This cartoon is dedicated to my friend Carolyn Ewald, who got
married on July 21st. Carolyn had actually suggested that I come visit her
in Miami and sponge off her mother, and we immediately looked at each other
and cracked up, both envisioning exactly this grim scenario. Once I drew a
rough draft of the cartoon we about killed ourselves passing it back and forth
and weeping with laughter. Everyone else present just looked at us and smiled
wary, tentative smiles, like, yyeah, that's pretty funny... but not quite
as funny as you guys seem to think. So possibly she and I will be the
only people in the world who enjoy this cartoon, but Carolyn is the bride
so who cares what anyone else thinks. Carolyn has a particular horror of bathing
the old.
For those interested in such details, Carolyn wore a beaded bodice with an
empire waist and short scalloped sleeves, a three-layer skirt of chiffon over
silk with darts that opened up and a simple hem. She wore her hair down, with
a graceful circlet of braids. She proceeded down the aisle to the accompaniment
of that gay-ass theme song from Enterprise. Aaron Long (depicted in "Back
to Funny Cartoons") and I both wept.
The title "Cartoonist's Vacation" refers, pretty obviously, not
only to the unpleasant vacation depicted here but to my taking an August break
from politics to regress and indulge in a ridiculous Don-Martin-style gag.
Not much going on right now, anyway, except Bush nominating a supreme court
justice who's kept his wackjob views safely off the record and sneaking behind
the Congress's back to appoint fellow liar and bully John Bolton to the U.N.
Doubtless by the time you read this there will have been a terrorist attack
in the U.S. and my "sponge-off-my-mother" gag will seem irrelevant
and tasteless and insensitive.