During the run up to George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, I drew a bunch of cartoons that I regret, supporting the rush to war. One of my biggest regrets was believing the reporting of Judy Miller and the New York Times about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I won’t make that mistake again – I have no trust left for the New York Times and when the media all jumps in pushing for war, my inclination is to push back. Here’s my latest on the media press for war.
I seem to be all alone on this. I notice that just about all of our other cartoonists are jumping on the war-bandwagon – even the liberal doves who I would expect to resist. When the war-drums play, it seems that everyone wants to dance. See our Obama and ISIS/ISIL cartoons here.
The Charles Atlas comic book ad that is burned into my memory.
I collected comic books as a kid – thousands of comic books. The Charles Atlas ad at the right was burned into my brain. The ad didn’t influence me to exercise (I’m too lazy for that) but it motivated me to draw the cartoon above, with Obama, Ukraine and Putin at the beach.
Ukraine is a tough metaphor because we don’t really have any good visual icons or characters that scream “Ukraine” at a glance, so I’ve taken to depicting Ukraine as a pudgy, braided, blond chick.
She is wearing a bathing suit in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, but I’m sure American readers won’t notice that. In the drawing below, she is with caveman-Putin, wearing traditional, Ukrainian garb …
Here she is again, in the same clothes, getting robbed by Putin while Obama stands by …
Putin has his own traditional garb – he doesn’t wear a shirt.
My last Charles Atlas metaphor cartoon is below, from more than ten years ago during the run-up George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Things don’t change much as we’re seeing the media push war on us all over again.
I collected comic books as a kid – thousands and thousands of comic books – and the famous Charles Atlas ad is etched into my brain. The ad wasn’t enough to make me actually exercise, but it inspired my recent cartoon about Putin, Obama and the Ukraine, below.
Fox News is aghast and aflutter about President Obama saying he’ll unilaterally enter into an international agreement on Climate Change. Obama touts that he has a “pen and a phone” to do business without congress. The pen amuses me.
President Obama’s pen annoys the GOP.
Like almost every cartoon I draw, I think the black and white line version looks better – and it is what most people will see in the newspaper …
Black and white always looks better, huh?My Obama has grown to be gray-haired and weary.
I realized that kids these days might not be familiar with fountain pens, and how they would occasionally squirt by mistake. I was reading Classic Peanuts recently as Charlie Brown was writing to his pen-pal with a fountain pen, squirting all over the page. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a letter on paper, or the last time I used a fountain pen. Charlie Brown is a classic, but the strip seemed to define the elderly audience of the newspaper.
At the right is a close-up detail view of Obama’s head from this cartoon. Over the course of his presidency I’ve been drawing Obama more gray haired and more weary looking. He’s having a visual transformation in cartoons as well as in reality. Also, in his news conference yesterday Obama was wearing a light tan suit. I’ve never seen Obama wear anything other than a black suit! For cartoonists the tan suit should have been the big story of the day. I like to draw pinstripes and I’ve gotten comments that Obama doesn’t wear suits like the ones I draw him in – artistic license – the cartoon above would have been lousy with a black suit, the composition needs the black pen and black ink to work – a black suit would ruin it.
The renewed talk about Obama’s “pen” got me thinking about a cartoon I drew when the “pen and phone” talk first came out …
Obama with his manly, phallic pen.Phallic Putin by Taylor Jones.
My new Obama-pen cartoon is also phallic. Editorial cartoonists love to make phallic references in their cartoons. At the right is one of my recent favorites from Taylor Jones.
International cartoonists draw a whole lot of phallic cartoons. A recurring image is a warlike character holding a missile in a manly position. Below is one by South African cartoonist Jeremy Nell …
The charmer below is from German cartoonist Rainer Hachfeld …
International cartoonists make me feel subtle.
And yes! We now have a cartoon about Obama’s tan suit from Nate Beeler. I knew that tan suit would find its way into cartoons.
I had great fun at the European editorial cartoonists convention in St Just le Martel France the last two years and I’m going again this year. It is a public event in the small French town, and any fans who would like to visit with the scores of attending editorial cartoonists are welcome to come. The cartoonists often sit at drawing tables and are happy to chat and do drawings for visitors.
The ancient and charming church in St Just le Martel that houses St Just’s bones.This is an adult St. Just breaking his dinnerplate halo with his martel, in an image that the town seems to have adopted as a logo (I don’t know who the artist was on this one).
St Just le Martel is the patron saint of a little French town near Limoges; his bones are housed at an ancient little church in town. The story goes that little St Just was walking along one day when God asked him to throw his hammer (martel); when the hammer landed, water squirted out of the ground. God told little St Just to build a church on the spot, founding the little town. That’s an adult St. Just (right) breaking his dinnerplate halo with his martel, in an image that the town seems to have adopted as a logo (I don’t know who the artist was on this one). That’s the church that houses his bones at the left.
The tiny town opens itself up to editorial cartoonist from around the world every year at the end of September. The townsfolks put the cartoonists up in their homes and get together to prepare giant meals for the cartoonists and what looks like the whole town through the “Salon.” And the little town has built a big, nice cartoon museum (below). It is hard to imagine any little town in America doing something like this (although it looks like Kenosha, Wisconsin and Marceline, Missouri may be headed in that direction).
Here’s an aerial view of the cartoon Museum in St Just le Martel, France. For scale, those are three colorful, life-size, cow sculptures on the roof, over the entrance to the museum.
This is my poster for the exhibition this year.
There is a contingent of Australian cartoonists attending this year, along with six American cartoonists that are coming with me: Steve Sack, Rick McKee, Adam Zyglis, Monte Wolverton and Nate Beeler. We’re doing exhibitions of American Views of Putin and Ferguson Missouri; I expect the Australian cartoonists will have an exhibition of Aussie cartoons.
I did the poster for this year’s Salon (right, click here to see the sketch and a large version of the poster). The Salon/festival runs over two weekends from September 27th through October 5th. The first weekend they give their “Humor Tendre” (tender humor) award to someone like a children’s book illustrator who draws nice, sweet cartoons; the award consists of a live sheep. The week between the weekends can be a bit slow, but some cartoonists hang out for the week between the two weekends.
The second weekend, when most of the editorial cartoonists attend, they give the “Humor Vache” (cow humor, or harsh humor) award to a more satirical, caustic cartoonist. I won the cow last year, which is why I did the poster this year; there seems to be a tradition of the cow winner doing the poster for the following year. See me with my charming prize, Josette the cow, at last year’s event here.
St Just le Martel is way out in the French boondocks, cow country, and they are proud of their cows. The cow has become a symbol for the Salon/festival – the Limoges cow is always brown, like Josette. Here are some more posters from recent Salons …
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.
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.
