Possibly the strangest thing a cartoonist can do is try to draw a cartoon about another cartoon that didn’t quite work as intended. And to top it off, while I was driving in this AM, I thought of a much better idea (posted below – With apologies to the late Saul Steinberg) than the one above (dammit.)

While The New Yorker is famous for carrying cartoons that many people don’t “get,” I personally think The Barry Blitt cartoon worked fairly well. It wasn’t much of an idea, but part of the joke was its context – the fact it was printed on the cover of The New Yorker was an integral part of the cartoon’s message. I’m sure that tiny group of elite regular New Yorker readers got that the barb was aimed at the apparently not-so-small group of people who believe the hysterical notion that Obama and his wife (while being country club elitists,) are also Muslim terrorists. By definition, that is not a group of people who subsist on the mute tones of irony and the subtle grays of satire. I’m not sure if the Obama campaign’s railing against the high-brow New Yorker will give him some street credibility with the Obamaphobes, but I suppose it can’t hurt.

Frankly, I am painfully averse to using labeled mountaintops as metaphors. Yep. As hackneyed images, they’re right up there with a sinking Titanic, etc. But I kept coming back to this twist on the image and the term “summit,” as I felt it best expressed what I needed to say. And well, heap scorn upon me if you wish, but here it is….

I broke through the “airborne person” barrier only to notice that I am also fond this month of drawing people being chased. More grist for a psychologist, I’m sure…

Weird…I just noticed I’ve been drawing a lot of people airborne lately. I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day with that.

So. Yonkers Police again. There’s a video tape of a burly Yonkers police officer violently throwing a small woman (44 year-old Irma Marquez) to the ground in a bizarre WWF move. The photos of her injuries are shocking. Marquez looks as if she was in a horrible car wreck. The other cops present went on record as saying excessive force was used. I highly recommend you watch the video before passing judgment, but bear in mind that DA Janet DiFiore’s office slapped the woman with a resisting arrest charge after she was slammed to the ground, even though they must have seen the tape. Obviously, my cartoon shows how I feel about that.