LOVE LESSONS

A “SEXTING” SCANDAL forced
Representative Anthony Weiner, one of the
Democrats’ most effective liberal voices, to resign
from Congress in June 2011. Although he was first
outed by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart,
Weiner participated in his own demise by fervently
denying he’d sent lewd photos of himself to various
women (though it was later proven he had). The
whole mess was so sordid that the media—and
Barry Blitt—didn’t hesitate to indulge in “weiner
jokes” (right and below), though in the end the
timing of a double issue prevented us from running
a cover on that topic. Blitt had Weiner walking
into a landscape populated with Weiner Hot
Dogs, Johnson
& Johnson,
Dick’s Sporting
Goods, Coq au
Vin, a Package
Store, Members
Only, and a
movie marquee
featuring Free
Willy and Shaft.
Harry Bliss’s
special-sale image
(opposite) came
unprompted by
any news event.

FOR A PLANNED SPECIAL summer issue called “Love Lessons,” years
before the Anthony Weiner scandal, Art Spiegelman had submitted a beach
scene featuring a phallic sand castle (left) and later a revision (below). Art
explains the thinking behind the revision: “When time went by without a

response, I got restless and pressed the editor,
Tina, who, preoccupied with other things,
asked if I had anything about the Kennedy
family. Baffled, I resubmitted my sketch with
Ted Kennedy’s face superimposed on the
phallic tower. Tina had somehow never seen
my first submission, so my sarcastic Kennedy
version totally mystified her.”

“I don’t think I seriously expected it to get
approved, but I submitted it on the principle of
‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’ ”

–ART SPIEGELMAN

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