming cartoonists? We depend on those myths to earn our livelihoods! Why do you hate us so much, wildlife biologists?

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels.

PANEL 1

A man in a yellow shirt is at a bus stop, cheerfully lecturing the other two people at the stop.

MAN: “Feminization” has warped society. If we lived as nature intended I’d be the alpha wolf!

PANEL 2

The man with a huge thought balloon, showing him imagining walking with one hand holding a bloody axe and the other around a woman’s waist. A second woman, in a maid outfit, is carrying a tray of cake and steak. A third woman looks at him adoringly.

MAN: And the alpha wolf gets the first pick of everything! The best food, the best mates!

PANEL 3

MAN: That’s how men should live. I wish I was a wolf in the wild!

PANEL 4

Inside a wolf den, two adult wolves are talking. There are four kids (three small puppies, one medium sized) and a dead rabbit.

CAPTION: Wolves in the Wild

DAD WOLF: First the little ones eat, then the rest of us will.

MOM WOLF: And then — cuddle pile!

PUPPY: Yay!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is an archaic cartoonists’ term for unimportant little details in the art.

PANEL 1 – The tattoo is of a German cartoon mouse named Diddl, holding a heart.

A poster says “HEY YOU! READ THIS! Wow, I can’t believe you’re reading this just because I said to.”

Another poster shows a cool woman in sunglasses holding a guitar. Text says “YET ANOTHER BAND… you’re not cool enough to know.”

A pigeon standing on the sidewalk is wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigarette.

PANEL 3 – A poster has a picture of the panel 1 pigeon, with the caption “BEWARE Bad Pigeon.”

The guy waiting at the bus stop is miming shooting himself in the head so he doesn’t have to listen to this alpha wolf prattle any more.

The woman’s tattoo now shows the character Superjhemp (a parody of Superman and other superheroes). He’s very popular in Luxembourg – “he has appeared in over 29 graphic novels that have the highest sales rate for Luxembourgish publications.”

The Alpha Wolf | Patreon

I’m not as anti-AI as a lot of my cohort (lefty artists). I’ve never been morally against art made by remixing other artists’ work, so it’s hard for me to be angry at the “stealing” AI does to make images. If AI images were only a toy, something people play with but don’t sell, I wouldn’t be bothered by AI images remixing other images at all.

But it’s not just a toy, and I am worried by the economics of it.

AI image generation makes images close to instantly, but it makes those images by remixing work by human artists who took hours, days, weeks to make those images. The styles AI imagery apes might have taken someone decades to develop.

Those instantly-generated AI-generated images then compete in a marketplace against human artists.

That’s not sustainable for the humans.

I have no problem at all with human artists training themselves on art other humans have made. In comics, that’s a primary way most of us learn.

But after I’ve learned from other cartoonists, I can’t instantly produce images. So when I compete with them, it’s on even ground.

When artists are competing with other artists, that can be tough, but the result isn’t that there’s less work for artists overall.

But the more AI enters the art market, the less work is left for human artists. AI simultaneously depends on our work existing to be remixed, and makes paying us  for our work obsolete.

Second thought: I personally don’t feel threatened by AI (although I’m some combination of amused by and tired of people mistaking my work for AI).

But I really worry about the younger generation of illustrators. I think a lot of “entrance level” illustration work that used to exist is increasingly being done with AI.

From a report in Fortune:

AI is actually increasing strain for most employees, as the tools add more time to menial tasks, and actually takes away from deep-focus work. Since adopting AI into their workflows, time spent across every job responsibility shot up anywhere from 27% to 346%, according to a recent ActivTrak report that analyzed 10,584 users 180 days before and after their AI adoption.

The time spent toiling on grunt work like emails increased by 104%, while chatting and messaging climbed by 145%, and using business management tools rose 94%.

There wasn’t a single activity category where using AI actually saved users time, with the report reaffirming that: “The data is unambiguous: AI does not reduce workloads.” Instead, professionals are now multitasking at a greater rate, and spending less of their days concentrating on complex problems.

