F R O M   O U R   C O N T R I B U T O R S
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

----------^PENGUIN soup
---------------------^{FOR THE} soul

128 PAGES

It's a good thing cartoonist Tom Tomorrow loves controversy, because this year he's been swimming in it. The Salon contributor was fired from U.S. News & World Report after a six-month run. Then he was fired from Brill's Content before its first issue had even hit the newsstands. (Maybe it was the cartoon that suggested that the real media bias derives from biases of the publisher.) Then the weekly Oklahoma Gazette canned him after he used images from a slightly naughty 18th century engraving to illustrate a cartoon about the media's obsession with sex scandals. Tom Tomorrow is indeed, as Kurt Vonnegut has put it, "the wry voice of American common sense," but he clearly (and happily) isn't ready for the mainstream.

Tomorrow's new collection of literate, deadpan, leftist cartoons, "Penguin Soup for the Soul," is his best yet. It's a collection that reads like a subversive journal of political and social life in the late 1990s. Tomorrow brings back his regular cast of characters -- Sparky the Wonder Penguin (the smartest, nastiest cartoon beast around) and Biff and Betty -- in cartoons that riff on the strange days we've found ourselves living through. Remember Mad Cow Disease, the Promise Keepers, the Dole-Clinton campaign and the V-Chip? Tomorrow does. Other acerbic cartoons attack Dilbert's politics, defend Michael Moore and poke holes in Kenneth Starr's political maneuverings. The final cartoons in "Penguin Soup for the Soul" expertly lampoon Monica-mania. With the situation in Washington changing daily, we can't wait to see what Tomorrow does next.
SALON | Sept. 25, 1998