Whittoons

Time to Rise up once again from behind the drawing table and join the Hands Off movement around the country. I am a bit rusty at this. It has been a long while since I carried a sign in protest. The Vietnam War pushed me into the streets back in college days, and down to Washington D.C. In the 80’s, I moved with the a crowd of a million or so that surged in support of Cory Aquino in Manila. WTO energized us to march in Seattle. But it has been a long stretch of inactivity. No marching or shouting in unison to STOP whatever that was assaulting the public.

Yet Trump has brought out the best in me, reigniting my passion for demonstrating against idiocracy. Every day I am overwhelmed with subject matter for cartoons. I can barely keep up before a new outrage has hit the news. This is the second time I have had the nerve to carry my own toons into the battle. Back in the 90’s, I carried my caricatures of Seattle City Council members at a Tenants’ Union rally. I did not make any friends of our councilmenbers that day. It is amazing how caricatures tend often offend the subjects of the sketched barbs.

Last night I finished colorizing some recent toons, and sent them off to Walgreen’s and withing 45 minutes I was able to pick up th reproductions on 20X30 card stock paper. (After I highlighted some cartooon references to a couple of inquiring staff members.) Pulled out a stake from the garage, and with a little duck tape, we had a decent double-sided sign.

To avoid bus crush madness, I headed down to the Seattle Center early. My reward for the early rising, was a bone dry decaf cappuccino from the Cafe Vita barista in the KEXP station gathering space. I sipped the coffee on a prime bench looking over the lawn and fountain, waiting for the crowd…and waiting. I was worrried a bit about the turnout until about 30 minutes prior to the start, the hordes commenced to enter the arena to tear Trump and Musk into pieces.

Amazingly, I ran into several friends in the mass of thousands, and kind strangers who asked to take photos of my cartoons. A couple of folks offered to promote the images on Tik Tok and othe places on social media. All in all a good day for the anti-Trump movement and for us boomers who needed to get off our asses once again to right the wrongs of the world.