bruce tinsley, conservative cartoonist who draws the riotously unfunny strip mallard fillmore, has been arrested for a DUI. tdw broke the story yesterday. the indy star picked it up soon thereafter (complete with mugshot; note the resemblance between tinsley and mallard), and then atrios picked it up.

normally, it wouldn't be news that some jerk got busted for drinking & driving. even the fact that tinsley is an overly moralistic right-winger who eagerly bashes liberals for every perceived slight while himself engaging in activities of questionable morality is no longer news these days, after all the republican scandals of the past few years.

but then, factor in the fact that tinsley has never been able to resist making chappaquiddick jokes, and now you're getting somewhere funny!

well, someone had to do it. some brave soul had to browse through the mallard fillmore archives looking for strips with chappaquiddick jokes and other drunk-driving material. for good measure, i'm also including any "drunked democrat" jokes. so here goes. you can thank me in the comments.

disclaimer: the following comic strips are extremely not funny! read them at your own risk!

update: images resized to fit design. click for full-size version.


had enough? i sure have... and i've only gotten through 2004! the archives go all the way back to '99! so i'm stopping for now... maybe later i'll be able to muster up enough fortitude to go back in and start looking for older examples.

*i'm not sure whether this really qualifies as a chappaquiddick joke, so i'm including it for good measure.¶

wow, i didn't think it was possible to be *less* funny than marmaduke. ¶

Yeah, you'll notice for all the political cartoons I post on bilerico.com, for some reason *deadpans* I never post a Mallard Fillmore. Could it be they just aren't funny?

Eh, the guy is from Columbus, IN. That should tell us a lot about his sense of humor. He has to have one - look at where he lives! ¶

our local gannett rag not only runs doonesbury on the editorial page, but it runs mallard fillmore right next to it. because, you know, an intelligent and well-drawn strip needs a counterpoint in order for the paper to be fair and balanced.

i gimp'ed out the dialogue of the 12/1/06 strip if anyone wants to take a whack at filling in their own in an effort to make it both topical and funny. check it. ¶

Conservative humor... always the same three jokes: Clinton is a womanizer, Ted Kennedy drinks, and Michael Moore is fat. How they can always laugh at these three jokes repeated over and over is a mystery to me. ¶

Conservative humor... always the same three jokes: Clinton is a womanizer, Ted Kennedy drinks, and Michael Moore is fat. How they can always laugh at these three jokes repeated over and over is a mystery to me. ¶

The guy is *almost* Family Circus funny. ¶