WINNER OF THE 2013 HERBLOCK AWARD!

Hey! Tom Tomorrow's newest compilation is hot off the presses -- and available exclusively at TopatoCo (where you'll also find a variety of fine t-shirts, plush Sparkys, and other merchandise)! Featuring the last two years of TMW cartoons in full, glorious color, an introduction by Eddie Vedder, and extensive annotation!

ALSO: please consider joining SPARKY'S LIST!

Michael Cavna covers it for his Comic Riffs column at the Washington Post, here. Paul Krugman (!) gives a shoutout, here. And Matt Bors discusses the judging, here.

Also have been inundated in tweets and emails from all of you. Thank you!

Crazy couple of days, to say the least.

adding: also this, at Big Think.

I’m immensely honored to announce that This Modern World has won the 2013 Herblock Prize.

WASHINGTON, DC, February 25, 2013 – Dan Perkins, pen name Tom Tomorrow, was named the winner of the 2013 Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning.

Perkins is the creator of the weekly political cartoon, This Modern World, which appears in approximately 80 papers, mostly altweeklies. He is the editor of the comics section he created in April 2011 on Daily Kos. His cartoons have been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, U.S. News & World Report and The Economist. He lives outside of New Haven, Connecticut with his wife and their son.

The prize is awarded annually by The Herb Block Foundation for “distinguished examples of editorial cartooning that exemplify the courageous independent standard set by Herblock.” The winner receives a $15,000 after-tax cash prize and a sterling silver Tiffany trophy. Perkins will receive the prize April 25th in a ceremony held at the Library of Congress.

Jack Ohman, the editorial cartoonist for The Sacramento Bee, was named this year’s finalist and will receive a $5,000 after-tax cash prize.

Gwen Ifill, moderator and managing editor of “Washington Week” and senior correspondent for “The PBS Newshour,” will deliver the annual Herblock Lecture at the awards ceremony. Previous speakers have included Ben Bradlee, then-Senator Barack Obama, Sandra Day O’Connor, Tom Brokaw, Tim Russert, Ted Koppel, George Stevens Jr., Jim Lehrer and Garry Trudeau.

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The BS approach.

A couple readers were kind enough to send items off the wish list recently. One came with paperwork identifying the sender, who has been privately thanked. The other did not. So if you sent something and haven’t heard from me, shoot me an email so I know who you are.

From the Yale Daily News:

School of Medicine psychiatry professor Charles Morgan told the News in January that he hopes to propose the creation of a center at the Medical School in cooperation with the U.S. Army Special Operations Forces called the U.S. Special Operations Command Center of Excellence for Operational Neuroscience, which would teach soldiers interview techniques. Yale’s statement said the School of Medicine has not formally proposed opening the center, and denied media reports that the training facility will teach interrogation tactics and that the research will take advantage of minority populations in New Haven.

Well that’s not at all disturbing then.

Donald Trump is threatening my friend @GoAngelo with a $25 million lawsuit, after the latter launched an effort urging Macy’s to dump their repellent, politically divisive lunatic of a spokesperson.

In a letter dated Dec. 27, Garten charged Carusone with undertaking “malicious efforts” to interfere with Trump’s business relationships and spreading misinformation about the size and success of the protest.
“Rather than simply engage in lawful protest, you have apparently made it your mission to interfere with and intentionally disrupt Mr. Trump’s long-standing and well-established business relationship with Macy’s as well as his contractual dealings with other third parties through mob-like bullying and coercion,” reads the letter from Garten, executive vp and litigation counsel at The Trump Organization.

Full story here.

…Update: hahahahahhaha.

Translation: he called my bluff, and I got nothin.

The tree of liberty.

For anyone else who happens to be hooked on Justified … the problem with the new season is that we’re spending a lot of time looking for someone who is only a name, Drew Thompson, and we don’t really have much reason to care about him one way or the other. They’re clearly building toward a big reveal, and basic dramatic structure requires that it be something shocking to the viewer. If Drew Thompson turns out to be someone we’ve never seen before, then we’re left at the end with a big “so what?”, and I think it’s much too smart a show for that. So he’s got to be someone we already know. It can’t be Arlo, his history is too well established. I’m guessing it could turn out to be Shelby, in light of his newfound prominence in this season’s narrative. (Though as someone quickly notes on Twitter, he was in the same room with Josiah, who showed no sign of recognition, so maybe I’m totally off base. Maybe someone from a previous season?)

Update 3/1/13: Finally got a moment to watch this week’s episode. After Shelby’s line about how, if you pretend long enough, you become what you pretend to be — and his slightly off-character interest in seeing Drew Thompson’s wife “because she’s a looker” — I’m sticking with my prediction above.

…with Professor Droney.

… from about a year ago:

(click to embiggen)