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Obama, Putin, Assad and Doggies

I think all world issues can be boiled down to doggies.

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Blog Syndicate

Tennessee Shooting Memorial

This is my cartoon on the Tennessee shooting tragedy. I didn’t think I could do anything more than the flowers and flags I’m seeing on the news, so I went with flags at half mast. This is probably a local cartoon, since many readers around the country won’t know the Tennessee flag, still, it is a local tragedy deserving of a local cartoon.

This reminds us that Tennessee is part of a big, ugly world.

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Training Iraqi Troops

There’s been a a lot in the news about how Iraqi troops cut and run when they face off with ISIS. The US Army trained Iraqi troops for years, but it doesn’t seem to stick. Now President Obama is re-doubling the training efforts, but I’m guessing that won’t make any difference.

I had in mind that there would be a caption to this cartoon, “Training Iraqi Troops,” and as I looked at it, it seems better without a caption, although it isn’t really clear that it is about training Iraqi troops, still, no caption is better.

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Hillary the Commander-in-Chief

Here’s Commander-in-Chief Hillary! Back in 2008 there was a lot of chatter about whether Hillary was up to the job of commanding the troops. Hillary told a story about how she was “dodging bullets” as she flew into Bosnia – a story that would have shamed even Brian Williams.

We also heard a lot about how Hillary thought America would rather she got an emergency call at 3:00 in the morning, instead of Barack Obama. I drew a cartoon similar to this one in 2008, with Hillary’s medals, and I realized that in only seven years, many of the medals have changed, but Hillary is basically the same. Here’s a new, updated version of my military, Hillary golden oldie. Come see our big collection of Bill ‘n Hillary cartoons.

 

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Hillary’s E-mail Scandal

I don’t quite understand the Hillary e-mail scandal. There was no law against her using her own e-mail at the time she did it. She had her own e-mail server and 50,000+ emails, but I also have my own e-mail server and 50,000+emails, so it doesn’t seem so strange to me. And if she hadn’t had her own server, all of her emails would Surely have been stolen and revealed by Edward Snowden, so in retrospect, it seems prudent. Much ado about nothing, I think.


E-mail is always a great topic for cartoons.


I’ve been thinking of updating the Hillary-general cartoon below to add an e-mail medal, and take out the stale medals about 2008 election news that everyone has forgotten (like “Michigan” and “Florida”). I drew this one when the daily pundit babble was about Hillary claiming she would make a much better commander in chief, compared to Obama.

I suspect Hillary would have been much more of a hawk than Obama, and would have gotten us much more mixed-up into the middle East muddle. If I had to choose between Hillary and goofy Rand Paul, I think I would vote for Rand Paul, just because I trust that he really don’t want our military meddling around the globe.

I remember back in 2007 there was a scandal about Karl Rove deleting his emails while he worked at the White House. Pundit hacks like Rove benefit from our short memories, as they attack Hillary now.

And please help us out with Cagle.com, now that the site is so much more expensive for us to host. Visit: http://cagle.com/heroes

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Blog Cartoons

The Ferguson Wave!

Here’s my new cartoon, the “Ferguson Wave.”

Apparently, this cartoon is a bit difficult to understand; I’ve been asked to explain it too often.  So, here goes, as the cop walks by, the black folks raise their hands, and to the old ladies, that looks like they are doing “the Wave” at the ball park.  That’s all there is.  Nothing more.  Really.  Not so funny when I have to explain it, huh?

Here’s the rough sketch.  I figure most of the drawing out in the rough sketch stage, then the rest is just rendering.

FergusonWaveSketch

Most newspapers reprint my cartoons in black and white, and I usually do a separate coloring job for a grayscale cartoon for most readers to see.  Here’s the black and white version.  Somehow, I think black and white is always better.

 

 

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Gotta Love Those Policemen

Here’s my new cartoon, about the militarized police, reaching out to the community in Ferguson, Missouri.

Ferguson, police, race,riot,murder,killer cops,chocolate,flowers,military

The situation struck me as similar to the military trying to “win the hearts and minds” of people in Afghanistan. A couple of years ago, I drew the cartoon below …

afghanistan,soldier,hearts and minds,chocolate

Militaries break things well, they don’t build things well – including good relationships with the communities they occupy.  I don’t like seeing police departments act like the military.

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Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville!

Here I sit in my new Nashville, Tennessee apartment, trying out a new restaurant for every meal, and finally drawing cartoons.  I finished my second cartoon in Nashville today – a busy, crowd scene cartoon about Obama and foreign aid to Egypt.  Here is my rough pencil sketch.
EgyptAidSketch600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

I drew this first with a light, hard, #5 pencil to get the people in the crowd into the right composition, so they are interacting with each other, have expressive body language, their faces aren’t obscured, the feet and arms are on right … all those details need to be thought through for each figure; better to do it in a sketch than on the fly in in finished art.   The line art is below.  I debated whether to go with just line for the black and white version that most people see in the newspaper.

136479 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Here is the gray-scale version.  I thought it read a bit better with tone.  I do the gray-scale separately.  It isn’t just a gray version of the color cartoon.

