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Ladies and gentlemen, your Comics Curmudgeon:

You, the Wonkette readers at home, probably wonder what the scene is like down here at Cartoon Violence Central. Do we sit around surrounded by computer screens, each one with a direct feed of every political cartoonist in America’s work, constantly scanning for new comics to mock? Are there teletype noises and hushed voices and vague evidence of movement in the background? Is it, in other words, a little like CNN’s Situation Room?

In a word, no. In fact, our cartoon-mocking would probably be untenable, involving desperate searches across the wildly differing Websites of many cartoonists and syndicates over the course of the whole week, if not for the noble efforts of the good people at Slate, who put together this handy collection of political cartoons from around the nation. The sheer number of comics aggregated in one spot allows us to pretty much throw this feature together the night before Wonkette serves it up to you, the eager masses.

At least we usually aren’t drunk when we write it.

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From the maudlin Oliver Stone movie nobody wanted to see to the Jack Chick-style Slate comix nobody wants to read, the 9/11 5th Anniversary juggernaut of dubious entertainment just keeps coming. MORE »

Exhibit A: President Bush’s posture is great. And Karl Rove has never looked more like Philip Seymour Hoffman. The first chapter inexplicably ceases mentioning the President at all after this panel, possibly because the artists seem scared to draw his face.
Exhibit B: Dick Cheney attempts to express shock despite being unable to register any emotion on his vulcanized rubber face. Meanwhile, androgyne adviser Mary Cheney/Karen Hughes/Mary Matalin looks on, concerned. Also: “Oh, no!” is apparently the interjection of choice at the White House, after “golly” and “holy cow” were ruled a bit risque for mixed company. MORE »

Still slightly less morbid than all the life insurance ads. MORE »

Popular newspaper summarizing and Milbank enabling website Slate has the perfect accessory for your coffee table or the coffee table of a loved one: “9/11: The Comic Book.” This totally useful and non-exploitative 5-year anniversary cash-in will finally answer such burning, unresolved 9/11 questions as:

• Would Batman have been able to prevent the events of 9/11 if he hadn’t been encumbered by bureaucratic red tape?

• Is it true tower 7 was actually felled by Mr. Mxyzptlk?
• Was the colossally inept response by NORAD somehow Jughead’s fault?
• So, wait, are the mice Jews, or firefighters, or what?
• Is the sound of America’s loss of innocence more of a “fwoosh” or a “tssssssssssss…”?

Bonus: See a sneak preview panel of the graphic novelization, after the jump!

The 9/11 Report [Slate]

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You’ll just have to trust us on this one. We decided to write this week’s ZEITGEIST CHECKLIST (now, lamentably, not by funnyman Dana Milbank) before reading the WaPo/Slate column.

Our predicted list:

1. Lieberman/Lamont
2. Terror
3. Lebanon/Israel
4. Iraq
5. Bloggers/”Netroots”
6. Middle East
7. Castro
8. Terror
9. Midterms
10. Terror

Our score, after the jump.

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• Sleater Kinney rescheduled. 9:30 Club. It’s sold out, but tickets are moving on Craigslist. [9:30 Club]
• Hard Tomorrows, The Fake Accents & Georgie James at Fort Reno. Free at 7:15PM. [Fort Reno]
• David Plotz, Jack Shafer, Emily Yoffee, Timothy Noah and Seth Stevenson present The Best of Slate. 7PM. [P&P]
• The Clientele with Great Lakes at Iota. $13 at 9PM. [Iota]
• 20th Anniversary new 35mm print of Blue Velvet. “I had a dream. In fact, it was on the night I met you. In the dream, there was our world, and the world was dark because there weren’t any robins and the robins represented love. And for the longest time, there was this darkness. And all of a sudden, thousands of robins were set free and they flew down and brought this blinding light of love. And it seemed that love would make any difference, and it did. So, I guess it means that there is trouble until the robins come.” 9PM at AFI Silver. [AFI]

How, we thought, will we ever catch up on all the news we missed last week, while on our sponsored Happy Hour Tour of the upper Mississippi? So many stories come and gone — and in this fast-paced electronic New Media paradise, why, missing a week of the Note is like missing a year of Huntley-Brinkley! If only there was some service, some regular feature that summed up stuff that was in the news last week… a sort of “week in review,” but less substantive and with more arbitrary rankings and numbers…

Of course! It’s Dana Milbank’s celebrated and beloved feature, the Zeitgeist Checklist. This week’s checklist is checked, after the jump:

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