Pat Oliphant for January 13, 2015

Nice work.

You amaze ! You amaze ! You amaze !!!!!!!

This is a good one.

Ashcroft would have been appalled!

Glad to see he’s back.

Why does a naked woman have to be in the forefront of all male endeavors?

John unLocke The pith of the point can only be obtained without gratuitous rants aka “vicious, cold-blooded killers.”

Beautiful as usual, Mr. Oliphant, good to have you back. :)

welcome back. I missed your take on current events.

A truly excellent cartoon! Glad to see Pat Oliphant back.

The notion of cartoonists going into actual battle, even with sharpened pencils, is, obviously, a metaphor of ridicule, but – we have long known the truth of the adage, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’ Why? A sword only wields violence – the pen can wield the truth. As Twain has said, ‘Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.’ More than a few tyrants, and wannabee tyrants have been laughed out of town. The Tammany Hall machine was so outraged by Nast’s cartoons, that, in their rage, they tried to have him killed, and made foolish mistakes that led to their downfall.To respond to any assault with sheer violence only drags us down to that level, and makes us no better than the assailant, whoever it may be. It only reveals the hideous underbelly of humanity.

Mr. John Locke, to use hyperbole or (pun intended) the overkill diminishes one’s message/point making it seem emotional, partisan, vacuous. It’s the difference between good literature and what is dubbed soap-opera, melodrama. Never use a multitiplicity of words for that which can be said in a few. And a good cartoonist does that brilliantly using one drawing maybe a few words to ultimately be a sledgehammer in establishing his view point. I marvel at the best of them and their work.

Charlie Akbar!

Welcome back, Mr. Oliphant. I have missed you greatly. You are indeed one of the very best.

beautiful art!

So glad you are back. Your point of view was missed, as well as your great talent.

The art lives up to the standard of Delacroix, and is simply phenomenal. Oliphant is quite likely the best political cartoonist ever. (Maybe Herblock is second….kind of hard to say.)

Eugeno & r2varney:

That is a great quotation from Mr. Clemens. And, it is certainly correct that some of his works have been censored, banned, and decried from time to time. However, it is also correct that, today, we know Mr. Clemens’ works. And, I, for one, have mostly forgotten who were the censors.

“Idiot. Pens never won a single battle. ISIS will not be defeated by editorials, cartoons, columns or blogs. Death will stop them.”Twice the fool are you. Pens convey ideas that are a huger influence on people or history than any sword. ISIS & the other fanatical groups are only as strong as their ability to attract people to buy into their ideology. Undermine that attraction & those groups are finished. Kill them all & the collateral damage just inspires new adherents…

Well, Mr. John Locke.; you are definitely a kind soul who could never find the descriptive adjective," vicious", in any way connected with his name; “killer” humor, though, a serious maybe. Cheers.

Ever hear of Thomas Paine? Thought not. His pencil(quill) helped rouse the rabble that DID defeat the tyrant! You have a brain, use all of it.

The problem from the other side/perspective, is when the pen is used to defraud, and build support for evil excused as “justified”. When radicals kill 2,000, and the pen drives the sword to kill 200,000 innocents? When a country provokes attack by persecuting a people and locking them up and depriving them of life staples, and that attack kills three of their “civilians”, so they turn around and murder, excuse me, use “advanced weapons” to kill over 2,000 innocents within those “prison walls”, they have the pens to make their actions “just”.

“Might makes right” isn’t JUST a matter of superior military force, it is the very basis for propaganda, and determining who gets to wield the pen, by “powers that be”.

With seven billion plus persons running around, why DOES a group of less than 20 million get to wield all pens? Oh right, it’s all based on the myths in a book, and faiths that continue to provide that “emperor” with humble clothes of Teflon armor against reality and true assessment.

The French and American Revolutions were both fought, and won, by small radical groups who used the pen, and words, not just swords. The warning should be, what happened AFTER. What is the life expectancy of true freedom when too few control all power?

“You want it bluntly, kill ’em all”

What distinguishes you from these mindless killers?

Think I see Obama skulking around there back in the rear…leading from behind as usual.

Welcome back! Your toons always lead to interesting, thought-provoking discourse.Glad your hiatus has ended.

What is your end game? In Texas there was a “Stand with the Prophet” conference where thousands of muslims were calling for Sharia law in the USA. Prior to 1960 that would have been called treason. In 2015 we give unlimited emigration to the people who mean to enslave us.

Evidently, the pencil is not stronger than the college campus free speech zone…

We will be looking at this "till Easter.

Facebook has banned any image that makes fun of mud-Ham-mad. CNN, ABC, NBC, PBS, and CBS have all decided not to run any more images of mud-ham-mad. It’s pretty obvious the terrorists have won.