So that’s not the greatest. The headline in Harvard Business Review summed it up: “AI Doesn’t Reduce Work — It Intensifies It.”

—

I don’t draw robots often, but cartoonists like Mattias Adolfsson make it look like so much fun that I was eager to give it a try. Here’s the first batch of robot drawings I did for this cartoon:

I had a lot of fun drawing those, but I decided the robots just look too old-fashioned and broken to represent AI, so I started over.

The second draft of robots aren’t quite as wrecked looking, but they’re not exactly slick and shiny looking, either.

Thinking about it now, I could have represented all the AI characters as text on smartphones, with a different smartphone (and hand holding the phone) in every panel. That might have been a better representation of AI than robots. But hopefully the way I did it is more fun for you folks to look at.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels, each of which shows a different scene. The first five panels all feature cheerful robots in office environments.

PANEL 1

A shiny golden robot talks to the viewer.

GOLDIE: Good news! Here are just some of the ways AI saves you time and makes your job better!

PANEL 2

A robot – which seems to be a suit and tie with a smartphone sticking up out of the collar – talks to us. He’s carrying a huge stack of papers.

PHONE: Good news! Because your new AI agent is expected to save you so much time, the company is providing you with extra work!

PANEL 3

A tiny robot that looks like a ball with hands is bouncing on a desk.

BOUNCY: Good news! The AI agent makes lots of mistakes, so you get to do proofreading and debugging! Yay!

PANEL 4

A robot with a head shaped like a Telsa Cybertruck talks to us. A bunch of other robots are in the background.

TELSA: Good news! The company has determined you’ll get more work done with more AI agents doing more bad work for you to check and correct!

PANEL 5

A coffee machine with a screen with a happy face on it talks to us.

COFFEE: Good news! More of your colleagues are letting AI do their jobs, so now you get to fix that work, too!

PANEL 6

A human with a shellshocked look is walking on a sidewalk, carrying a cardboard box full of desk stuff in classic I’ve-just-been-fired iconography. A caption is shaped like a memo on paper.

CAPTION: Good news! We’ve determined that bad work done by A.I. is more cost-effective than better work done by humans.

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is obsolete jargon for what we now call “Easter eggs.”

PANEL 1: A poster on the wall says LESSER EVIL INCORPORATED. “If it’s not lethal, it’s a lesser evil.” A rat sits reading a book, Charlotte’s Web.

PANEL 2: A gigantic ant is climbing a skyscraper in the background.

PANEL 3: A picture of an adorable toddler is inscribed “I heart you Mommy! Always remember if u quit ur job I’ll starve.” A “to do” list says: “-Work -Work -Work -Labor -Toil -Lunch -Drudge -Slog -die.” A coffee mug, decorated with Charlie Brown’s zig-zag shirt line, has a mouse wearing glasses peering out of it.

PANEL 4: One of the robots is a toaster. The robot puppy has left poo (a steaming pile of nuts and bolts) on the ground. The cybertruck robot’s head is on fire, and if you peer closely at the passenger window you can see a screaming person trapped inside.

PANEL 5: The coffee cup has a picture of Bender from Futurama on it. There’s an electric outlet with two “faces”; one of the faces is the standard, the other one is smiling and winking at us. A poster says “NOTICE: Cups must be cleaned after death.” A cannister is labeled “82% real Sugar,” with an adorable granny mascot saying “What you don’t now won’t kill you, probably.”

PANEL 6: The box of stuff from the fired employee’s desk includes a coffee mug; the mouse from panel 3 is still in the mug. A jar on the sidewalk says “Background Juice” on the label.

And there’s graffiti! “BG” (for background) is written in a few places. Someone has written a list of jobs: “Priest Poet Lawyer Marine Squire Grocer Vicar.” (Let me know in comments if you know where that list comes from.) A game of “hangman” is in progress: “A_S_ER.” (You see the answer, right?) More things written on the wall: “Filler.” “Who reads this?” “PP + Marcie 4EV.” “E=M.C. Hammer.” “Mary + Charlie + Frank.” Finally, a poster on the wall is partly blocked by the caption, but I can tell you it says “Secret Hidden Text! Because you can’t read this text: At last, I’m free to say it: Basketball is BORING! Bite me, b-ball fans!”

