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Blog Newsletter Syndicate

Baghdadi Doggie

President Trump recently announced a raid in Syria that killed the ISIS chieftain Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Trump saved his highest praise for an unnamed, brave doggie that chased Baghdadi through a tunnel, where Baghdadi killed himself along with three of his kids, with a suicide vest. The doggie was injured in the explosion.

It was easy for me to see that the star of this raid was the doggie. Yesterday, Trump released a declassified photo of the doggie, whose name remained classified. It was easy for me to see that the doggie was the star of this story, and I drew this cartoon quickly on Sunday, with the doggie in his hospital bed, wearing his battle medal. My cartoon was the first of the Baghdadi cartoons to be delivered, considering that most cartoonists don’t work on Sundays. I had to guess what the doggie looked like, and with the later release of the photo I saw that I was pretty close – I missed the black face, but close enough.

Here’s another take on the doggie from cartoonist Joe Heller.  To be fair, this isn’t really the cute hero doggie, this is another dog in hell that is at the Baghdadi Welcome Party.

I thought there would be more doggie cartoons in response to the Baghdadi story, but these are the only ones that came in.

I think my cartoons would be more popular if I drew only doggies. Or kitties. All the time.

Here’s a pic of the hero doggie, that Trump posted on Twitter:

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Blog Syndicate

Orlando Shooting

Such a horror. I drew this one quickly this morning. Our hearts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

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Blog Syndicate

Trump and the Easter Bunny

There has been a lot of talk about Donald Trump’s foreign policy advisors. Trump says he consults himself on foreign policy issues, which makes for a nice Easter cartoon. The cartoon harkens back to Jimmy Stewart’s “Harvey” the invisible bunny friend.

trump-bunny750

The video below shows me drawing the whole thing, from start to finish in real time!

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Blog Syndicate

The pundits on Fox News are holding their breath, turning blue, waiting for Obama to say the words, “Islamic Terrorists.” It may be a long wait.

I’ve gotten comments about how there appears to be nothing inside of Obama’s head. I wasn’t really thinking about making him be brainless, rather I was thinking of his skull as something of an echo chamber.

This cartoon was the product of my first try at live streaming the process of my drawing a cartoon. I had some tech difficulties, particularly with the sound. And I see that I will need to develop a new skill set for talking constantly while I draw. I should do a little better next time, solving these problems as I go along. Take a look at the YouTube video of my drawing session below. If the streaming is popular I’ll set up a regular time for it in the future. In the meantime, I’ll announce on Facebook and Twitter when I’ll be going live on YouTube.

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Blog Columns Syndicate

Muhammad Cartoon Stimulus and Response … and Repeat

We just saw yet another terror attack provoked by cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, this time at a “Draw Muhammad” cartoon contest in Garland Texas. A competent cop shot two home-grown terrorist gunmen before much damage was done. The event was organized by a right-wing group called “Stop Islamization of America” that was best known for opposing the construction of a mosque in Manhattan. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists them as a hate group, which they deny.

Cartoonist Rénald “Luz” Luzier, who drew the famous Charlie Hebdo cover after the shootings in France, recently decided he would no longer draw Muhammad cartoons. I can sympathize with Luz’s choice, since he’s now “typecast” as the premier Muhammad cartoonist – It seems reasonable that Luz wouldn’t want his career to be boiled down to being the “Muhammad cartoon guy.”

I’m an editorial cartoonist; I haven’t drawn a Muhammad cartoon myself, because I haven’t been inspired to do so. I shy away from drawing cartoons that some people would find offensive. I don’t use four letter words, or the “N-word” in my cartoons. I don’t draw sexually explicit cartoons. Offensive subject matter in cartoons can be so loud that it drowns out anything else I might want to say in a cartoon, except, “Look, I have the freedom to draw something offensive.”

Many cartoonists have drawn Muhammad cartoons, and racist cartoons, and dirty cartoons; that’s fine, that’s their business – but drawing offensive stuff just to draw attention to myself, or to prove that I have the right to do so, just looks like lousy cartooning to me. The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were doing more than that; they were addressing issues in French culture that were important to them, and rejecting all religions that they felt didn’t fit with their secular society.

I knew three of the five Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who were murdered earlier this year and I got to know more of them at French cartoon festivals. They have a genuine passion for their issues and our conversations always turned to a discussion of their religion-bashing cartoons. Here in America we’re not faced with the same social pressures and similar cartoons here should seem out of place.

The “Stop Islamization of America” people, who sponsored this contest, are poking the extremist Islamic beast to elicit a predictable response. This violent, cartoon stimulus and response will surely continue to be repeated.

It doesn’t matter that I personally don’t choose to draw Muhammad cartoons, or that most cartoonists don’t care to draw offensive cartoons, all editorial cartoonists are now being seen as recklessly poking surly Islamic beasts. My profession is being painted with the Muhammad cartoon broad-brush.

