Here’s a batch of some crazy TRUE stuff from my factual cartoon panel from the 1990’s that never gets old!
COVID California
Here’s a new collection of my old TRUE cartoons about devils, angels and yucky stuff!
I’ll be posting more TRUE cartoons soon.
Want to see more collections of my TRUE cartoons? Here are some cool links:
TRUE HEALTH STATISTICS 2!
TRUE KIDS!
TRUE KIDS 2!
TRUE WOMEN’S BODY IMAGES
TRUE HISTORY
TRUE! MARRIAGE!
TRUE MARRIAGE 2
TRUE BUSINESS
When Trump first came on the scene the cartoonists started drawing Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan right away. That annoyed me. So much for that – with Trumps comments today that implied culpability and moral equivalency between Klansmen and Nazis and the people who protest against them.
We’re getting a big increase in complaints from editors since Trump was elected. Most of the complaints are about “imbalance” from editors who want to see “pro-Trump” cartoons. I don’t know any “pro-Trump” cartoonists, but we’re thinking about how to be responsive to the complaints and there are other complaints.
Editors complain about cartoons that are too raunchy. The cartoons have gotten a lot dirtier with the rise of Trump. Even though newspaper editors choose which cartoon they want to print, many complain loudly that we even have raunchy cartoons available that they pass over and never print. More importantly we have gotten complaints from schools who want to use our sites in the classroom, so we decided to start cleaning up the cartoons by killing cartoons that have graphic sexual depictions and curse words. Of-course, the other newspaper syndicates have always done this, but as a cartoonist run syndicate I suppose I’ve been a little lax.
One of the first cartoons that got caught up in our new dragnet is the cartoon below by conservative cartoonist, Sean Delonas. My editor, Brian Fairrington, killed the cartoon below because of a bare-breasted “naked lady” in the lower right corner.
Sean amended the cartoon to this version that we have posted now …
I came to this a little late and asked Sean what the story was behind the topless lady. Sean told me that was no lady, that’s Teddy Kennedy. Why the boobs? Sean simply imagined that Teddy’s chest would look like that.
And why is Teddy Kennedy in Hell? Because of Chappaquiddick? No. Sean tells me that there’s no real reason Kennedy is in hell, Sean just he likes to put little Teddy Kennedys into his cartoons and he has done it for years. I guess I didn’t notice.
Sean worked for many years as the cartoonist for the New York Post; he tells me that the folks at the Post really didn’t like Kennedy because of his role in forcing Rupert Murdoch to sell the Post in 1988. Sean’s editors at the Post encouraged him to bash Teddy Kennedy in his cartoons as often as possible, and Sean made it a regular habit that he continues.
Sean adds that he didn’t mind the edit, and that he draws himself bare chested in the same way, because he could afford to lose a little weight. I should add that Cagle Cartoons has no problem with being half-eaten by a worm monster in hell, as long as you’re not topless while being half-eaten by a worm monster.
Gotta love journalism, huh? See more of Sean wild, conservative cartoons here.
Need a closer look? Here’s the detail …
I have the same conversation over and over. “Oh! You’re a political cartoonist! You’ve got so much great material now! What a wonderful time to be a cartoonist!” and I reply, “Well … no.” In fact, this is the worst time ever for editorial cartoonists.
Interest in politics doesn’t translate into better sales for editorial cartoons; there is still only one hole for a cartoon on the editorial page of each newspaper, even when the news is brisk.
As newspapers have suffered in recent years, and cartoonists continue to lose their staff jobs, the quality of editorial cartoons has flourished with a broader range of styles and viewpoints, and with cartoonists doing better work than ever – but that was before Donald Trump. I’m not aware of any professional political cartoonist who supports Trump. There is no range of views in cartoons about Trump.
There is an internet truism called “Godwin’s Law,” which states that the longer an online discussion goes on, the more likely it is to end up with a reference to Adolph Hitler. 
Cartoonists didn’t have a conversation that ended up with Trump as Hitler, we drew Trump as Hitler from the start and the Trump/Hitler metaphors continue unabated. There are countless monster cartoons with Trump’s hair or face on Godzilla, King Kong, Frankenstein, Satan, the Ku Klux Klan and Dracula.
Editorial cartoonists rely on common metaphors or “clichés” that allow us to draw cartoons that convey complex ideas with few words. Our palette of clichés is limited to images readers would know and when there is only one subject dominating the news (Trump), and only one point of view (anti-Trump), we have a recipe for matching cartoons. Endlessly matching cartoons. We see the same monsters, Pinocchios and Nazis, over and over.
