I collected comic books as a kid – thousands of comic books. The Charles Atlas ad at the right was burned into my brain. The ad didn’t influence me to exercise (I’m too lazy for that) but it motivated me to draw the cartoon above, with Obama, Ukraine and Putin at the beach.

Ukraine is a tough metaphor because we don’t really have any good visual icons or characters that scream “Ukraine” at a glance, so I’ve taken to depicting Ukraine as a pudgy, braided, blond chick.

She is wearing a bathing suit in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, but I’m sure American readers won’t notice that.  In the drawing below, she is with caveman-Putin, wearing traditional, Ukrainian garb …

Here she is again, in the same clothes, getting robbed by Putin while Obama stands by …

Putin has his own traditional garb – he doesn’t wear a shirt.

My last Charles Atlas metaphor cartoon is below, from more than ten years ago during the run-up George W. Bush’s war in Iraq.  Things don’t change much as we’re seeing the media push war on us all over again.