COVID California

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date July 6, 2020

We’re having an alarming increase in coronavirus cases in Southern California. Restaurants are closed. Hospitals are filling up. Masks are mandatory as Trumpies demand their rights to go maskless. Fox News and President Trump tell us not to believe our lying eyes.

This California Bear cartoon seems especially apt right now. I drew this one a few years ago as California was suffering from an economic malaise and a variety of other problems that seem trivial now. I dusted this oldie off, gave it a fresh coat of paint and it is better now than ever, so I sent it out to newspapers again.

Our past economic problems seem quaint now. As I was rummaging around in my bear flag oldies I found the next one about California drowning in a sea of red ink. Cartoons like this don’t travel well. Outside of the USA, people don’t know our California flag, and they don’t know what “red ink” means (it means debt). To freshen this oldie up I added some coronavirus balls to the drowning bear in the red-ink red-stripe.

Back in the old days, California was drowning in red ink because of unfunded pension obligations and poor financial decisions by our irresponsible elected officials; the good old days. I exaggerate so much in my cartoons that my drawings for mildly bad times seem just as appropriate when times are much worse –there’s a cartoon “silver-lining” that we can all be grateful for.

See more of my favorite California Bear cartoons here.

Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes. We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!

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Tags bear, california, california Republic, coronavirus, COVID_19, COVID-19, COVID19, debt, drowning, Financial Crisis, flag, pandemic, pensions, red ink

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The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date July 4, 2020

Here are the ten most widely published cartoons of the week (June 27 through July 4, 2020). As usual, no drawings of President Trump are among the most reprinted cartoons. We had no Most Popular list last week, and no list for the month of June, because we had a technical glitch, losing client download data for three days. Sorry about that. But the stats are working this week!

Editors always love cartoons about holidays and anniversaries – that is clear to see this week as five Fourth of July cartoons made the list. This week was unusual because the steep curve we usually see between the few cartoons editors like and all the other cartoons was flattened, so the most popular cartoons were less popular than usual, and the less popular cartoons were more popular than usual. Cartoons number 11 through 30 aren’t so far behind numbers 1 through 10. Perhaps because the curve flattened and the Top Ten is more tightly bunched this week, we have more ties. So … good job everyone! Everybody getting more reprints is what I like to see!

Our Top Ten is a measure of how many editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the 62 cartoonists in our syndication package. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers (around 700 papers) subscribe to CagleCartoons.com.

Congratulations to Dave Granlund for drawing the most reprinted cartoon this week! Kudos to Jeff Koterba for placing an impressive THREE cartoons in the Top Ten and to Milt Priggee with TWO of the most reprinted cartoons on the list! And congratulations to the rest of the cartoonists who drew the most reprinted cartoons this week: Steve Sack, John Darkow, Bruce Plante and Nate Beeler. Great work, gentlemen!

Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes. We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!

#1

Congratulations to Dave Granlund who drew the #1 most reprinted cartoon this week.

#2

Jeff Koterba was a very close second with this cartoon.

#3

Bruce Plante takes third place.

#4

Steve Sack is in 4th place.

#5

We have a three way tie for 5th place, here’s Milt Priggee.

#5

Jeff Koterba also takes the 5th place spot.

#5

Milt Priggee has a second cartoon that is tied for 5th place.

#8

John Darkow is tied for 8th place.

#8

Jeff Koterba is also tied for 8th place with his impressive THIRD cartoon in the Top Ten this week.

#10

Nate Beeler rounds out the list in 10th.

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Tags back to school, Confederate Battle Flag, coronavirus, covid, face masks, fireworks, Fourth of July, holiday, July 4th, most popular editorial cartoons, olympics, pandemic, patriotism, stars 'n bars, stars and bars, Statue of Liberty

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MASKS!

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date June 28, 2020

6/29/20

I just drew a new mask cartoon. Here you go.

Take a look below for a collection of my favorite, recent MASK cartoons from our CagleCartoonists!

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes. We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!

Please forward this to your friends – tell them our Cagle.com email newsletters are FREE and FUN! They can join the newsletter list at Cagle.com/subscribe.

We’ve got no “Most Popular Cartoons of the Week” this week because we had a tech problem and lost some usage data. That means we also won’t have an accurate Monthly Most Popular batch for June. We should be back up to speed with the stats next weekend.

Tags coronavirus, covid, COVID_19, COVID-19, COVID19, curgical mask, face mask, health, mask, medicine, Social Distancing, spread

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Cartoon Complaint Campaigns

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date June 27, 2020

Tempers run short in turbulent times, so it is no surprise that provocative editorial cartoons sometimes get blowback from readers. Cartoons generate angry conversation on social media, but they seldom generate complaints to us, or to the newspapers that run them – unless there is an organized campaign to solicit complaints. These campaigns usually take the form of Facebook pages that demand that an editor or cartoonist is punished, or simply demands an apology, and newspapers are often quick to apologize.

