Episode 9: Wow, things can change over night.

Wow, things can change over night.  When I turned away from the news of the world yesterday, the most salient item in need of a comment seemed to be Vlady's courts making having "gay Putin" photos illegal.  By this morning, of course, Trump had ordered the firing of numerous Tomahawk missiles into Syria... Phew, "may you live in interesting time".  Incidentally, I never really wanted to go to Putin's Russia anyway.

Episode 8: Think of the song "I'm getting nuttin for Christmas"

Think of the song "I'm getting nuttin for Christmas", and... go

Episode 7: The new budget priorities are made clear.

The new budget priorities are made clear:

Recalibrating Donald

Recalibrating Donald the Clown

With episode 7 I hope to address two issues: One, Donald has been sneakily getting more real, with real eyes etc.  Two, I need to address more topical issues.

To that end. I promise to make an attempt to be more up to date. We will start today with tomorrows news.

Episode 6, Donald begins to build his cabinet.

 

Episode 5: Donald Contemplates his cabinet: Back in November

Episode 4: The Spiceman Cometh

Episode 3

WAAAY back in November, which was about a billion years ago.

Hat Issue

 Under normal circumstances I really don't want to be addressing Trumps policies directly.  This issue doesn't use the device of "Clownsville" to talk about  policies and issues.  It just uses Trump's infamous campaign hat.

What and Where of Clownsville

The idea for Clownsville started from a simple comment of one my favorite interviewers, Sam Harris.   He had been railing against the thought of a figure like Trump gaining real political power for the entire length of the campaign, and when Trump won the electoral college, he made a comment to the effect "we've just made Trump the most powerful clown in the world".  The original name of the comic was to be "The Most Powerful Clown".

At first I was pretty sure that I didn't need to make a clown that looked like any of the clowns in office, but as I thought about it, it became clear that this had to be a direct comment about someone that I saw as grossly incompetent to have the job.

As my clowns began to become a little more focused, I realized two things.  One, although I have a little natural talent at sketching, I really had no idea how to make the economic, recognizable figures that a running comic strip demanded.  Two, the things that I wanted to address would probably extend way beyond the White House, and touch on American culture as a whole.

As for my drawing talent, well, I don't know what to do but to try; we'll see if I succeed.

For the second issue I decide to place the "most powerful clown" in an ecosystem, and use that ecosystem as a way to address other issues, and "Clownsville" was born.

Of course, at that point Trump hadn't taken office yet, and I just didn't have any idea of the flood of shit coming down the hill.  As of the last day of January I'm wandering how I'm going to document the all that I wanted to about his rise to power and the reaction to it.

Forward

There are several issues of "Clownsville" that were mapped out and wholly or partially drawn, but with the seeming unending drama of the Trump presidency it seems necessary to address "Trump Emergencies" as they arise. So for now, I'll do a little bouncing back and forth between old and new topics.  We live in interesting times.