“At Least We Can Feel Insignificant Together”

“In this issue’s compilation, the cartoonist asks us to ponder the relationship between a man (?) got up as a bird (and his/her/their spouse, perhaps, un-got-up-as-anything, yet); a gathering of not-very-nighthawkish diner-diners; a male partner drifting away from all things couply-and-present-tense into a happy, solo reverie; something outlandish if predictable in the evening sky; McDougal, McDougaling; one last green leaf unaware of what’s in store for him (and us, soon); and a pair of lovers (?) on a blanket, beneath a starry sky, reveling in their shared . . . smallness.”—Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

Addison

By Mark Addison Kershaw

“Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. ‘There’s a unicorn in the garden,’ he said. ‘Eating roses.’ She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him. ‘The unicorn is a mythical beast,’ she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; he was now browsing among the tulips.”—James Thurber, from “The Unicorn in the Garden”

ATLANTA Georgia—(Hubris)—November/December 2024—Editor’s Note: By the time you cast an eye over Mark Addison Kershaw’s November/December 2024 batch of cartoons, the United States’ presidential election my well have been decided, we may have a final body count following Helene and Milton (or as final as we’re likely to get), Halloween will have passed, and Thanksgiving and Christmas will be on the horizon (along with, perhaps, rioting in the nation’s streets). At least that’s how it looks from where I sit here, a blue, blue dot in a red, red state.

Mark’s over yonder a bit in Georgia, where things have been trending purplish of late. By mid-November, we’ll know whether that purple haze comprised swamp gas, or something more lasting.

But, as cartoonists go, Addison pens-in things strictly in black, white, and grey, as opposed to blue or red, which is why receiving, editing, and publishing his work is such a pleasure for me; such a change from the violent-hued palette of emotion and expression we’re all barraged with now 24/7.

In this issue’s compilation, the cartoonist asks us to ponder the relationship between a man (?) got up as a bird (and his/her/their spouse, perhaps, un-got-up-as-anything, yet); a gathering of not-very-night-hawkish diner-diners; a male partner drifting away from all things couply-and-present-tense into a happy, solo reverie; something outlandish if predictable in the evening sky; McDougal, McDougaling; one last green leaf unaware of what’s in store for him (and us, soon); and a pair of lovers (?) on a blanket, beneath a starry sky, reveling in their shared . . . smallness.

I ask you, what more could you and I want?! Unicorns in our gardens? (And don’t answer that question!)