Friend and collector Glenn Bray sent me this amazing photo of a wall somewhere in England, emblazoned with Basil Wolverton (and Wolverton-esque) characters. It seems that an English artist had been inspired by Glenn’s outstanding book The Original Art of Basil Wolverton From the Collection of Glenn Bray — and had created this wonderful tribute in graffiti. Why can’t the graffiti in L.A. be of this caliber? I don’t know — but it probably has something to do with the fact that the U.K. has had socialized health care for decades, while the U.S. still lacks such a system.

From Friday, March 13th to Easter Sunday, April 12th, the Los Angeles gallery Synchonicity Space is hosting Within Heaven’s Earshot — a show featuring over 300 religious album covers from the 50s, 60s and 70s. As the L.A. Times commented, they are “strikingly graphic relics of the post-World War II era of hula hoops and Cold War anxiety.” But wait — there’s more!  Several original Basil Wolverton illustrations from the Old Testament will also be on display! These are also from the mid-to-late 50s. I’ll be there on Friday, April 3rd from 7-9pm, signing copies of the recently released Wolverton Bible. The gallery is located at 4306 Melrose in L.A.

For 45 minutes of witty banter and arcane facts and stories about my father and his work, listen to my live podcast interview with Mr. Media. I discuss with Bob Andelman (a.k.a. Mr. Media) the just-released collection of my father’s extreme biblical art, The Wolverton Bible, (published by Fantagraphics books) which I wrote about in an earlier post. Enjoy! — Monte Wolverton

When I talk about this idea, people always seem to look nervous. I don’t know why.

I am not in favor of capital punishment for anyone, nor am I in favor of corporal punishment for kids (well, maybe some kids). But the time has come for us to get back to corporal punishment for adults.  That’s right — spanking.

A while ago I was talking to a guy who favored capital punishment because they did it in the Old Testament. I’m not sure why it followed that we should do the same thing, but I reminded him that corporal punishment was also a standard practice in the Old Testament (and a standard practice in our society until a century or so ago) — lashings, whippings, canings, scourgings, etc. — and I told him I thought it was time to bring back corporal punishment as part of a balanced program of civil justice. He got really quiet and gave me that nervous look (I can’t understand why adult corporal punishment should be a problem for someone who advocates the death penalty).

But think about it – spanking is way cheaper than incarceration. It’s quick. It’s profoundly humiliating and non-injurious when administered properly. It’s fun to watch. It has great prime-time entertainment value. It also creates jobs for professional spankers. And who wouldn’t want to be a professional spanker?

What kind of miscreants would make good spanking candidates?

Former presidents who left the country in a shambles. 

Staff of former presidents who left the country in a shambles.

Bank and Wall Street execs who used federal bailout money to party down.

Loan brokers who sold their clients risky mortgages.

GOP legislators who keep calling for tax cuts for the rich.

You get the idea – the list goes on.

For more serious cases (like the telemarketers who have called me at least 30 times in the last week telling me that this is the second notice that my car warranty is about to expire), we could ramp up the spankings to good, old-fashioned back-alley ass kickings. Oh, don’t look so shocked. We’ve done far worse at Guantanamo for years.

Who would administer these thrashings? Well, there are plenty of unemployed gang members (in fact the state of California is releasing a bunch of these guys from prison because there’s no room for them and we can’t afford to build more prisons) who would be more than happy to serve as professional pummelers. Of course this would require the attendance of a qualified physician, and, yes, there would be a high probability of permanent injury. But hey – in a few years we’ll have socialized healthcare, so what’s the problem?.

Anyway, I’m just saying this is a great way to save money, keep thugs employed, and make sure everyone gets the punishment they so richly deserve.

Monte Wolverton

A few days ago I oozed out this caricature of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. When I was researching images of him, I discovered there are as many photos of him frowning or looking perplexed as there are of him smiling or grinning.

Why does he look this way? There could be several reasons.

1.   He’s anxious about his other tax problem that hasn’t been discovered yet.

2.   When it comes time for him to collect Social Security – will there be any?

3.   He’s concerned about how his great grandkids will pay for the stimulus plan.

4.   He’s worried about the load of hair on his head shifting (it’s not just my caricature — his left hemisphere does look slightly larger than the right, which is consistent with being the chief bean counter as well as his political orientation. While I personally am politically left-leaning, this is compensated by my overdeveloped cartoonist’s right-brain. The result is a slightly fat head. This is all conjecture but I’m sure there are hundreds of neurosurgeons out there who would agree.)

5.   His investments with Allen Stanford aren’t doing too well.

Even so, there is the slightest hint of a wry smile. This might be because his money is doing better with Allen Stanford than it would have done on Wall Street in the last few days.

Or maybe he knows something we don’t.

Or maybe I know something he doesn’t. My right brain, after all, is larger than his.

