Richard's Poor Almanac is a cartoon series by Richard Thompson

Richard Thompson (cartoonist)

Richard C. Thompson is an illustrator and cartoonist best known for his syndicated comic strip Cul de Sac and the illustrated poem "Make the Pie Higher". He was given the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year in 2011....

 which appears weekly (usually on Saturdays) in The Washington Post Style section. It began in 1997.

Make the Pie Higher

The Richard's Poor Almanac cartoon published the week of George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

's first inauguration was Thompson's mock inaugural poem, "Make the Pie Higher," composed of some of Bush's more incoherent quotations. When "Make the Pie Higher" was leaked onto the Internet, it spread rapidly and was eventually dissected and analyzed on Snopes, which did a lengthy review of its origins. The poem has been set to music at least five times in various styles, including Irish and choral music. Thompson's illustration shows the inaugural crowd fleeing as Bush speaks:

I think we all agree, the past is over.

This is still a dangerous world.

It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?

Will the highways of the Internet become more few?

How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me.

I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.

I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.

Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!

Knock down the tollbooth!

Vulcanize Society!

Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher!

Major league.

In 2008, Thompson recalled the circumstances that led to the creation of the "Make the Pie Higher" poem:

I did "Make the Pie Higher" the week of Bush's first inaugural in response to his lack of a major poet reading an inspiring poem, like Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...

 did for Kennedy or Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first and most highly...

 did for Clinton. It seemed a big deal at the time, this lack of major poetry. So I took a bunch of Bushisms, you know, his malaprop comments, and formed them into a free-verse poem. When I sent the rough to Tom Shroder

Tom Shroder

Tom Shroder is an award-winning journalist, writer and editor, who worked for the Washington Post for many years. Shroder is co-author of Fire on the Horizon: the Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster and author of Old Souls: Scientific Evidence From Children Who Remember Previous Lives...

, who was then editing "Sunday Style," he said are these real quotes? And I said yes, they all have sources, and he said OK great. When I put it together it seemed kind of a clever idea, though I wondered who would get it. But it ran, and I liked the drawing I did of Bush addressing the crowd. About six months later Tom called and said, "That "Pie" thing's all over the Internet, and it's even got your name on it (as a Post writer)." But so much stuff gets all over the Internet it didn't register with me much until I started getting requests to set it to music, and a friend who plays in a folk group told me they'd been singing it for a year or two without knowing who wrote it. Well, assembled it. Now by my count it's been set to music, including Irish ballad style and for women's chorus. If I had any business acumen, I'd've made some money off it.

Book

A collection, Richard's Poor Almanac: 12 Months of Misinformation in Handy Cartoon Form, was published by Emmis Books in 2004. Comics historian Tom Spurgeon

Tom Spurgeon

Tom Spurgeon is an American writer, historian and editor in the field of comics, notable for his five-year run as editor of The Comics Journal and his blog The Comics Reporter, which he launched in 2004 with site designer Jordan Raphael.-Books:...

gave it a highly favorable review in 2008:

The great, emerging star of this decade's newspaper strip scene, Richard Thompson hasn't stopped doing his Richard's Poor Almanac work in favor of spending more time getting Cul De Sac out. This collection of those works from a few years back shows that were he to abandon the Almanac for any reason it would be a total shame. Trenchant and exceedingly wry, this book may frighten if like me you realize that these comics have been around for as long as they have without your being aware of them.