Sometimes editors blame their choices on poor editorial cartoons in general, as when the New York Times dumped the little Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate that they hosted and announced that they would stop running editorial cartoons entirely in all of their editions. One of our CagleCartoonists, Patrick Chappatte, lost his regular gig for the International New York Times with this editorial overreaction, over a cartoon that Patrick didn’t draw.

Back in July of 2016, a complaint campaign against the St Louis Post-Dispatch targeted this Dave Granlund “itchy trigger-finger” cartoon and elicited a typical apology from the editor.

This week there was a similar campaign of complaints and demands about the “Bad Cops Under the Bed” cartoon of mine that ran in the St Louis Post-Dispatch, but this time the newspaper, to their credit, didn’t apologize and stood behind me and the cartoon in an editorial.

The offending Antonio Antunes cartoon that lost a job for CagleCartoonist Patrick Chappatte, crushed a little syndicate and lost a top venue for all editorial cartooning as the New York Times banned cartoons.

Earlier this month there was yet another complaint campaign about a Gary McCoy cartoon in the Florence SC Morning News. This longtime CagleCartoons subscribing paper prints just about every cartoon that opposes abortion rights and there aren’t a whole lot of those, so when one pops up it is no surprise that it gets ink in Florence. The abortion topic doesn’t mix well with Black Lives Matter (I thought the cartoon was offensive myself) and the paper apologized, going the New York Times route of announcing that they are no longer running any editorial cartoons at all. They still like our columnist Michael Reagan though, so they continue to be a good subscriber and we hope to woo them back with more, great conservative cartoons. (Those anti-abortion cartoons are pretty hard to resist in Florence.)

Also earlier this month, our CagleCartoonist Rick McKee suffered a complaint campaign with this cartoon in The Columbian newspaper in Washington. The newspaper took the usual route of apologizing for the cartoon, but didn’t ban all cartoons.

There are more recent examples with cartoons from cartoonists who aren’t represented by my little syndicate generating complaints campaigns and newspaper apologies, but I’m not posting them here because, well, they aren’t represented by my little syndicate.

This is the new normal:

1. A reader is offended by a cartoon she disagrees with in her local newspaper and puts up a Facebook campaign soliciting complaints demanding an apology, the firing of the editor and/or the firing of the cartoonist.

2. The Newspaper apologizes for their poor choice of cartoon; or they stop running all cartoons. No other newspapers get complaints about the cartoon, only the one paper that has a campaigning reader gets complaints.

3. Repeat.

It was nice to see the St Louis Post-Dispatch break that pattern this week, standing by my cartoon. Editors should have the guts to stand behind their decisions.

Tags Antonio Antunes, Black lives matter, campaigns, Daryl Cagle, Dave Granlund, editorial, facebook, Gary McCoy, looting, newspapers, offensive cartoon, Patrick Chappatte, police, Rick McKee, riots

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California and Saint Serra Statues

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date June 26, 2020

My cartoon today depicts the bear on the California flag pulling down a statue of Junipero Serra, the controversial Catholic saint who oversaw the opening of nine missions in colonial California. Serra participated in the Spanish Inquisition and enslaved native Americans, imprisoning them at his missions. Statues of Serra have been vandalized recently as many protests toppling statues commemorating racist historical figures have swept the nation, and the world, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

The California bear is something of an “everyman” character. I like seeing the movement to purge symbols honoring racist, historical figures; perhaps it is a bit of wishful thinking on my part to see California’s “everyman” tearing down Serra since there is quite a bit of support for defending the many Serra statues that dot our state like a pox. President Trump is using an executive order to boost penalties for defacing racist, historical monuments. My depiction of the California flag today is more a symbol of hope that these protests succeed than than a depiction of today’s reality.

The statue is based on one located in San Juan Capistrano that was relocated recently to protect it from protesters. I lifted Serra’s robe a bit so that I could get some Saddam Hussein action going with his ankles.

When I was in third grade I was required to build a model of a California mission and I was taught a false, fairy tale story about Padre Serra. Thirty years later my kids went through the same thing in school. California students have been required to build those models and have been fed a whitewashed version of history for many decades. That may be changing now as the protests continue. Maybe our “everyman” bear will finally tear down that statue!

Scroll down to see some more of my favorite “everyman” California bears.

California always has a drought …

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Sometimes the drought is worse …

Even when it floods, we still have a drought …

We have fires too. And heroic firemen …

And we have legal marijuana …

And California was one of the first states to legalize gay marriage …

And president Trump doesn’t like California’s auto emissions standards …

See two more of my California Bear Flag cartoons, about coronavirus, here!

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes. We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!

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The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date June 20, 2020

Here are the ten most widely published cartoons of the week (June 13-20, 2020). Again this week, no drawings of President Trump are among the most reprinted cartoons. Drawing Trump seems to poison a cartoon with editors, limiting reprints.

