Opus 352 (May 7, 2016). Another Rapid Rabbit Extra—a Bunny Bonus, the dubious benefit of being a $ubscriber to your friendly neighborhood Rancid Raves: stupendous events in the world of comics find their way into your e-mail box quickly. Rapidly, even. Prompting the Bonus this time, a report that Iranian artist-activist Atena Farghadani, sentenced to a 12-year prison term for drawing members of the Iranian parliament as animals, has been freed. And since we were rising into the digital ether for that occasion, we also report on the firing of an Iowa freelance editoonist who did what no one working on a newspaper is supposed to do— offend an advertiser—and the Trumpet’s emergence as the presumptive candidate of the Grandstanding Obstructionist Pachyderm, profusely illustrated with editoonist reactions. And we note, sadly, that Michael Ramirez’s 10-year gig with the Investor’s Business Daily seems at an end. Here’s what’s here, in order of appearance—:

Atena Freed!

Iowa Editoonist Fired for Offending an Advertiser

AAEC Protests

Trumpery Supreme

Jack Ohman Interviewed about Trump

Michael Ramirez Loses Ten-year Gig

And our customary reminder: don’t forget to activate the “Bathroom Button” by clicking on the “print friendly version” so you can print off a copy of just this installment for reading later, at your leisure while enthroned. Without further adieu, then, here we go—:

ATENA FREED!

Atena Farghadani, the 29-year-old Iranian artist whose shabby treatment by her government aroused worldwide protest when she was sentenced almost two years ago to more than 12 years in prison after drawing Iran’s parliament as animals, has just been freed, according to her attorney.

            “She’s very, very happy,” her attorney, Mohammad Moghimi, told the Washington Post’s Comic Riffs through a May 3 email interview communicated and translated by Nikahang Kowsar, a board member of Washington-based Cartoonists Rights Network International. For the details of Farghadani’s crime and punishment, visit Ops. 341 and 343.

            Farghadani’s crimes, the Iranian courts had said, included “insulting members of parliament through paintings” and “spreading propaganda against the system,” according to human-rights groups. Farghadani was arrested in the summer of 2014 after she drew “parliament as animals” to protest the government’s measures to curb birth control.

            “Atena has suffered, and like many other activists and artists and journalists, should not spend time behind bars for expressing her opinions,” Kowsar, who himself was jailed by Iranian authorities in 2000 over his editorial cartoons, told Comic Riffs on May 1 in anticipation of her release.

            Moghimi expected his client’s freedom after their recent legal victories. “The charges for undermining national security have been dismissed,” Kowsar said, “—the Revolutionary Court loves to label activists with this dangerous charge—and now she’s been acquitted from that part of the sentence. Her sentence for insulting the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] was also suspended.

            “This type of suspension acts like Damocles’s sword,” Kowsar continued, “and the individual who wants to stay out of trouble should avoid saying or writing anything that could be interpreted as insulting the system or the leader’s rhetoric. Atena’s drawing that criticized the members of parliament was a critique of the leader’s will.”

            Moghimi says that Farghadani’s joy over her release is mixed with the sadness of knowing that her former cellmates remain at Evin Prison, with few to no public supporters because of their lower profiles. Farghadani’s case had attracted worldwide attention, including visual protests by artists based in Europe, Australia and the United States.

            During her imprisonment, Farghadani reportedly was subjected to strip searches and a forced “virginity test” — the latter after Moghimi himself was imprisoned for shaking hands with his client while working on her case, an indecent act according to local religious custom.  He says that his time inside a cell affirmed his belief that Iran’s correctional system needs to evolve.

            Moghimi also said that Farghadani does not want to leave Iran, and that she remains convinced that artists have a duty to challenge the status quo and spark social change through their artwork. “She believes that art means paying a great price with your own life,” the attorney said, “when art is used to support human rights, world peace and humanity.”

            Comic Riffs’ Michael Cavna interviewed Kowsar, who was also imprisoned for cartoons that he drew. Soon after he was released, he left Iran, first for the United States, then Canada. Today (to the best of my knowledge), he resides in Washington, D.C., with his family, who eventually managed to escape Iran.

Michael Cavna: You’ve been held in infamous Evin Prison where Atena was held. What’s your sense of the treatment she has received there?

Nik Kowsar: Evin is a weird place. When you’re there, you think about all those executed and tortured prisoners who had lived at the very same cell you had to call home for a while. Being blindfolded, having to answer the questions without being able to see the interrogator, where you feel your fate is in his hands—you know you have to avoid answering questions that could be used against your colleagues and friends. It’s a very complicated situation, especially when your interrogator reads you the forced confessions against you.

