#157: "I'm Doctor McManus..."

Things were still a little too normal in the office this week, until Artie took a break from drawing his never-ending medical issues and submitted #156 with the aliens and the Trump hair. The Committee doesn’t love overtly political stuff, because the sponsors don’t love overtly political stuff, which is hard for Artie because he’s an old hippie who came up with B Kliban and R Crumb. He used to submit a lot more of it, but he’s had it beaten out him by corporate America and the need to sell things. It got through the Committee only because we’re down 2 of the more conservative members. They come & go so fast they’re hard to keep straight. The MBAs tend to lean conservative and Holston (I think) was out sick and we’re short one already because Pedersen (maybe) got called back to corp before her rotation was up. What would’ve been a 5-4 No vote ended up a 4-3 Yes vote, after a shortish deliberation, as these things go. And then it made the rounds on Twitter and FB and the emails poured in and the phone lines blew up. There were calls from the Left saying it was a pro-Trump attempt to flatter the president with alien superpowers. There were calls from the Right saying it was a disgrace to democracy. The Committee was preparing for a dressing down from Corp, but apparently a bid came in from a tchotchke manufacturer in Hong Kong for licensing rights ($52k, which is a record here for a 1-panel deal) and that muddied the waters a bit. So no one got fired, but the message was clear to stay away from the politics. Artie takes these things in stride lately, which I attribute to whatever meds he’s on now. He said he had a dream last night where he was back in the 70’s having rum & Cokes with Hap Kliban who told him he was disappointed he’d turned into a corporate hack. But that’s it. No meltdown, no eruption, just a sort of world weary resignation. It’s sad to see an old subversive called to heel. But here we are. Artie’s back to drawing cartoons about his prostate and there are two more in the hopper about general pelvic pain and hemorrhoids that the Committee put on hold for now. So here you go, # 157. Don’t read anything political into it. -Ed.