Thursday, 18 December 2008

Brokeneck Mountain


Bizarro is brought to you today by Unexpected Visits From Mother Nature.

I'm not too modest to admit that I'm proud of this cartoon. It isn't easy to get politics, slavery, and gay rights onto the funny pages (as opposed to the editorial page), especially all in the same cartoon.

Readers who see my work in the newspaper as well as online, will notice that in the black and white version used in most markets, the cowboy's line ended with a question mark. That was a typo on my part, which I later corrected for the color version. The gag works either way, but I was going for a sarcastic proclamation by the cowboy, not a question.

This cartoon points out that times have changed in the past 150 years, but not as much as we'd like to think. While we no longer officially sanction discrimination based on race, but we still officially discriminate against romantic proclivities.

To those that argue that race is "born" while sexual orientation is a "choice," I would ask, was your sexual orientation a choice? If you didn't consciously choose what turns you on, what makes you think anyone else can?

No comments:

Post a Comment