He's Baaaack

After his crash-and-burn four-day debut, cartoonist Mike Thompson was absent from the Star Tribune's op-ed page for about 10 days.

Given that he had just started the job, I don't think that was a planned break. I have no way of knowing if it was disciplinary in nature, or just a time for the public to have a cooling off period. Maybe his bosses thought we would forget.

Well, he was finally back in yesterday's paper with this:

My read on it is that Thompson has been told to stick to national topics until he better understands local issues and politics. We'll see if that prediction holds up.

Which, if true... fine. This cartoon is at least intelligible and 50% more clever than anything was even attempting in the other four. (Though I don't think he had to label Clarence Thomas, given the word balloons.)

But now I keep thinking about what another friend of mine said about his drawing style: it looks as though he learned his people-drawing skills from a caricature course taught by one of the guys who hawks his work at an amusement park.