Last Thursday being Charles Darwin’s 200^th, there was a whole stream of Darwin publicity last week. I noticed an emailed press release flogging new anti-Darwin stuff from the fundamentalist “Creation Museum,” near Cincinnati. The museum is related to another organization called Answers in Genesis, headed up by a guy named Ken Ham – an Australian schoolteacher who has become the leading voice for “young earth” creationism, which advocates a woodenly literal interpretation of the first few chapters of the Bible (yet nearly all scholars agree that these chapters are poetry).

Frankly, I’m scared. I’m scared that millions of people are running around out there believing these incredible notions:

• The universe was created about 6,000 years ago.

• No living creature died until the fall of Adam and Eve.

• Dragons of legend were actually dinosaurs, who lived until recently. They were saved aboard Noah’s Ark from drowning in a worldwide flood about 4,400 years ago.

• Scientific evidence that the earth is older than 6,000 years is something called “apparent age” — that is, things aren’t really old – they were just created to look that way. 

This last point is the scariest of all – because it means that millions of kids are being taught to ignore, distrust and scoff at scientific evidence – what you see is not real.

Not long ago I read Darwin’s Origin of Species. I was struck by the extent to which fundamentalist creationists have demonized and vilified this great scientist and grossly misrepresented his work. 

I’m a theistic evolutionist – and I have made the arduous journey from thinking (when I was a kid) that Adam and Eve were created 6,000 years ago – to understanding that the universe is in fact some 14 billion years old – and that the earth is about 4 1/2 billion – and that all life evolved through natural selection.

After years of following the subject, I have found no rational arguments against evolution (and the clincher for evolution is modern genetics). Incredibly, although the number of people who believe in evolution increases with education and income, it seems that a majority of Americans believe in some form of fundamentalist-style creationism. No wonder Europeans think we are ignorant yokels.

I can see only three reasons people (whether they are atheist, agnostic or believe in God) wouldn’t accept the the scientifically proven process of evolution in some form:

1.   Ignorance. They have not examined the evidence, or are not educationally equipped to do so.

2.   Fundamentalism. They hold to a literal misinterpretation of the book of Genesis (or some other religious text).

3.   Fear. They harbor a deep fear of their belief system collapsing, and their ensuing mental and emotional chaos.

But this is a political blog, and so here’s the political angle. The last 30 years of Republican (and religious right) ascendancy have seen an alarming erosion of the teaching of sound biological science – and even an uptick in the number of people who believe in creationism – because:

1.   More kids are homeschooled – and many homeschooling systems teach creationism. Additionally, private conservative Christian schools have proliferated.

2.   Some public school boards insist that creationism be taught equally with evolution.

What can we conclude? We desperately need to reverse this trend – to rebuild and restore confidence in our public education system. If we don’t act now, in a few more decades the vast majority of the US. will be populated by intellectual Neanderthals. Neanderthals, you will recall, became extinct because they just couldn’t keep up with the times.

This is already evidenced by the fact that, in a time of worldwide emergency, the two sides of the aisle in Congress can barely communicate. This must have been what it was like when our ancestors attempted to converse with their cousins, the Neanderthals, who responded only with a series of threatening grunts.

Here’s a cartoon I did a few years ago that speaks to the paradoxical thinking of fundamentalist creationists. 

Last Friday night my wife Kayte and I were totally gleeful (and I rarely become totally gleeful) to be guests of our good friend Grant Geissman at a filming of Two and a Half Men at Warner Brothers studios in Burbank. Emmy-nominated Grant is co-writer of the show’s theme song, and directs musical content for each episode. He’s one of the best crossover and contemporary jazz guitarists ever — and has recorded extensively with a supertankerload of major artists. His 14^th album as leader will be released this spring.  The creatively prodigious Grant is also an authority on EC comics and MAD magazine – having authored three books on the subject – the most recent being Foul Play! The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s E.C. Comics! He also wrote the foreword to The Wolverton Bible, released this month and covered in an earlier blog entry.

We were already devout fans of the show – but this session exceeded in sheer fun all the tapings of other shows we have ever attended. The studio audience was skillfully kept in a near-frenetic state throughout the 4-hour session — which went by way too quickly.

Afterward Grant introduced us to executive producers / writers Eddie Gorodetsky, Mark Roberts and Don Foster, each of whose credits would run for miles. Suffice it to say if you put them all together, they have 11 Emmy nominations and one win.

Eddie has some of the work of my father, Basil Wolverton,  in his collection — including a couple of his rare early newspaper strip attempts. Mark and Don are both fans of my dad’s work from way back – especially in MAD magazine.

It’s great to know — in this 100th year since my dad’s birth — that on some level his work is influencing some of the best minds in comedic entertainment.

Speaking of MAD, my father and Grant Geissman — here’s a painting Grant commissioned me to do last year based on one of several pieces my dad did for MAD #11 in 1954. If you stare intently at this for about eight hours, without blinking — you, too, may develop a fine comedic mind. 