Good News About AI and Work! | Patreon

ICE agents are the worst people in the world. If you’re a good person and you’re working for ICE, you don’t really exist, because all the good people have resigned by now.

In Maine, an ICE agent told a woman filming him in public – which is entirely legal to do – “we have a nice little database, and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.”

In Minneapolis, days after an ICE agent publicly murdered Renee Good, agents were referring to Good’s death to threaten civilians. “Listen, have y’all not learned from the past couple of days? Have you not learned?”

Garret Grass reports that “Overall, CBP’s arrest and misconduct rate is FIVE TIMES higher than other federal law enforcement agencies — and, in fact, if you look over the last decade, the arrest rate of CBP officers and Border Patrol agents (.5%) has been HIGHER than the arrest rate of undocumented immigrants in the United States (.4%).”

Brookings wrote about “reports of ICE using excessive force, such as in the case of Julio Sosa-Celis, and of U.S. citizens being arrested or detained based on their accent or appearance, including Native Americans.”

On January 20, a 5-year-old with a pending asylum case was apprehended by ICE as he arrived home from preschool. School officials say he was used “as bait” to attempt to arrest other family members and members of his community.

ICE agents are some of the worst people, and that’s not an accident.

ICE is deliberately trying to attract the worst people in the country, by using white nationalist dog whistles in recruitment ads. For instance, they’ve posted ads using the slogan “We’ll Have Our Home Again,” a quote from a white nationalist anthem.

Since 2020, the song has been circulated on the messaging app Telegram almost exclusively by accounts linked to far-right extremists, according to analysis by Open Measures, a research firm that specializes in online extremism.

With lyrics about replacement by foreigners, Beirich says the song is only popular in white nationalist spaces. “This is the kind of thing that I can’t find to be a mistake,” she said.

ICE has also famously lowered “the bar for recruits, including reduced training, slower background checks, and lower physical abilities… Some ICE recruits reached the training academy before fingerprinting, drug tests or background checks were completed.”

Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell commented on ICE recruitment:

With this kind of campaign, they feel like they’re going on the internet and basically just saying, “Hey, if you want to pick up a gun and start shoving people around, you want to join us.”

No wonder ICE has been killing people – thirty two people in 2025, and they’re on track to kill many more than that in 2026.

Most of the drawing in this one is basic – mostly just a guy talking straight to the camera – although I hope it’s good. The last panel was the most fun to draw, just because there’s so much more going on there. And – as far as chicken fat goes – I’m very pleased with my little “summary of everything popular on YouTube” at the bottom of panel three. Frank Young did a terrific job with the colors, despite my giving him zero guidance. (It’s so handy to work with a colorist who gets my cultural references).

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels.

PANEL 1

A middle-aged man in a button-up shirt points directly at us, contempt on his face. He’s standing in a park.

MAN: You! Yeah, you! Face it – you’re a loser.

PANEL 2

The man continues berating us.

MAN: You’ve never accomplished much of anything, and you never will, because you’ve got nothing to contribute.

PANEL 3

We’re looking at a hand holding a smartphone; on the phone’s screen, the man continues his rant.

MAN: But you still think you’re better than most people. Especially the dark skinned ones. You’re basically a piece of shit and you want to hurt people.

PANEL 4

We switch scenes to a cluttered living room. Two women are relaxing on the sofa, one with her feet up on the other’s lap. The second woman is looking at her smartphone.

WOMAN 1: What on earth are you watching?

WOMAN 2: New ICE recruitment ad.

PHONE: Well, have I got a job for YOU!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is long-dead cartoonists’ slang for what the kids now call “Easter eggs.”