136480 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

I usually avoid doing crowd scenes.  When I was an illustrator, I used to do a lot of crowd scenes.  I think art directors would sit in a brainstorming meeting and come up with a list of too many things that they needed to put in an ad – so they would call a cartoonist to jam it all into one piece of art.  Cartoonists get these jobs because the lists are too long, so the art has to be crazy. In fact, crowd scenes are usually not very effective compositions.  The most effective compositions show powerful character and expression, which is better done with large figures and faces.  With too many little figures in a crowd, the power of the expressions and body language are lost to tiny details.  That said, I hate to admit that sometimes a concept calls for a crowd scene.

Here’s the color cartoon …

136481 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

This one suffers from low resolution on the web, and will look much better in print, with crisp lines and texture in the tiny characters.  Here is a detail.

aiddetail Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

One funny thing about cartoon crowd scenes; when readers send me unsolicited ideas for cartoons, the ideas are almost always for crowd scenes.  The reader wants to say so much in his cartoon idea, that he comes up with a list of junk to include, just like the sloppy advertising art directors.  Some ideas I get start with, “draw an army on the left, and another army on the right …” or the reader will write, “fill the sky with helicopters …” Not only am I too lazy for this, all the tiny details would be ineffective in the composition, and the cartoon would be lousy.  For people who think in words, not images, these list-cartoons make perfect sense; to cartoonists, they are nonsense.

The previous cartoon is another Egypt/Arab Spring drawing.  Here’s the rough pencil sketch.  Notice that I drew Obama too low and made a note to move him up.  I make lots of mistakes.  Mistakes are easy to fix.  Better to make lots of mistakes and have no fear of mistakes – at least in cartoons.  I wouldn’t give that advice to my dentist.

AmericanSketch600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Here is the line art version that most people will see in the newspapers.  No gray version for this one.  I like to keep them as line art if possible – there is something more elegant about not having to rely on tone.

136409 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

And here is the color …

136415 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

This cartoon is similar to one I drew a week earlier, with Obama and the Republicans.  I like the yellow ochre texture background for dirty fighting scenes.

135857 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

 

Obama doesn’t actually wear pinstripe suits.  He wears plain black and blue suits, which are no fun to draw.  So I take some artistic license.  This recent Detroit-in-the-toilet cartoon also uses the yellow ochre, grungy theme that I’m fond of right now.

136000 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Another recent one I neglected to post is this one about the chilly relations with Russia – not much of a cartoon, just an illustration of chilly relations.

135924 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Sorry, with the move to Nashville I’ve fallen behind.  I’ll catch up soon.

Nashville is starting to grow on me.  I’ll get used to it soon – when it cools off and the humidity goes down.

 

 

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Look at My Medals!

Here’s my newest cartoon – another cliche cartoon about the military guy showing off and explaining his medals, regarding the recent sexual assault and harassment issues in the military.

132835 600 Look at My Medals! cartoonsMy buddy, Milt Priggee did one of these today also, on the same topic, but Milt’s was a bit harsh and I don’t think it will get reprinted much.

132800 600 Look at My Medals! cartoons

Here’s one I did recently when the military finally allowed for equal treatment of women in combat.

126086 600 Look at My Medals! cartoons

I did this one when the military struck down “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

87150 600 Look at My Medals! cartoons

Here’s one from when Hillary Clinton was running for president, arguing that she would be a great commander-in-chief.
49483 600 Look at My Medals! cartoons

I did this one with the General Petraeus scandal.
122322 600 Look at My Medals! cartoons

Here’s another nice medals cartoon by John Darkow, about the Petraeus scandal.

122272 600 Look at My Medals! cartoons

Cartoonists are so crazy-motivated to get awards, I think the cartooning awards should all come in the form of medals the cartoonists can wear to show off how much better they are then each other – kind of like peacocks flaunting their plumage.  it would make our conventions more fun.

 

 

 

 

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Women in Combat, Obama’s 2nd Term and Hillary

Here are my most recent cartoons and the sketches that, for some reason, you like to see.  The first one is on Obama’s apparent transformation into a more liberal Obama in his second term.  First the pencil sketch.

2ndTermSketch Women in Combat, Obamas 2nd Term and Hillary cartoonsThen I trace the sketch for line art on vellum.  This is what most people see in the newspapers that still print in black and white.

Line2ndTermTransformation Women in Combat, Obamas 2nd Term and Hillary cartoons… and here it is in color.

600Wide2ndTermTransform Women in Combat, Obamas 2nd Term and Hillary cartoonsObama also seems to be getting more of a spine.  Here is the previous cartoon, on Hillary’s testimony in congress.

126033 600 Women in Combat, Obamas 2nd Term and Hillary cartoons

126086 600 Women in Combat, Obamas 2nd Term and Hillary cartoonsThat’s really Hillary’s testimony in the small type in her speech balloon, and that’s what she was really thinking in the thought balloon. Hillary is fun to draw, and the glasses are great.

At the right is my most recent cartoon about Defense Secretary Panetta’s announcement that all areas of the military, that had previously been closed to women, will now be open to qualified women – a change that is long overdue.

We have a great collection of cartoons on Women in Combat – come look!