Monte Wolverton

Not long ago I visited Our Lady of The Angels  – Los Angeles’ world-class cathedral. Of the many exquisite objects in the chancel (for example, the huge stone altar, the organ console, the crucifix) I was particularly fascinated by the incredibly cool cathedra – the bishop’s chair where his Eminence Roger Mahony, Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles, sits when he is presiding over mass.

I thought my Barca-Lounger® was big — but this chair weighs 800 lbs.  It was crafted by artisan Jefferson Tortorelli. The back of the chair is composed of linked crosses of different woods from around the world, symbolizing the various communities and ethnic backgrounds that are Los Angeles. The two ebony arms of the chair extend forward in a gesture of welcome and embrace to all people, according to Tortorelli.

But the thing I noticed most about the chair was the ample, form-fitting seat. And I mean ample. Certainly enough to accommodate even the most bulbous buttocks of a bishop.

Judging from the size of this seat, one can’t help but wonder how much information his Eminence is capable of sitting on — and for how long — with regard to protection of pedophile priests over the years.

While the iconography of his Eminence’s massive chair speaks of openness and inclusiveness, the guy who sits in it has proven to be anything but.

Perhaps a nice criminal investigation will bring an epiphany to the stonewalling Cardinal and his staff. Shouldn’t the institution of the church exist to serve and protect the people, rather than protecting its own hierarchy?

At the same time, we have a Pope who has reinstated a bishop who publicly denies the Holocaust – along with other bishops who were previously excommunicated because of their ultra-conservative views.

Should we be disturbed? Reasonable Catholics are disturbed. Some say that the current Pope is hoping to force out liberals and create a smaller, more intensely conservative church. Some say these developments are yanking their church backward in time — and for a governance that is essentially stuck in the middle ages, this is a bad, bad thing. 

I think Catholics should be way more disturbed. I think we should all be really disturbed, as the Roman Catholic church is so vast that what they do inevitably impacts the rest of us. It’s beyond theology — it’s politics (of course, it always has been).

Come to think of it, Catholicism could use another reformation. It’s relatively easy. I know from experience. As professional clergy some years ago, I was active in a successful reform movement in my denomination. No biggie — religious people are always so flexible. Most of the conservatives left (as well as a good number of frustrated progressives). A few friends won’t talk to me anymore. And then there were the veiled death threats. But otherwise, our reformation was pleasantly exhilarating.

So Catholics — give it a try and take back your church. Think for yourselves. Let your clergy know just how darn ticked off you really are. Skip mass. Withhold your tithes. Send irate letters to the Pope, Cardinals and bishops, who can’t hurt you (despite all the crap they want you to believe about being the one true church, about Purgatory, Hell, confession, penance and so forth — and despite what they did during the Inquisition — but torture is illegal now, unless you’re a Republican). Catholic clergy isn’t magic — they are, after all, just guys in silly hats.

Maybe, in a spirit of humility, they need to install a much smaller cathedra chair in Our Lady of the Angels. Tell you what — I’ll trade them the big one for my Barca-Lounger®. His Eminence would be a lot more comfortable in mine, I betcha. 

Monte Wolverton

The other day I got this email message from Jamie at Pookie’s Toons:

I run the daily cartoon threads at The Right Reasons, GOPachy, Wide Awakes and QubeTV where I post more than 13,000 cartoons per year at each site. We’ve just concluded our Best Of 2008 voting and one of your cartoons earned a trophy. Congrats and keep up the great work!

I can’t complain about getting a trophy. I am honored and thankful of course. This is the trophy – it’s a virtual trophy, but still . . . I thanked Jamie. Then I checked out the above sites and discovered they were Republican (as one might infer from the names) – some militantly so. I have nothing against Republicans. Some of my best friends and some family members are Republican (they try to avoid my cartoons). Other friends are Libertarian, and yet other friends and family are Democrat – including me. So while it’s slightly disquieting to be getting accolades from Republicans, I am nonetheless thankful for any accolades. 

The winning cartoon is below. I will admit – it could be interpreted as being a bit conservative – if we equate conservatism with blind support for Israel. Indeed, I received a few angry emails from Arab countries. Yet – two things: 1) even the liberal Obama administration is sounding rather supportive of Israel in this conflict. And 2) consider this email I received from Teri Roney of Sausalito, California

I see two possible interpretations of your latest cartoon. First, the foolish, Israeli-baiting Hamas is taunting the restrained bulldog, which finally breaks it’s chains and attacks. It’s a form of bear baiting in which the longsuffering “victim”– in this case Israel –somehow breaks free and triumphs over its tormentors as the appreciative crowd goes wild. I think that’s what most of your readers will see. What I see questions the savage and disproportionate attack on Gaza, for what amounts to rock throwing and jibes from a small number of Palestinians, and concludes that vicious dogs should be kept chained.

The perceptive Teri saw another possible level of meaning in my toon that the Pookie people did not.

Still – it is a trophy.