Panel two: In the hollow of a tree is a human skull. Through the eyeholes, we can see a bird sitting inside the skull.

And on the ground, an evil bunny glares and smokes a cig.

Panel three: Thumbnails of other videos are below the main image. The other videos are named “CATS,” “puppies,” “BOOBS,” “SPORTS!,” and “RAGE.”

Panel four: There are two framed pictures of the wall, one of a giant worm wearing a polo shirt, the other of the title character from the 1990s cartoon “Daria.”

The cat snoozing on the sofa is wearing glasses.

The first woman has a tattoo of an octopus with a mohawk, and also a snake winding around her arm.

The book on her lap says “BOOK TITLE, by Author Name.”

The second woman has a tattoo of Harold from Harold and the Purple Crayon. She’s wearing a t-shirt with the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” planet logo.

One coffee mug on the table has a picture of an apple with a worm hole. The other mug has a picture of a worm looking puzzled (I think it’s looking for its apple).

A book on the coffee table is entitled “GREG: Like God, but taller” by “A Horne,” a reference to the UK TV show “Taskmaster.”

Wanted | Patreon

This cartoon is drawn by new guest artist Jamie Sale, who did a terrific job.

I’d originally written the script so the camera would pan out until we saw that the speaker was in a giant bubble. Then I realized that sends the wrong message, because it implies that the people pushing A.I. are putting themselves at economic risk. But that’s not it at all; they’re gonna be fine.

I mean, no doubt some of them will be downgraded from “inconceivably wealthy” to “stupid rich.” It’ll be a blow to their egos and maybe even their social standing. But at the end of the day, none of them are facing any real risk; their lives will remain secure and comfortable.

It’s the rest of us they’re putting at risk.

So I did a last minute rewrite. Jamie had already done initial sketches of the cartoon, but cheerfully went along with my third-act change of direction.

Hedge fund manager Harris “Kuppy” Kupperman ran the numbers:

Simply put, at the current trajectory, we’re going to hit a wall, and soon. There just isn’t enough revenue and there never can be enough revenue. The world just doesn’t have the ability to pay for this much AI. It isn’t about making the product better or charging more for the product. There just isn’t enough revenue to cover the current capex spend. …

At the end of the day, this AI cycle feels less like a revolution and more like a rerun. I’ve seen this story before—fiber in 2000, shale in 2014, cannabis in 2019. Each time, the technology or product was real, even transformative. But the capital cycle was brutal, the math unforgiving, and the equity holders were ultimately incinerated. AI will be no different. The datacenters will be built, the chips will hum, and some of the capacity will eventually prove mind-blowingly useful. But the investors footing the bill today will regret ever making the investment. That’s how bubbles end—not with a bang of innovation, but with the slow, grinding realization of negative returns, for years into the future. When shareholders finally wake up to the fact that AI isn’t generating cash flow, only burning it, the guillotine will fall—on management, on the stocks, and on the broader market that bet its future on a fantasy.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each of the panels shows a businessman in a suit grinning as he speaks to us.

PANEL 1

A close up of a businessman grinning. In the background, a bright blue sky with fluffy clouds.

MAN: A.I. Is the defining tech of our time! Microsoft and amazon and facebook and google have spent almost a trillion dollars on A.I.!

PANEL 2

The camera has pulled back a little. We can see the man is holding a bubble blower, bubbles streaming from it.

MAN: Has A.I. made a profit? Not yet, but… Someday we’ll figure out something A.I. can do that actually makes money! It definitely might could happen!

PANEL 3

The man continues grinning, pumping his fist, as the air around him turns gray and forbidding and the bubbles stream out.

MAN: In the meantime, We have to prepare! By spending more billions building more A.I. data centers so we can spend trillions more so that someday A.I. can do… Um…

PANEL 4

We can now see that the man is talking to a huge bubble floating in the air. The bubble has been packed fill with ordinary looking people, shoved in like sardines in a can. They looked panicked and unhappy.

MAN: Anyway, A.I. is certainly possibly maybe not going to pop and take down the whole economy! You’ve got nothing to worry about!