            Atena had been held in different prisons. Knowing how resistant she is to the orders of the officers, I’m sure she’s had a very hard time, but she also knew that the officials are scared of hunger strikes and that possibly helped her being seen by a doctor.

MC: We heard reports that she was subjected to an inhumane “virginity test” because she shook her male lawyer’s hand. We heard of strip searches. What do you know about what she’s endured?

NK: Even thinking about a forced virginity test is painful, and I hope to have a chance to hear what she exactly went through. I have talked to many former prisoners since 2009, and acted as their interpreters. And though it has been a painful experience, it has taught me a lot about the inhumane conditions political prisoners have endured. Many have not had the chance to be treated by therapists after being released. I should state that many have shown signs of PTSD, and that’s something that should be dealt with.

MC: What would you advise Atena upon her release — to stay and be vocal in Iran, or to leave the nation as soon as possible or face re-arrest?

NK: What she could possibly do, has to do with her own plans. Certainly I’m not in a position to tell her what to do or what to avoid. Atena is a bright-minded individual. I can tell her what I would have done If I were in her shoes. I would avoid the media and just thank all the people who have supported me, go to northern provinces and the Caspian Sea and get rid of Internet and my cellphone for a while. I would get back to drawing — possibly chronicle my time in prison through my cartoons. Be creative and think clearly without being pushed by others.

            I would avoid being vocal for a while, knowing that each and every move will be monitored. I believe that going back to prison would not help my cause. I can only talk to Atena about my own experiences in the last 16 years.

MC: You yourself ultimately got out of Iran under harrowing circumstances.

NK: After being released in February 2000, I was silent for only 10 days, and started working again, without ever thinking of the consequences of attacking the hardliners. I just wanted to be independent and make a better country for my child. I brought a lot of trouble to myself and my family, and after years of tolerating pressure, multiple interrogations and receiving death threats, I had to leave my family behind to leave Iran.

            Many family members were blaming me for what I had done; they were victimizing the victim. I was the victim of a corrupt system, and being victimized by judgmental people who did not believe in fighting for democracy wasn’t a pleasant experience. One of the last things anyone needs after getting out of prison or a bad situation, is being harshly criticized by loved ones and people who have no rights to judge you. This is where a therapist could save you from PTSD.

            I’m living far and away from the Regime, using the Internet and satellite TV to reach out to my audiences and continue doing what I have always loved to do. Of course, I should point out that after being struck by Fibromyalgia in 2013, it’s been really hard to draw, but I use my cartoon-generating platform Toonistan to make cartoons when they’re needed. I believe I’ve been more effective living abroad.

MC: So we’ve had a few prominent releases of journalists and activists in Iran already this year. What might we read politically from these moves — is anything occurring within the institutions that might point to any larger changes, or is this more a temporary shift in the political winds?

NK: And we also had a few reporters sentenced to five to ten years in prison last week; all supporters of President Hassan Rouhani. It’s Iran we’re talking about, where things don’t make sense once in a while.

            The system always wants you to know that they’re watching you. It’s an Orwellian world, and the enforcers may let you go, but also try to turn you into an irrelevant Winston Smith.

            First of all, we should understand that all Iranian politicians are rooted in the same ideology, and the Supreme Leader and Revolutionary guards are still in power. Politicians such as Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who’s become a sweetheart of many Western reporters, are continuously deceiving Western audiences through the media.

            One year ago, on the “Charlie Rose” show, Mr. Zarif said; “We do not jail people for their opinions,” and very few scrutinized him. The Islamic Republic not only imprisons, but has killed many for their opinions.

            Many political activists, Baha’is, converts and members of the LGBT community have been executed by this regime.

            Last week, Zarif told The New Yorker that the Iranian government does not support the Holocaust Cartoon Contest. He lied again and government officials in Iran denied Zarif’s claim. It’s the same regime and nothing has really changed, except that the number of executions that has clearly higher under Rouhani’s years in office.

LONG-TIME IOWA FARM CARTOONIST FIRED FOR IRRITATING ADVERTISER

For 21 years, Rick Friday has been amusing farmers in Iowa with his cartoons—over 1,090 of them, reaching 24,000 Iowa households a week in 33 counties of the state. But with his cartoon published in the Farm News at the end of April, Friday ran up against that aged newspaperman’s axiom: do not offend advertisers. He ruffled feathers that didn’t like being ruffled with the cartoon that appears atop a photo of Friday in this vicinity.