John Bolton’s sensational new book ripping Trump dominated the news and generated many cartoons, but none of those cartoons were popular with editors and none made the Top Ten. There were no popular cartoons about Trump’s controversial rally in Tulsa. Only one of many cartoons about the Supreme Court’s landmark civil rights decision made the Top Ten. Foreign issues and foreign cartoonists were ignored by editors again this week. Fathers Day is usually popular with editors, but not this year with few cartoons drawn on the topic and only Gary McCoy’s defund the police/Fathers Day cartoon making the list at #10.

Our Top Ten is a measure of how many editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the 63 cartoonists in our syndication package. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers (around 700 papers) subscribe to CagleCartoons.com. 20% of the cartoonists, and 20% of the cartoons, get 80% of the reprints. Editors think alike. Most of the cartoons in our flow get few or no reprints. The most popular cartoons dominate.

Congrats to Bob Englehart for drawing the most reprinted cartoon this week! Kudos to Dave Whamond for placing two cartoons in the Top Ten! And congratulations to the rest of the cartoonists who drew the most reprinted cartoons this week: Dave Granlund, Chris Weyant, Rick McKee, Dave Fitzsimmons, Jeff Koterba, Adam Zyglis and Gary McCoy. Great work, gentlemen!

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes. We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!

#1

Congratulations to Bob Englehart who drew the #1 most reprinted cartoon this week.

#2

Dave Granlund was a very close second with this cartoon.

#3

Also close, and almost number one, is Chris Weyant in third place.

#4

Rick McKee takes 4th place.

#5

Dave Whamond is in 5th place.

#6

Dave Whamond also takes the 6th place spot.

#7

Dave Fitzsimmons is in 7th place.

#8

Jeff Koterba takes 8th place.

#9

Adam Zyglis is in 9th place with the only cartoon about the Supreme Court’s landmark civil rights decision.

#10

Gary McCoy is in 10th place with the only Top Ten cartoon about the police, and the only Fathers Day cartoon this week.

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SUSIE on the PLASTIC CRISIS

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date June 19, 2020

My brilliant cartoonist/journalist daughter, Susie Cagle writes today about her work and one of her most popular stories for The Guardian newspaper. Please visit Susie’s page on Patreon to support her and cartoon journalism. From Susie …

For the last year, I was the West Coast climate and environment reporter at the Guardian. It was an unusual mix for a staff position at a news outlet, allowing me to do both traditional written journalism as well as cartoons. My first piece for them was a huge comic exploring the massive amount of plastic waste humans have created.

This comic was exceptionally successful — shared around the world, translated into at least five languages and used in education programs in at least three countries (as far as I know). The Guardian chose it as one of their top stories from 2019.

But it’s the kind of story that’s rarely able to exist, because of the journalism industry’s constraints and expectations. Comics journalism is super popular, but also super labor intensive and super time-consuming. Even the editors most enthusiastic about this still emerging medium often don’t totally understand just how much effort it takes to do two jobs, as both reporter and illustrator. Outlets are reluctant to spend much on cartoons — and even less on comics journalism.

Now that I’m working as a freelancer again, support from readers through Patreon bolsters my ability to keep doing these kinds of projects. Thanks for learning more about my work, and I hope you’ll consider becoming a patron!
Susie Cagle

See Susie’s story about about food workers in the pandemic!

Tags bio-degradable, cartoon-journalism, editorial cartoons, environment, newspaper, Patreon, plastic waste, pollution, recycling, Susie Cagle, The Guardian, trash

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Bolton Book!

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date June 19, 2020

Former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, has a new book full of salacious details about Donald Trump. According to a report based on an unredacted version of the book, Trump demanded of China’s president Xi, “Make sure I’m elected,” and he told Xu that he approved of China building “concentration camps” for their Muslim minority. Nasty stuff. The cartoonists are all over it. Come look!

Peter Kuper

Ed Wexler

Pat Bagley

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes. We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!

Randall Enos

Milt Priggee

Kevin Siers

Adam Zyglis

Please forward this link to your friends – tell them our Cagle.com email newsletters are FREE and editorial cartoons are important! They can join the newsletter list at Cagle.com/subscribe.

Dave Granlund

David Fitzsimmons

Rick McKee

Dave Whamond

See more on Cagle.com!

Tags book, Book of Revelations, China, corruption, donald trump, Dr Seuss, Horton Hears a Who, John Bolton, Mitch McConnell, President Xi Jinping, Smoking Gun, The Book Where it Happened

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SCOTUS Sex Surprise

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date June 17, 2020

The Supreme Court surprised everyone by interpreting the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination in employment for LGTBQ employees. The decision was written Justice Gorsuch, who was appointed to the court by president Trump. This is what Gorsuch wrote:

In Title VII, Congress outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

Well, hot diggity! Our Cagle Cartoonists celebrate below!

Steve Sack

John Darkow

Bill Day

Joe Heller

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes. We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!

R.J. Matson