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is old-fashioned cartoonist lingo for little extras in the art.

Panel 2 – In a tiny window in a cloud is a tiny, teeny silhouette of a spy with binoculars.

Panel 3 – One of the bubbles has a mouse in it.

Panel 4 – One of the bubbles has a “for rent” sign.

The A.I. Bubble | Patreon

This cartoon is by me and Becky Hawkins.

I’m not like this character – serenely unaware of mean comments. But I aspire to be like him.

(Maybe I am like this character, but since I’m unaware of the comments I don’t appreciate how serenely unaware I really am? It’s a conundrum.)

I like wearing clothes that please me, and I enjoy getting compliments from strangers. (Yesterday someone called out a car window “your sweater brings me joy,” which brought me joy in turn, except that a hoodie isn’t a sweater but the light turned green and she drove away so there was no opportune moment to pedant at her.) At the same time, as I’m getting older I’m fortunate to be caring less and less what other people think.

Here’s the “sweater” in question:

(Those lovely roses were planted by my housemates Sarah and Charles, by the way).

(Quick story: The other day I walked into a room where my niece Sydney was sitting and reading. She looked at me and gasped “Barry, your beard! It’s so white!” I thought it was funny that she was so surprised, since Sydney sees me and my beard virtually every day. “It’s making me realize that you’re mortal and you’re going to die someday,” she added solemnly, and I agreed that was so. I told her “It’s neat that you’ve had this revelation without even being stoned,” and she replied “oh I’m incredibly stoned right now.”)

I’ve gotten a little off topic, haven’t I?

Sexism is bad for everybody. Women are the primary victims, but the constant pressure on men to be masculine – which, in practice, often means “avoid anything that could be taken as feminine” – causes a lot of men to limit ourselves, often without conscious awareness. And of course, the responses can be especially harsh on men and boys who, for whatever reason, aren’t performing masculinity in the expected fashion.

The character in our cartoon is lucky to be unbothered by it – but not everyone’s in the mental space to pull that off. It can be especially hard on teen boys, who – if they don’t fit in – can be taught a lot of self-loathing, which can take years to get over.

But with luck, we can get over it, and be happier for it.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, all featuring a red-haired man wearing a red shirt walking on a downtown sidewalk. He’s carrying a bright yellow shoulder bag which has a pink and purple floral pattern.

PANEL 1

Two men are walking in opposite directions on a sidewalk. The first, wearing a blue jacket and dark gray pants, makes a mocking comment. The second character, who I’ll call Redhead, is pleased.

BLUE JACKET MAN: Nice purse.

REDHEAD: Thanks! It’s new!

PANEL 2

A closer shot of Redhead, looking very pleased indeed. In the background, a bluebird, a squirrel, and the sun (with a face and wearing sunglasses) all smile at Redhead.

PANEL 3

In a thought balloon, we see Redhead’s daydream. He’s skipping on a catwalk, carrying his new bag, sparkling pink flowers floating in his wake, as the sun and a couple of squirrels cheer him on. Blue Jacket Man, in the daydream, has a friendly grin and is taking photos of Redhead with a professional-looking camera.

PANEL 4

Redhead’s daydream bursts and he has a startled expression.

REDHEAD (thought): Wait. Was that supposed to be an insult?

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is obsolete cartoonist verbiage for fun but unnecessary details in the art.

PANEL 1: The first newspaper box has a newspaper which says “Background NEWS. Stick figure elected! “Best news ever,” say lazy cartoonists.” Smaller print says “Is this text too small to be read? Scientists say yes!”

The second newspaper box is mostly hidden behind Blue Jacket Man, but what we can read says “Don’t even try reading this text it’s too hidden.”

The third newspaper box has a paper called “Overly Local Bulletin.” Headlines say: “Yup, those odd noises you keep hearing are rats.” “Your son says he did homework – but he lies.” “Favorite shirt is too ratty to wear in public anymore.” and “Weather: You don’t go outside anyway.” The sign on front of the machine says “Exciting words! I’m talking about words like bang! Zoom! Zowie! Cheetah!”