            As reported by kcci.com, a large company affiliated with one of the corporations mentioned in the cartoon was insulted and cancelled their advertisement with the paper.

            Friday received an email from his editor at Farm News in Fort Dodge, Iowa, the day after the cartoon was published—a Saturday. The cartoon “caused a storm here,” the editor said—and “in the eyes of some, big agriculture cannot be criticized or poked fun at.” The editor said a seed dealer pulled their advertisements with Farm News as a result of the cartoon, and he told Friday that the publisher instructed him to end the paper’s relationship with Friday.

            But Friday, a full-time farmer as well as a part-time cartoonist who described his financial compensation for his freelance Farm News cartoon as “embarrassingly low,” did not seem terribly upset. "I did my research and only submitted the facts in my cartoon,” he said on his Facebook page, adding: “Hopefully my children and my grandchildren will see that this last cartoon published by Farm News will shine light on how fragile our rights to free speech and free press really are in the country.

            “When it comes to altering someone’s opinion or someone’s voice for the purpose of wealth, I have a problem with that,” Friday continued. “It’s our constitutional right to free speech and our constitutional right to free press.”

            The editor of Farm News was unavailable for comment. And the publisher didn’t return phone calls made by Christine Hauser who reported the firing for the New York Times.

            But Friday’s colleagues in the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists were not silent, posting the following statement at the AAEC website, news.editorialcartoonists.com —:

AAEC Statement on Farm News Decision

Posted by AAEC on May 3, 2016

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists condemns the decision of Iowa's Farm News publication to part ways with long-time cartoonist and contributor Rick Friday on the grounds of an unhappy advertiser. This decision is a disservice to journalism and to the people of Fort Dodge, Iowa. This represents a dangerous trend among newspapers where the vitally important wall separating editorial content from advertising is beginning to erode.

            The cartoon in question was truthful. Friday displayed courage in speaking out for the less fortunate in the farming industry. The cartoon was a factual statement on the increasing economic disparity of Big Agribusiness and the small farmers of Iowa. He should be thanked for his work, not disgracefully shown the door. For us to maintain a strong freedom of the press, editors and journalists around the country should be beholden to truth and the public good, not the corporate interests of their advertisers. The readers of Farm News deserve far better.

TRUMPERY SUPREME

The Trumpet cleaned up in Indiana, and his chief Republicon opponent, Ted Cruz, after making a speech describing Trump as a serial philanderer, a braggert (who boasts about his sexual conquests), a narcissist, and a profligate liar (“that means,” elaborated Cruz, “that you can give him a lie detector test in the morning, at noon, and in the evening and ask the same questions and get different answers every time—but he isn’t aware that they are different”), ended his run for the nomination. The next day, John Kasich did. That left Donalt Rump the last candidate standing—ergo, the Republicon nominee, who now pivots to trash Hillary Clinton, mustering to the task “his usual array of vulgar or fictional quips and outrageous tales” for what the New York Times called “the Republican Party’s trek into darkness.”

            “Trump has won more primary votes than any previous nominee, and he is going to add to that number in the weeks to come,” said Ramesh Ponnuru at bloomberg.net. “But he will also be a nominee with a record number of primary votes cast for his opponents.”

            In fact, until the last round of primaries, Trump’s so-called victories all racked up less than 50% of the vote—in other words, in terms of majorities, he had none. And his usual 35-45% of the Republicon vote won’t win him the White House.

            Described in many quarters as “ a man utterly unfit for the position by temperament, values and policy preferences”—“the most volatile and least prepared presidential candidate nominated by a major party in modern times”—he seems supported by only one message: vote for Trump, you idiot crybabies.

            What should the GOP do? asked USA Today in an editorial. “Normally, a party that controls both chambers of Congress, 34 governorships and 31 state legislatures would not be teetering on a precipice. Thanks to Trump, that is precisely where the GOP finds itself. To say Trump is bad for the Republican Party is like saying a flood is bad for your basement.”

            Hillary, although losing the Indiana primary to Sanders, is so far ahead in delegate count that Sanders, despite his protestations of continuing the fight, has little practical hope of beating her. So both the Grandstanding Obstructionist Pachyderm and the Everlasting Jackass are about set for the general election to commence.

            The punditry is a-flutter with questions and answers and opinions galore. They can’t stop talking and speculating. CNN and MSNBC are running political commentary 24/7.

            Naturally, I can no more resist than they. So, onward—:

            Those who vote for the Trumpet offer the following two reasons:

            He tells it like it is.

