Rodentia
Flambe'
The cartoon I honestly wanted to create today involved
Mickey Mouse being consumed in flames.
Let me explain.
In April of 2022, Earth Day, a Colorado man named
Wynn Bruce sat down in front of the Supreme Court
building
in
Washington, D.C., drenched himself in gasoline, and
set himself alight. His intent was to draw attention
to the existential threat of climate change.
As one
would expect, Mr. Bruce did not survive.
It was the very noblest act of self-sacrifice one
can imagine and for the most important cause imaginable,
but it was also almost entirely fruitless. Bombarded
as
we are
in
this country
by
almost daily senseless acts of violence
Mr. Bruce's defiant gesture soon became lost in the
sea of chaos
that is luridly covered in graphic detail by our
media.
To be brutally honest, Wynn Bruce was just another
guy, just another one of eight billion nameless,
faceless bricks in the wall.
But what if the person making the same fiery statement
was someone we all know and love, or someone so beloved
and of such high profile that their sacrifice could
not be so easily forgotten?
Someone like Morgan Freeman, or Kermit the Frog or,
had I contemplated this subject months ago, Betty
White.
Betty? Self-immolating? Absolutely heart-breaking.
Americans would all be riding bikes to work the next
day.
But in my mind I saw Mickey Mouse. I saw him in the
first panel of my 'toon telling the world that it
needed to stop treating this Earth like a toilet
and instead like a rare and valuable thing.
Like one's own mother.
In the
next three panels he wordlessly steps into a pool
of fluid, sets himself alight, and crumples into
a heap as his charred body is engulfed in flames. The
end.
And then, as a fiat by Disney's CEOs, there would
never be a Mickey Mouse in this world again, not
one more
tacky
trinket
imprinted
with his visage, only the memory of a once-happy
rodent to remember.
(If you're predisposed against such corporate megaliths
please replace Mickey with Calvin, Santa Claus or
Charlie Brown.)
The fifth panel in such a comic would involve expensive
legal battles over appropriation of copyrighted characters. Yes,
I can certainly use the mouse in parody, that's
what the First Amendment is for, but depicting his
expiration
in a lake of fire is just asking for expensive legal
trouble. Instead, I'm sticking with cheap shots
at a cheap crook, thank
you very much.
-----------------
It's exactly 60 days before Xmas.
You have been warned.
=Lefty=
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