PANEL 2: The newspaper in the box is mostly hidden behind Redhead, but it says “Obscured NEWS. That no one can read.”

PANEL 3: One of the squirrels is waving a pen at Redhead and holding out an autograph book. The other squirrel is taking a selfie with Redhead in the background.

PANEL 4: The paper in the newspaper box says “Don’t Even Bother DAILY.” Headlines: “Why even read this? The cartoon’s over. You can go about your life now.” “New study: If you never try, you can never lose.” The sign on the front of the box says “KANGAROOS are weird aliens who will totally drown you if they can and one’s sneaking up on you now.”

Nice Purse | Patreon

All dialog in this strip is quoted from “Dark Like Our Future” by Deepa Parent in The Guardian. From the article:

Thick black smoke was still rising in the sky, soot covered the streets and cars, balconies filled with black gunk, and the toxic air had filled the lungs as Tehran woke up after a night of airstrikes on the city’s oil depots on Sunday.

In messages and voice notes sent to the Guardian, people described the situation in their homes and on the streets, some calling it “apocalyptic”. With the sun blotted out, disoriented people in Iran’s capital had to turn on their lights to see through the gloom.

Four oil depots and a petroleum logistics site in and around Tehran were hit.

People in Tehran will be sick from this, and dying earlier from this, for years to come.

Any response to the war on Iran I could make seems so inadequate next to the enormity of the damage we’re doing – and the enormity of our leadership’s delusions.

But I still felt I should say something. “Theresa’s Daughter” wrote:

It’s easy to feel like our voices don’t matter. That without thousands or millions of followers, without a blue checkmark next to our names, what we say won’t change anything. But that’s exactly what people in power want us to believe. They want us to think we’re too small to make a difference. They want us to forget that history isn’t just something in books — it’s being written right now. And if we stay silent, they get to write it however they choose.

Our leadership seems completely indifferent to the suffering they cause. Talking about the sinking of an unarmed Iranian military ship, in which over a hundred people died, President Trump said that no effort was made to capture the ship because “It’s more fun to sink them.”

I read Daniel Larison’s post “The Poisoning of Tehran,” in which he quoted “Nagin” extensively. (The Guardian described Negin as “an activist and former political prisoner.”) I decided I should do a cartoon amplifying Negin’s voice. Obviously, the amplification I can provide is trivial, compared to a huge outlet like The Guardian or a well-known writer like Larison – but we all do what we can with the tools we have, right?

This obviously isn’t the usual sort of strip I do, so I’m interested in what people think. Was this good? Or a misstep?

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, all showing a woman in her thirties in a modest but nice apartment.

PANEL 1

The woman pulls back a curtain, looking at the darkness outside.

CAPTION: “Negin” – not her real name – lives in Tehran.

NEGIN: The situation is so frightening it’s hard to describe. Smoke has covered the city. I have severe shortness of breath and burning in my eyes and throat, and many others feel the same.

PANEL 2

Negin turns away from the window and speaks directly to us.

NEGIN: I ask those who have the ability, especially foreign media, to reflect on this situation. What are people supposed to do under these conditions?

PANEL 3

Negin speaks angrily.

NEGIN: If someone has a problem with the Islamic Republic government, that’s one thing – But not with us, the people! This is no longer just a human rights violation.

PANEL 4

Negin sits on the sofa, slumping and looking down.

NEGIN: It is truly anti-human behavior.

A footnote below the cartoon says “Dialog quoted from “Dark Like Our Future,” The Guardian, march 8 2026.”

Tehran | Patreon

This strip is drawn by the awesome Mike Lawrence, who really went wild with the chicken fat!

I wrote this strip two months ago, after coming across this story:

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is facing an unusual wave of internal backlash after employees began publicly accusing the agency of failing to pay salaries and activate health insurance weeks after recruitment. […]

In raw, unfiltered Reddit posts now spreading beyond law-enforcement circles, ICE officers describe going a month or more without a paycheque, struggling to secure medical cover for sick children, and watching promised bonuses quietly stall.