I was recently asked to speak at a local college, and I met the college president; the first thing he said to me was, “Now, don’t show any of those Muhammad cartoons.” This is not unusual. Casual conversations with editorial cartoonists often start with, “So, do you draw those Muhammad cartoons too?”

Like Luz was typecast, it seems we’re all typecast now.

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Cartoons

Draw More Muhammad Cartoons

Draw More Muhammad Cartoons © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,Cartoons, Muhammad, Prophet Muhammad, Danish, French, France, Charlie Hebdo, Isis, Isil, Daesh, Islamic State, Garland, terrorism, texas, satan, devil, KKK, Ku Kux Klan, Nazi, Swastika, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, SIOA, Stop Islamization of America, Pamela Geller

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Blog

New Cartoon Brings Death Threats from ISIS/ISIL/DAESH

My cartoonist buddy Osama Hajjaj in Jordan drew a cartoon this week that he describes as depicting Arab women’s struggle and suffering under Islamic/Sharia Law. Osama tells me he’s received a torrent of abusive reaction to the cartoon from Muslim readers, but more of a concern are credible death threats from ISIS/ISIL/DAESH members emanating from Jordan and neighboring Syria. Osama writes:

“… but no matter what, those cowards won’t stop me and I still believe that Freedom of thought and expression is a human right. To detain and threaten people for exercising their human rights is the epitome of barbarism. Blasphemy is a crime for those who have weak ideas and corrupt morals.”

Osama sent me links to some news reports about the ISIL/ISIS/DAESH death threats, like this one, but I must admit, my Arabic is a little rusty. Police in Jordan are investigating. Being an editorial cartoonist in the Middle East is a dangerous job. See more of Osama Hajjaj’s work here.

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Blog

Cartoon Bombs … Really

Nothing makes Islamic radicals more angry than cartoons, so, why not drop cartoon bombs on the enemy? Looks like the Pentagon already thought of that.

According to the Daily Mail in Britain, the U.S. Air Force recently utilized an F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet to drop a specially designed “leaflet-dispenser-bomb” for the first time in Syria, dispersing 60,000 copies of the cartoon below on the town of Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of ISIS, ISIL, Islamic State, IS or “Daesh”.

The sign in the cartoon reads, “Daesh Recruiting Office,” the word on the meat grinder is “Daesh”. The wording on the monitor at the right of the cartoon reads, “now serving 7001” and the ticket dropped by the first person in line has the number “7001.”

This cartoonist could have a promising career as a conservative – just put donkey heads on these two Daish guys, change the wording on the meat grinder to “Obamacare” and I could see this cartoon being reprinted in Tennessee.

DroppedonRaqqa

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Blog

Eeeeww! So nasty!

The French weekly newsmagazine, Courrier International, is a great customer and, if I draw a cartoon only in black and white, I’ve been OK with their coloring my cartoons – if they want. This has never been a problem before. Today I saw this cartoon I drew back in 2006, in black and white, showed up in Courrier with very nasty coloring.

Eeeeww! Yuck! I think I need to rethink being so generous about my coloring policy. Both BW and color versions are below.

CourrierColoringhezbollah-we-win-dead-cagle

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Blog

More Troops for Iraq

I voted for Obama because he promised to get the US out of Iraq – now he’s creeping us back in. With the Republicans controlling Congress, I’m guessing that the mission creep will continue. What is so bizarre is that everyone seems to recognize that Iraq (and the rest of the Middle East for that matter) is an endless quagmire – but still public opinion is solidly behind jumping back in to bash “ISIS-ISIL-IS-Islamic State-Daesh”.

It is fascinating to me that the vast majority of editorial cartoonists draw cartoon after cartoon about how bad the “ISIS-ISIL-IS-Islamic State-Daesh” guys are, and seem to be on the mission creep bandwagon, headed back to Iraq. Here’s today’s cartoon about the 1,500 additional troops Obama is sending to Iraq now.

Here’s a tiny detail, so we don’t lose track of the troops.

TrropDetail600wide

We’re bombing “ISIS-ISIL-IS-Islamic State-Daesh” in Syria also – but not bombing Bashar Assad. It wasn’t long ago that Obama was eager to bomb the Assad regime, after they used chemical weapons and crossed his “red line”. At the time, I drew this one …

and this one …

maybe these two cartoons were right for a few minutes – Obama seemed to back off and lose interest in bombing Assad. That red line nonsense seemed less important.

But now it has gone full circle – and the press, reflecting public opinion seems to be pushing Obama. I can’t really tell if Obama is reluctant or not. I suppose it doesn’t matter whether he’s being pushed or leading the charge when the direction is clear.