And God said, “This world I have created is good. It is very good. In fact, it is too good. We must balance the good with evil.”
Then God took a ball of elephant dung and created Republicans.
“You see, beloved ones, if the world is too good,” said God, “Then when I get full of wrath, there will be no one to smite. You don’t want me too full of wrath. I may pop like an overfilled balloon. So someone needs to get struck by lightning to let off some of the pressure that has built up through the hard work of being God.”
So God took up a ball of old chicken guts and created Democrats.
“Why do you always seem to let the evil ones get away with lying and deceit?” a prophet dared to ask. “They cheat and steal and become wealthy, and then use that wealth to cover over their crimes, yet you do not smite them with lightning bolts?”
God threw a bolt of lightning and incinerated the prophet.
“I did say in the Bible somewhere that God helps those who help themselves. I’m sure I remembered to put that in there somewhere. God doesn’t make mistakes. Or if He does, they are perfect mistakes.”
“So you authorize the wealthy, who became wealthy by exploiting others, to commit further acts of exploitation until they virtually control the government and say that any crime is not a crime because they are now in charge of making the laws and deciding the consequences?” asked another brave but stupid prophet.
God immediately sent a plague of locusts to eat the prophet’s flesh down to the bone.
“The Bible says that all governments are put in place by God. No government exists except with my approval. If I don’t like them, I will remove them. So if the government of the United States is to be run by my evil Republican creations, I merely have to create a lot of very stupid citizens who will vote to give everything to the rich and exploit everyone else, including those who basically voted against their own best interests.”
Another rather stupid prophet got up to ask a question of God. He raised one finger, opened his mouth, and was immediately turned into a pillar of salt.
“I have anticipated your question. I do have a plan for mankind. Remember the Greek myth of Sisyphus? That old Greek idiot who has to labor for eternity rolling a heavy rock up a hill, and just as he almost reaches the top, it rolls back down on top of him and he has to start over at the bottom of the hill? That is a metaphor for all human life and accomplishment. Income inequality becomes a heavier and heavier burden as you near the goal of getting rid of it. You have a Great Depression, then FDR comes along to fix things and help common people. Then Reagan takes over with “trickle-down economics” and rolls you all back to the bottom of the hill. It ends in Junior Bush’s Great Recession of ’08. Obama comes along to fix that. Then, in a sudden political reversal, the party of pure evil takes over again. Back to the bottom of the hill we go.”
And so, no further prophet got up to speak. It was not because prophets had gotten any smarter. No, it was because there were no prophets left.
Catch a Falling Star 
Mickey Makes Manga Art
I always loved this song. When I was a boy, it was the song I would sing when I was alone in the darkness. It made me feel better, able to march toward home in spite of potential spooks and brain-eating zombies. The weight of the invisible future world could not drag me down if this tune was in my head, filling it with helium and good spirit; it allowed me to fly.
And when I listened to it playing on the radio… I always paused and listened to at least a couple of verses no matter what I was doing… I never once thought of Johnny Nash as a black man. I didn’t know he was black until I first saw a picture of him. But even then I didn’t think, “Oh, he’s a black man.” I thought, “Oh, he’s a man like me.” But, I, of course, am not black. I’m not really white either. I am a kind of pale pink to mauve mottled color with dark pink psoriasis spots in random places all over me. It is the man on the inside that is like Johnny Nash, full of uplifting things, and goofy grins, and… hopefully, hope.
But when I was young it wasn’t only singing “I Can See Clearly Now…” in my goofy farmboy voice that filled my head with air and allowed me to float away from the troubles of the world. I also learned to draw Manga style, in the tradition of Osamu Tezuka’s Astroboy , filtered through hours of practice copying Walt Kelly’s Pogo characters and various Disney cartoons.
I copied the over-large eyes and big-headed cutsieness that informed the Japanese idea of the world after the atom bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I tried to capture innocence and wonder and adventure in drawings that took my mind off the terrible things of my childhood, being sexually assaulted, the assassinations of JFK and his brother RFK, and Martin Luther King Jr, the Viet Nam War, and Nixon with Watergate. You can reclaim innocence and peace of mind, if you get the lines just right, and the proportions are good, and the character has just the right expression on their sweet little faces.
Okay, maybe not always so sweet and innocent. This is not the Dorothy I would want to mess with. This girl is cocky, sure of herself, and more than a little impish. A destroyer of wicked witches, that one.
But that’s what Manga Art is all about. You whistle away the darkness one drawing at a time. And there’s plenty of darkness to whistle away anymore, isn’t there? What with Tronald Dump taking on the NFL over the American Flag and National Anthem, Tronald Dump taking on Jim Kong Oon in an insult war backed up by ICBMs, and Congress busily trying to take away all our access to health care. (I know I misspelled some names there, but I am tired of talking about that guy that Dorothy told me I should call the “orange-faced poop sack.” No, Dorothy, I can’t call him that. Using language like that robs my head of its helium.) So, what do I do now about the state of the world? Well, here is the Manga Art I drew last night.
Catgirl and White-haired Snow White with a ping pong ball in her mouth.
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Filed under artists I admire, artwork, autobiography, cartoons, cartoony Paffooney, commentary, goofiness, goofy thoughts, humor, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as manga-style art, Osamu Tezuka, Walt Kelly