I feel bad for the children, of course, but other than that this story is a prime opportunity to enjoy some schadenfreude.

(If you’ve seen “Avenue Q,” then that graphic may make some sense to you. I saw it live for the first time last month, so it’s been in my head lately – often in the form of earworms).

Even more schadenfreude-inducing: The acting director of ICE has been suffering from extreme anxiety over his job stress.

Acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons has been hospitalized at least twice for stress-related issues as he has carried out President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration agenda… During these episodes, the current and former officials said they saw Lyons break out into a full sweat, with his face turning deep red.

The extent of my loathing for the people running ICE (and even more, the people who ran DOGE) honestly worries me. They are among the worst people in the world, and if the world were better they’d all be working in an abusive Amazon warehouse, desperately holding their pee in for hours.

(Well, actually, if the world were better then Amazon’s warehouses wouldn’t be so abusive, but you know what I mean).

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each panel shows two women hanging out in a living room, on a sofa. The first wears a bright yellow t-shirt, so I’ll call her YELLOW; the second is in white t-shirt with blue jeans, so I’ll call her JEANS.

PANEL 1

Yellow is reading something on her phone, while Jeans turns and begins rooting through her backpack.

YELLOW: This article says that ICE agents are really unhappy… The job is stressful and they’re not getting the bonuses and bennies they were promised.

JEANS: Hold on.

PANEL 2

Jeans has pulled a huge electric microscope out of her backpack.

YELLOW: Er… What’s that?

JEANS: It’s my portable microscope. It has 300 times magnification but with digital zoom it’s more like 1000 times.

PANEL 3

Jeans enthusiastically describes her microscope.

JEANS: It has a built in stabilizer and eight levels of LCD lighting! With this, I can see even the smallest objects.

PANEL 4

Yellow is puzzled. A snarl on her face, Jeans turns to the microscope’s screen.

YELLOW: Okay, but why?

JEANS: I’m looking for a violin tiny enough.

CHICKEN FAT

“Chicken fat” is long-dead terminology for odd little details cartoonists slip in art.

PANEL 1: The lamp is a “leg lamp,” like in A Christmas Story, except that it’s a hairy leg in a sneaker and gym sock.

There’s a cat napping on the sofa. There’s a framed picture of Dr. Teeth (from The Muppets) on the wall. There’s a little doll with a green face hanging by the neck from the lamp pull. Jeans has a tattoo that says “tattoo.” The magazines on the coffee table are “US” and “THEM”; the person on the cover of “THEM” is pointing a finger at “US.” The side table drawer is open, and in the drawer a couple of mice are sitting on a tiny sofa and watching a TV with mice news hosts on it.

PANEL 2: The cat is reading a book entitled 43 Places To Hide a Hairball. The backpack’s brand name is “Manspürt.” Jeans has a tattoo that says “Advertise Here.”

PANEL 3: There’s a framed picture of “Bleeding Gums” Murphy (from The Simpsons) on the wall. The cat is playing with a paddle ball, but instead of a ball there’s a panicked mouse. A magazine on the coffee table is “THINGS,” with a coffee mug and a rubik’s cube on the cover. Jeans’ tattoo now says “Eat At Joe’s!” Jeans is wearing one of those t-shirts with a list of people in Helvetica font, which says “Hel & Vet & Ica.”

PANEL 4: The cat is looking over their shoulders at the screen. The apple logo on the back of the microscope has now turned into an apple core logo.

TATTOO PROGRESSIONS: The leg lamp has a tattoo that says “Debbie.” In panel two, “Debbie” is crossed out, with “Donna” written beneath it. In panel three, “Donna” has also been crossed out, replaced with “Donny.”

Jeans has a tattoo of a baseball bat in panel one, which is a bat (the mammal) in panel two, and Batman in panel three.

The Search | Patreon