When the cartoon fitz the subject

Stormy days for the Donald

Disgusting, profane, sacrilegious and offensive!

Through the years I got a lot of reader mail describing my cartoons as disgusting, profane, sacrilegious and offensive. Little did the letter writers know they were complimenting me. Or that when I’d gather with other political cartoonists at our conferences we’d share such mail to see who was the most reprehensible among us. One of my favorite angry letters from a reader described me as a “vile obscene excuse for a mudslinging artist.” I liked that. I think that would make a suitable epitaph.

With such vile obscene mudslinging in mind I present to you my latest cartoon, rendered with our former President’s trial in mind.

I would have rendered Trump sodomizing Michael Cohen, since Cohen is the patsy in this drama who truly got screwed by Trump, serving time in prison for the crime Trump asked him to commit on his behalf, but Stormy is much more fun to portray, bored and perhaps musing on mushrooms or her future memoirs.

I am so grateful

I am so grateful to have enjoyed a nearly 40-year long career working as an editorial cartoonist for two mainstream daily newspapers, first, for “The Daily Press” of Newport News, Virginia and second, for “The Arizona Daily Star”, here in my hometown of Tucson, Arizona.

Because both were mainstream “family” publications I censored myself. You can only imagine how challenging it was to behave myself during the Lewinsky scandal and the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill scandal.

Thank goodness the editors at “The Arizona Daily Star” protected you, the wholesome reader, from my baser instincts, as seen in the swill below, a “shocker” (Yawn) which was pulled because of it’s subject matter.

Thanks to Substack I am a free creator

I would never have dared to render the sacrilegious explicit image you saw here on Substack, depicting our former President committing adultery with Stormy Daniels. Never. You all thought it. I only depicted it. And used the image to make a profound point about hypocrisy.

Through the years

Through the years I’d often discard the best cartoon concepts that came to this juvenile man’s mind. The cartoon scenarios that made use of the absolute best metaphor for politics. The perfect analogy for political scandal is without doubt sex. The literal screwing of the taxpayer. The strange bedfellows in the sack. The rape of the poor. The craven servile subject in bondage to the drooling dominatrix.

Or the most common metaphor for every politician is the prostitute. We all know they must be whores to get elected, selling themselves to the highest bidders.

Such images communicate this artist’s disgust to you the reader instantaneously in a succinct and amusing fashion that is far more memorable than the more wholesome family-oriented imagery I produced such as Bill Clinton with the “i’ in his name resembling a pants zipper. Far more accurate would be the Republicans, Gingrich and Ken Starr pleasuring themselves over their deviant preoccupation with sexual behavior.

These days, being my own editor and publisher, here on Substack, my desire to express myself freely outweighs any thought of protecting you, the reader, from my infrequent forays into  risqué expression that may offend. Or be treasured as keepers.

Keepers

Many of my finest works through the years ended up becoming what we in the newspaper industry called “Desktop Keepers”.

Editor: You know we can’t run this! Good God, man.

Me: Why not?

Editor: You know why not. What were you thinking?!

Me: Okay....

Editor: One more thing, Mr. Fitzsimmons. Before you leave this office.

Me: Yes?

Editor: Can I keep this drawing?

Me: After I xerox 50-copies for everyone in the newsroom.

Big Secret

I’ll let you in on a big secret. This form of very childish therapeutic art was always common among we mature cartoonists. Even the greats. Have you seen the vulgar colonial era cartoons of American rebels farting in the face of King George? Or this one:

President Lincoln bedding a female slave? Tex Avery’s naughty “Betty Boop” cartoons? Or the animated shorts produced by the studio artists of the thirties, including the makers of “Popeye” depicting human members waddling about, chasing each other? Every once a while these vintage “forbidden” cartoons show up on the arthouse circuit.

One of my absolute favorite “vile and degenerate works” ever penned is the image below, a portrait of Henry Kissinger rendered by the late great caricature artist David Levine whose work often appeared in The New York Review of Books, proving one picture is worth a thousand lascivious words.

One of the joys of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonist gatherings was doodling adolescent filth on bar napkins for each other’s amusement after our high-brow workshops and meetings. Like we all did in junior high in the back of the class.

If I only had that drawing created by the great Pat Oliphant, formerly of the “Denver Post” and the “Washington Star”, which he rendered late one night, depicting Richard Nixon sodomizing the GOP elephant. If only…

I can imagine myself on “Antiques Roadshow” listening to the stunned appraiser. “In a retail setting I can see this ink on napkin paper masterpiece going for $1,000,000.00.”

“I’ll never sell it. Never! Not ever! Let go! Call security. Get these people off me! Give me that! Give me that! Give it back!”

Such naughty art was traded like gold among we cartoonists. Here’s a masterpiece by Paul Conrad, the editorial cartoonist for the “Los Angeles Times”. Was it published? What do you think?

Says it all. We all get the thrust of the cartoon.

The following notorious cartoon depicting a naked woman, was drawn by the same Paul Conrad, in response to President Jimmy Carter confessing in a “Playboy” magazine interview he wrestled with lust. It’s remarkable it made it into print. With nipples no less!

Boom. Point made in an instant. At least for those keeping abreast of the news.

My favorite contemporary artist in this delightfully tasteless low brow genre, is Dwayne Booth, a photo-realist social protest artist who goes by the name “Mr. Fish”. His drawings, relying in part on Stormy Daniel’s descriptions of his anatomy, are the most accurate depictions of Donald Trump I have ever seen. You can find his work here on his site: Clown Crack And books featuring his work: Mr.Fish Books

My favorite story

My favorite kids books to read to my kids were by the award winning Tomi Ungerer. Delightful books like “The Three Robbers” or “The Hat”.

When a collection of his erotic cartoon sketches, “Underground Sketchbook”, was published in 1964 it was a scandal. “Underground Sketchbook” is one of my favorite possessions.

His kids books were briefly banned. Thank the evolution of thought that Shel Silverstein’s kids books weren’t banned because of his past work for “Playboy”.

While we were in Ungerer’s hometown of Strasbourg, France, we visited the Ungerer Museum and purchased the late master’s “The Joy of Frogs”, depicting cartoon frogs in page after page of humorous parodies of the Kama Sutra.

As we flew back to America days later the air crew handed out forms for us to fill out asking we citizens if we had anything to declare. Was there anything obscene that we were bringing into the country?

Really?

Were we daring to smuggle anything obscene into America, a nation awash in obscenity and profanity?

For a moment we felt persecuted. We did not compare ourselves to Jesus. Lenny Bruce, maybe. I’m not sure what became of our obscene contraband. We may have misplaced it on the plane…

Share

Feel free to share my “Persecuted Trump” cartoon. Just don’t stare at it too long. Simply drag it to your desktop and share it on your favorite online platform. Or print it up.

Or better yet keep it in your desk drawer.