            He is self-financing so he owes no one and is therefore immune to lobbying by those who offer him money for his favor.

            But both justifications can be overturned by a simple fact: every time he says he’s financing himself, he lies: his website solicits donations, and through last September, he’s collected at least $3.9 million from donors. According to a filing with the Federal Election Commission, Trump’s campaign spent $4.2 million in the quarter ending in September, only $1.9 million of it was Trump’s. The rest, $3.9 million, came from online donations.

            So he’s scarcely self-financed, and when he tells it like it isn’t, that’s lying.

            Moreover, he’s presently contemplating accepting money from big donors.

            Tells it like it is, eh?

            But most Trumpery supporters could care less about facts. They have their druthers, and they won’t give them up or admit to any contradictory facts. And at the elbow of your eye, here are the reactions to Indiana from a goodly assortment of editoonists.

            The first quartet of ’toons “celebrates” the Trumpet’s triumph, his emergence as the “presumptive candidate” after his victory in Indiana. Chris Britt starts us off at the upper left with a visual metaphor about the campaign as a boxing match. Trump has won and impatiently demands the victor’s belt, but the devastated GOPachyderm wants either Ted Cruz or John Kasich to get up off the canvass and continue their battle to deprive Trump of a win. Next around the clock, Scott Stantis uses the marriage ceremony as his metaphor, with the GOP a very reluctant bride.

            The next two cartoons dwell on Trump’s hair-knit. Steve Benson (who must own a cat) is simply playing with the overwhelming image of Trump’s orange hair. The implication is that Trump’s candidacy is about as attractive as a hairball. In fact, he may be a hairball. Steve Breen is a teense more inventive, giving us Trump’s hair in the shape of a pachyderm, suggesting a crown of sorts.

            In the next batch of four, we move, as quickly as the candidates themselves, into general election themes. But first, Chan Lowe gives us an image of the Grandstanding Obstructionist Pachyderm stumbling badly, almost cripplingly. He then suggests the intellectual caliber of the coming campaign with a picture of a roadside billboard that announces Trump’s mode of attack. The Trumpet will go low because he isn’t capable of going high: he has neither the wit nor the experience.

            Next around the clock, Lisa Benson has a little fun with a four-panel comic strip, the format permitting her to perform the antique comedy maneuver, bait and switch. After leading us along a path of juicy gossipy anticipation, she pulls the rug out from under us by switching to a much more pedestrian concern (albeit one of-a-piece with the other aspects of the forthcoming reality show). Finally, Bill Schorr gives Hillary the best weapon for combating Trump’s sexual assaults—Mace. Trump’s assaults must be termed sexual because he’s so far dwelling on his opponent’s gender. Schorr’s caricature of Hillary has much to recommend it.

BEFORE ABANDONING THIS SORRY SUBJECT, we come to a few thoughts from editoonist Jack Ohman, this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for editorial cartooning. (The Pulitzer, incidentally, is on the eve of its 100^th anniversary: the first one, awarded for quality work in journalism, was conferred in 1917 for work in 1916; the first for editorial cartooning, in 1922, to the New York World’s Rollin Kirby.) As we can see from the adjacent examples, Ohman’s opinion of Trumpery is not high.

            In the uppermost cartoon, Ohman deploys reference to Planned Parenthood, which the GOP generally opposes (sometimes, fanatically). To the extent that Republicons did not anticipate the Trumpet’s success—and now wish they’d thought more about it earlier because if they had, perhaps they could have undermined his candidacy—his triumph is “unplanned.” By implication, then, the cartoon endorses planning parenthood.

            The other cartoon is a simple re-engineering of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy speech.

            Ohman worked for decades at the Oregonian in Portland, leaving in 2013 went to work for the Sacramento Bee. Ohman was in Portland the week of April 26 to speak at the Portland City Club, and he stopped by OPB opb.org to talk with “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller about winning his first Pulitzer, the 2016 election and more.

            Here’s an excerpt from that conversation, edited for clarity and brevity by OPB’s Allison Frost.

Dave Miller: Let’s turn to the 2016 election, which has been going on for what seems like years.

Jack Ohman: For two-thousand and sixteen years, yeah.

DM: What has it been like in the big picture to be an editorial cartoonist for this political season/circus?

JO: It’s a catastrophe. On the Republican side, with all due respect, I cannot understand how a sensible person, even if they agreed with everything Donald Trump said, would vote for Donald Trump. Because he has zero character, temperament and judgement to be president of the United States.

