Giving thanks for great cartoon material

One of my favorite holidays to celebrate in ink

Sometimes a cartoon is a self-portrait, as in the case of this contented glutton. Yup, that’s an exxagerated selfie in ink. We spend days preparing a feast that we devour in minutes. And the recovery time can last for hours.

Thanksgiving offers a bounty of tropes for we politcal cartoonists to use as analogies that we are so thankful for. The Presidential pardon of the bird. The slaughter of the turkey by the classic axe wielding pilgrim. The holiday parade of balloon floats. All cartoonists across this nation bow their heads before their drawing boards and give thanks for this special week.

Sometimes I like to dig deep into the cliches and find a way to make a comment about our present age that takes a fresh angle on the holiday. Who hasn’t seen a javelina dressed up like a turkey for Thanksgiving?

The parade is one of my favorite tropes to satirize, in the case below I use the Thanksgiving Day Parade to comment on life here in southern Arizona.

On this particular day of the year the word “home” has a profound and poignant meaning. Those without a home crowd our shelters longing for food and a roof. Those who are alone feel nostalgia for the homes they once had or dream of the circle of love they will one day have. I have never seen this sentiment more beautifully expressed than by Nick Cage’s comic character in the final minute and a half of “Raising Arizona” in the dreamy clip below .

According to the World Health Organization “Social isolation and loneliness are widespread, with some countries reporting that up to one in three older people feel lonely.” We make an effort to open our home up to neighbors and family and friends, centering the day around the hearth of gratitude for connection and conversation rather than the ravenous consumption of food . Little did I know that this tradition is good for us. The W.H.O. says, “the effect of social isolation and loneliness on mortality is comparable to that of other well-established risk factors such as smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity.” When I am going through tough times it’s always my friends and family that lift my spirits far more than the act of lifting a fork.

If you are thinking, maybe I should knock on that neighbor’s door do it. Reach out.

After dinner we’ll head out back under the stars and gather around the crackling mesquite fire and when I pause to look up to the stars and the coming season of hope and miracles you’ll be on my mind. And as we clean up and do the dishes and say our good nights and our goodbyes and fall into that deep tryptophan induced slumber I will give thanks for the blessing of our warm loving home. As Dorothy says to her aunt Em there’s no place quite like it.