How did my portrait of Dwight Eisenhower, in my latest comic, somehow end up looking like a face Jack Kirby would draw?  I have no idea, but I'm very happy about that strange occurrence.

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking around these streets of New York, and, for the first time in my life, I was shocked by a movie poster.  It was for the movie "Saw V."  There, at eye level for any toddler in a stroller, was the huge image of a man, with his face covered by the skin of another man's face. 

Now, while I'm no fan of this brand of gruesome, sadistic horror genre, I have no problem with what anyone wants to watch in a dark theater once they've paid their twelve bucks.  But I was literally stopped in my tracks when I saw this image foisted on every passerby regardless of age or sensibility.  I tried to imagine the filmmakers, the marketers, the advertising company, and the ad space owners all agreeing that this is a perfectly fine image to shove in front of the faces of children.  And the elderly.  And librarians.

I just learned about the controversy surrounding the poster for Kevin Smith's new movie, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno."  Apparently the original poster was rejected by the MPAA in the U.S. (I didn't even know that the MPAA had jurisdiction over movie posters).  It had featured photos of Rogen and Banks, while fully clothed, positioned suggestively.

So the movie company instead devised a poster picturing two stick figures, one male and one female, in front of a movie camera, with the text:  "Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks made a movie so titillating that we can only show you this drawing."  But even this stick-figure version was banned at bus stops in Philadelphia because it contains the word "porno."

If there are entities that regulate what images are allowed to appear on movie posters (and I'm surprised to learn that there are), shouldn't their chief concern be protecting children from a nightmare-inducing image of horrific murder, torture and psychotically sadistic mutilation?  And what does it say about our society that we're more concerned about our children seeing something that's mildly suggestive of sexual pornography, than an actual example of torture-pornography?

On Larry King last night, McCain admitted that Barack Obama is not a Socialist!  Whew, I can put down my pitchfork and torch.

Of course this won't stop McCain's campaign from saying that Obama IS a Socialist.

For example on the William Ayers "issue," McCain has repeatedly said that he "doesn't care" about a "washed-up" terrorist like Ayers, and he's said that Obama is "a decent person and a person you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."  He's consistently said that he only raises Ayers because he feels that Obama has not been honest about that relationship:  "It's a factor about Sen. Obama's candor and truthfulness with the American people."

So when his campaign issues robocalls — interrupts people in their homes in order to convey one urgent thing to unsure voters — are they about McCain's plan to improve the desperate financial situation?  Do they clarify McCain's health care plan?  Do they even say that Americans shouldn't trust Obama because he has misled them about his relatioinship with a guy named Bill Ayers?  No, they say that Obama "has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose
organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and
killed Americans."

My last comic before the election:  From the files of the "Investigation Into Anti-American Elements in U.S. Government."

You know, I wrote this comic over a week ago, and I was really worried that by the time it was published, this ridiculous Obama as Socialist thing would have totally disappeared.  I thought that the notion that his tinkering with the tax rates — basically back to the levels they were at only eight years ago — amounts to Socialism, was so transparently goofy that it would surely be a campaign argument that would pop up and then peter out after a day or two.

But here we are, a week later, and it's not only still around, it's one of McCain's central themes.

Just came across this…  click on the picture for the full piece.

I'm interested inCharlie Kaufman's new movie, "Synecdoche, New York." The early reviews are about as varied as you can get.

From The New York Times' Manohla Dargis:

From The New York Observer's Rex Reed:

Joe Sixpack and Joe the Plumber.  Plus a bonus Joe Lunchbucket.

http://www2.funnyordie.com/public/flash/fodplayer.swf?5320a921

via News From Me.

A Google search just turned this paragraph up, in the Nashua Telegraph's Encore (Okay, yes, I google myself!  You caught me!):

I didn't know they had cancelled the comic, but thanks to Encore's readers for speaking up!

("Disposable."  Don't they know words can hurt people who google themselves?)