A cartoon of Texas with the words "Loon Star State" inside its outline. The "L" in "Loon" is wearing a hat that's part cowboy and part dunce cap.
(Ben Sargent)

Loon Star State: Utter Fantasies!

This is fine.

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A version of this story ran in the March / April 2024 issue.

Utter Fantasies a cartoon describing the fictional Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, a Leprechaun and lastly the success of the secession movement.
(Ben Sargent)

To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section, or find Observer political reporting here.

Read more from the Observer:

An ad with the text: The MOLLYs National Journalism Prize Gala. Honor Bold journalism! May 6, 2026, Austin, TX. A button reads: Sponsor a table today
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  • Texas GOP Flirts with Secession —Contributor David Brockman’s reporting from the 2016 Texas GOP convention where a vote to add secession to the party platform nearly succeeded.

is the Texas Observer's longtime cartoonist. He launched his career drawing editorial cartoons for the Austin American-Statesman in 1974. He was born in Amarillo into a newspaper family and learned the printing trade from age 12 and started working for the local daily as a proof runner at 14. He attended Amarillo College and received a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in 1970. Sargent won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1982. He has also received awards from Women in Communications, Inc., Common Cause of Texas, and Cox Newspapers. He is the author of Texas Statehouse Blues (1980) and Big Brother Blues (1984).

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