Grab your red twine and head to the cork board. Hawaiʻi’s ongoing bribery scandal has devolved into a Scooby-Doo nightmare worthy of the Overlook Hotel.

Pay no attention to the mayor behind the curtain! Honolulu wants a better police chief. The mayor wants to be the Wizard. And the only one pulling back the curtain is a tiny dog with a Civil Beat pin.

“I’m sorry, Hawaiʻi... I’m afraid I can’t donate that. My Super PAC is... going. I can feel it... Daisy, daisy, give me your answer true… I’m half crazy over the constitutional implications of you...”

A wannabe Caesar, a dangling auditor, two hungry lions, and a wheelbarrow full of no-bid cash. Virgil would weep.

Christmas morning brings a miracle: a converted cartoonist. His family doesn't know whether to cheer or call an exorcist.

The ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come shows a political cartoonist his worst-case scenario: A world in which he is miserable and alone, his job is given to a fascist cartoonist, and a dessert tragically dies of over-analysis.

Elis is visited next by the Ghost of Christmas Present, a weary mall Santa with a union card and some inconvenient observations about holiday cheer.

A militant political cartoonist is on track for a very un-merry Christmas season when he is visited in his dreams by the ghost of his own nostalgic past.