Bound to Be Remembered as "Lickspittle," Come What May

Now that there is a Democrat in the White House, it is time for the American right to have a go at bringing the funny.

Actually they already tried that -- late in the Bush era, even -- with a conservative version of The Daily Show. Let's not dwell on the abyss of ironies involved in having a fake news show on the Fox Network, and instead take a look at the hilarity being promoted by Richard Viguerie, the pioneer of direct-mail fundraising.

Unfortunately the horizontal dimensions of "The Gentleman from Lickskillet" prevent reproducing the whole thing, but here is a recent cell:



This is called a comic strip, and I think we can all see why.

A comment at Sadly, No! describes the cartoon as being "drawn like a Jack Chick pamphlet." I consider the remark extremely unfair. "Lickskillet" is toothless banality in search of a niche market. By contrast, Jack Chick's booklets fuse profound sectarianism with being not quite right in the head. His work has a certain integrity and aesthetic power.

Sorry, Mr. Viguerie, but you can't just bankroll that combination into existence. The week's worth of cartoons devoted to the inauguration should have told you something -- a sustained effort to pander to craziness, without having the right accent.