…you replied 16 days after I had posted? All bluster and bluff….from very far away in time no less. Talk about lousy cowards. There was nothing civilized about your initial and subsequent posts

The lead bullet meets the lead pencil.

The re-representation on La Liberté guidant le peuple by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X of France, speaks perceptively to today’s issue’s of free speech and freedom, just as did Delacroix’s of nearly 200 years ago.

It’s one of those things that unbelievers refer to in vain. The church is about 40 strong and mostly consists of an extended family.

You’re right, I should have said “some unbelievers.” I know a few unbelievers who would never resort to such garbage.

Pat, So nice to have you back. Miss you and the food at La Chaumiere here in Georgetown. Elliott

hope you’re in good health – miss your work.

Where is Pat? Anyone know?

Pat appears to have retired. His comics helped lead to the downfall of Richard Nixon. He was merciless to Reagan. He made fun of the “bush”. But it’s 2015. Facebook is removing posts that insult mudhammad, islam is on the march, Russia is turning radical, China actually has a larger military than the USA (Americans confuse cost with size; we just pay the most, always have), and the world has moved on.

Thanks Pat and fare thee well

Jeff H: They don’t? Then why was the only enlisted man (Sgt.) to be issued his own jeep in WW-II a cartoonist (Bill Mauldin)?

time to pull this strip off the listIt hasn’t changed in months

Good bye, Pat…your handlers are suckling us dry.

Excellent ’toon but pens rather than pencils would have been more on point.

It is time to put him in with Ben Sargent. It is really annoying to click on his name and see the same old cartoon that has been there for months.

Wow, Oliphant hasn’t published anything since 1/13/15!

This cartoon must be very popular. It’s been here for six months.

It’s July and no new strips since January. I guess he’s either very ill or retired now.

please come back!!

Many years of spot on comments Pat! I love your work!

Today is July 27, 2015, and haven’t seen Pat’s strip for MONTHS!..Why?

4 days late, but happy 80th birthday! How we see more of you soon :)

OK, It might be time to take the whole thing down. I do not think another is coming.

This was the last I’ve seen from the great Pat Oliphant. Has he retired? Please say it isn’t so!

Those who believe the pen is mightier than the sword have never faced interlocking zones of automatic weapons fire.

I think he passed away…this has been here for months.

No, he is still living….

where did you go ? ….I miss you !

I think this guy passed away.

If Pat Oliphant had died, we’d have heard about it. Probably mainstream news, almost certainly other cartoonists would remark upon it. The man is the last of the giants.

Oliphant may have retired, he may be sick. It’s simply sad that GoComics continues to leave this cartoon standing, with no sort of explanation. It’s beginning to look like an epitaph.

This is the best Oliphant cartoon that I’ve seen since January 13, 2015. Come to think of it, I’ve been seeing it since then.

One comic in ten months…It’s time to remove this from the lineup.

Not again….Thinking of you France, stand up for yourselves. Nothing but love for Paris

The saddest thing is that regardless of what Oliphant is doing right now, there is no reason to take this cartoon down, it becomes depressingly current all too often.

Where is Oliphant???

Will someone explain why PO isn’t tooning? Is he too ill, or laid up in some way?

This is the first anniversary of his last post.

It’s time to remove this strip !! It’s been over a year. Move on !

come on Pat just one or two per year, there have been so many great issues and events…

Did this guy pass away?

Come on Pat, just one a month to keep us sane!

Wow, over a year since his last panel! I suppose he’s really retired now.

Come on Pat this election has got to have some comment!

Timeless

A year and a half, and it’s still here.

Now…let’s see him draw Muhammad…

Miss you, Pat.

I’m typing this on 13 Aug 2016, 19 months since last cartoon.

For those seeking some new Oliphaunt, the current (it’s August 13) installment of the Richard Thompson feature, Richard’s Poor Almanac, reprints the full-page introduction Oliphaunt penned for the collected strips. .Everything today takes five times as long as it should. Pardon me for not seeking out the link, but it’s here at GoComics.

How many years will it be before you remove this strip?

I applaud the decision to take Oliphant off of the main menu of editorial cartoonists, but I don’t think this feature should ever be removed from GoComics entirely. First, Oliphant has not officially retired, he’s merely (de facto) stopped drawing (for now). Second, even if he were to retire, this feature is a valuable archive for his previous work, reaching all the way back to March 1980. It would be hard to find a “title page” for this archive that is better than the cartoon presented here.

Where have you gone Patrick Oliphant? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you!

Is that supposed to the Media under lady Liberty?

Wikipedia: Oliphant’s last syndicated cartoon was published January 13, 2015.

Born 24 July 1935. 81 year old (2016).

Retired now and enjoying life, we hope.

I wish the microwave worked better. My hot pocket is cold.

While I’m glad to see Oliphant back under the new format, if he’s retired, why don’t you run some of his classic cartoons? (You do it with comic strips like Annie…)