The most famous example of matching cartoons came the day after the 9/11 attack when virtually all of the cartoonists in the world drew a weeping Statue of Liberty witnessing the burning twin towers. The satirical newspaper “The Onion” continues to rub salt in this cartoon wound with their parody cartoons that always feature a weeping Liberty. Nowadays the Statue of Liberty kicks Trump out, or Trump is Lady Liberty kicking immigrants. Every famous statue has Trump hair, or a full Trump face, especially the Lincoln Memorial and Mount Rushmore. There are not enough cliché statues for Trump. When passions run high there are too few arrows in the cartoonists’ cliché quiver that are powerful enough to express outrage.
Editorial cartoons are at their best when they make witty, graphic arguments on issues where there are different opinions and where minds can be swayed. The Trump cartoons are simple name-calling, reviled by Trump’s supporters and appreciated by Trump’s foes. No minds are swayed by these cartoons.
I distribute a group of about eighty top political cartoonists and columnists to hundreds of subscribing newspapers. My best customers for reprints are school textbooks and testing services because editorial cartoons are included on state mandated AP Social Studies testing – but the book and test clients don’t want to buy Trump/monster cartoons.
Most syndicated columnists and pundits are riding the Trump-bashing train too, but their matching arguments are somehow excused as consensus. Readers may tear Trump/Hitler cartoons out of the newspaper to stick on their refrigerators, but they never tear out Trump/Hitler columns to stick on the fridge. We just don’t notice columns like we notice cartoons so cartoonists suffer while columnists, who are equally banal, benefit from being less obviously banal.
We don’t see positive cartoons about Hillary Clinton either. Cartooning is a negative art and a supportive cartoon is a lousy cartoon. Hillary is a rich character that we have known for decades. There is a grand history with Hillary and Bill Clinton that gives us many more clichés for a broader cartoon palette. If Trump loses in November we should enjoy four years of great Hillary cartoons.
If Trump wins in November, the Trump-monster cartoon-apocalypse will continue. God save us.
The legal battle between the FBI and Apple promises to be epic. I come down on Apple’s side; we’ve seen how important technology is in undermining evil despotic regimes around the world. If courts can force tech companies to become foot soldiers in regime efforts to spy on their populations that will be a loss for freedom around the world.
I drew this one as a live stream. Watch me color it in Photoshop in real time in the YouTube video below (scroll past the timer at the beginning).
Click on the YouTube video below and it should start at 2:48:40 where I start drawing the Apple vs Despots cartoon. This was a long afternoon of work, and I drew the previous cartoon before this one. Sorry for the lack of editing, but hey, you see everything. I have nothing to hide.
Here’s my Volkswagen cartoon – this is a simple “name-calling” cartoon; editorial cartooning in its purest form.
I thought about making a Volkswagen car into a devil, but I didn’t think that would be too easy to read, so I went with the logo, which is a little strange looking, but what the hell. And I included lots of hellish smoke. I notice the Yahtzee cartoon for this issue is a Volkswagen logo obscured with smoke, or with a little exhaust pipe and smoke.
My favorite so far is from Danish cartoonist Herbjorn Skogstad, who drew a guy doing a giant Volkswagen fart. I think it is the duty of editorial cartoonists to draw farts, poop, dogs and Statues of Liberty at every opportunity.
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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Bill Cosby RIP
Readers love celebrity obituary cartoons, and until now I’ve waited for the celebrity to die before I drew an obit cartoon. Bill Cosby seemed like the perfect opportunity to make an exception to that rule.
Drawing celebrities is easier now than in the old days. I used to struggle to build a “morgue” of photos of everyone I might have to draw on short notice. I had a lot of file drawers dedicated to scraps of paper with little photos of everyone who might find their way into a cartoon. Those days are over, now every cartoonists simply goes to Google, does an image search and a page full of wonderful photo scrap comes up. Easy research!
In fact, since everyone does the same research now, I’ve noticed how common it is for caricatures to resemble one another. Here’s a recent Bill Cosby cartoon by my buddy, Taylor Jones.
With a Google Images search it usually turns out that one photo is better than all the others – and cartoonists often pick out the same one to work from. Here’s a link to the Cosby photo from the Google Images search.
Taylor’s cartoon is better than mine; Taylor wins. But I have the satisfaction of making Cosby go to Hell.