The Basic Barrier
September 2nd, 2026 Barry Posted in Economic cartoons, Mike Lawrence collaborations | No Comments »
Another collaboration with the chicken-fat-mad Mike Lawrence! That trap-filled hopscotch board was entirely Mike’s idea.
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels. Each panel shows two friends walking through a wooded park. One is a man wearing a baseball cap and an orange T-shirt, so I’ll call him ORANGE. The other is a woman wearing a red plaid shirt, so I’ll call her PLAID.
PANEL 1
Orange smiles as he reads something on his smartphone. Plaid looks interested.
ORANGE: Look at this! Another study found that basic income works!
PLAID: What’s basic income?
PANEL 2
Orange explains while Plaid hops through a hopscotch grid drawn on the path.
ORANGE: It’s the government giving everyone a basic income, so we’re all guaranteed enough to live on.
PLAID: That sounds amazing. But… if we had that, why would anyone work?
PANEL 3
Orange gestures emphatically with his free hand. Plaid walks with one hand thoughtfully against her chin.
ORANGE: That’s been studied so much… Over and over, when people are given basic incomes, they don’t stop working!
PLAID: Hmm… I’m still against it.
PANEL 4
Orange looks baffled. Plaid shrugs.
ORANGE: But why?
PLAID: I just can’t believe anything that good is possible.
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
“Chicken fat” is an obsolete cartoonists’ term for unimportant but fun details slipped into the art.
PANEL 1: A little gray alien is flying a flying-saucer-shaped kite.
PANEL 2: The hopscotch grid is full of traps, including a spider, tacks, a Lego brick, a mouse frantically waving its arms as if to say “Don’t step on me!,” a pile of poop, a whoopee cushion, a mousetrap, and a bear trap. A “wanted” poster for a raccoon with an eyepatch is nailed to a tree.
PANEL 3: A sasquatch and an Ewok are hiding behind trees; the sasquatch signals to the Ewok to be quiet.
PANEL 4: The raccoon from Panel 2’s “wanted” poster is hiding in the bushes.
CLOTHES: Orange’s T-shirt shows a smiley face in Panel 1, an alien smiley in Panel 2, the blood-spattered Watchmen smiley in Panel 3, and the Hitchhiker’s Guide smiley-faced planet in Panel 4.
Plaid’s T-shirt shows an ear of corn in Panel 2 and a human ear in Panel 4.
Orange’s cap has a picture of a fly (insect) in panel 1, and a picture of a fly (pants) in panel 2.