DM: You say “with all due respect.”
JO: Okay, no due respect. And it’s not that he’s a clown or that he’s a reality star or that he’s a blowhard, he has no — I just think he has no intellectual or moral claim on the presidency. Somebody like Governor John Kasich, who’s been a two-term governor of Ohio and has 20 years in Congress and chairman of the House Budget committee—pretty decent, sensible, linear-thinking person. I probably wouldn’t throw Ted Cruz in that category. It’s depressing.

            And on the Democratic side, you get to choose between, know, the hood ornament of the Democratic establishment, Hillary Clinton, and Senator Bernie Sanders, the Id of the Party. I think Hillary is supremely qualified to be president of the United States even though I may not agree with her on everything.

            And then you have a very dynamic, interesting candidate in Bernie, who says probably what most liberal Democrats are thinking. And yet, I don’t know that he would be a good president. I think he’s a good person, but I don’t know if he’s prepared the right way to be president.

DM: As you’re saying all this, you sound tired and slightly unhappy, as opposed to excited that this is your fodder …

JO: Well, it’s my country. And I’m more concerned about that. And I’m not the kind of cartoonist who says ‘Oh my God, it’s so great to draw Donald Trump’s hair!’ I mean, Donald Trump’s hair isn’t going to be president of the United States. And I often remind some Republican friends that sometimes the Cuban Missile Crisis happens and not everything operates in a linear world in the presidency. So, I’m all about temperament and judgement. For example, if Mitt Romney had become president in 2012, I wouldn’t have lost a second of sleep. I mean, in terms of his personal character.

DM: If we had talked two years ago, do you think you would have been more excited about being able to caricature Donald Trump?

JO: Well, you keep going back to caricature. To me, it doesn’t have anything to do with caricature. This is a public policy commentary job. It is a writing job. I’m not somebody sitting at the state fair doing funny caricatures. You know that’s what a lot of readers like, and I mean certainly I love doing that sort of thing, but to say that I sit down at my drawing board and am thrilled out of my mind that a clown like Donald Trump could get the Republican nomination is deeply troubling.

CONSERVATIVE EDITOONIST RAMIREZ OUT OF A JOB?

Apparently, the Investor’s Business Daily newspaper is giving up its print edition, and it’s also bidding adieu to its award-winning (two-time Pulitzer Prize winner) editoonist, Michael Ramirez. I say “apparently” because you have to reach that deduction from the text of Ramirez’s letter on his blog (michaelpramirez.com) on May 3. Here’s the letter—:

            It's with great sadness that I announce the end of the Investor's Business Daily daily print edition and the end of a great editorial page, as you know it. I am proud of the work that we've accomplished over the last ten years that I have been co-managing the page and the many years before that.

            Wes Mann & company have constituted the finest editorial team—one that delivered real news and real issues without the filter of political correctness. It was a beacon for the truth. I was proud to work with them and our page will be missed, at a time when it is needed the most.

            When I came on board at IBD, I promised Bill O'Neil two things: I would elevate the visibility and influence of the IBD editorial page to the most influential political movers and shakers in the country and I would win him a Pulitzer Prize. I am proud to say that I accomplished both of those goals.

            I thank Bill for giving me this great opportunity.

            I can only say I learned so much from our thoughtful, knowledgeable and intrepid staff. It was a team of original thinkers with a great depth of knowledge, brilliant and fearless.

            I am so proud that I won my second Pulitzer for the IBD editorial page. They are some of the finest journalists I know. It was a pleasure beginning each day with them. I don't think I ever had so much fun going to work each and every single day. I will miss it.

            It is the end of an era but the beginning of a new chapter. I will keep you all posted.

            Today is my last day my cartoons will be posted on the IBD website. For the time being, you can continue to see my work here and at: michaelpramirez.com

RAMIREZ was laid off at the Los Angeles Times ten years ago for budgetary reasons; ironically, he was immediately hired by the Investor’s Business Daily, which, knowing a thing or two about business and budgets, recognized a good deal when they saw one.

            The list of awards Ramirez has won is long; it appears in Opus 351 under his name in the list of NCS Reuben nominees. The Reuben seems to be the only cartooning award he hasn’t won. Yet.

            I can’t imagine he’ll be unemployed for long: one of the few conservative editooning voices, his work is, in addition, excellent—sharp, hard-hitting. Even if I almost never agree, at least I can understand his message, something harder to do with, say, Glenn McCoy, whose conservative bent often bends him out-of-sight for me.

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