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Political Cartoonists Mourn Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was God’s gift to editorial cartoonists. Now that the gift has been “returned to sender” the cartoonists are mourning the loss of one of their most evergreen gags.

Jackson was a wonderful character for cartoons. From “Jesus Juice” to chimps and burning hair, he was a cartoon treasure. One of my all time favorites was a Mr. Fish cartoon during the jury selection process from Michael’s trial, showing Michael’s “nightmare jury” of scowling Fruit of the Loom fruit characters in the jury box.

The political cartoonists have been emailing each other, warning that we should not do the obvious obit cartoons, like Michael at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter says, “You’re bad, beat it;” or Jesus dangling little Michael from a heavenly window; or Michael and St. Peter “moon-walking” backwards through the Pearly Gates into heaven. And I can’t help but think of how Jackson’s children must have recoiled in horror when he played “got your nose”…

I was thinking of drawing Michael and Jesus on a cloud sharing a white wine “Jesus Juice” as Jesus holds a little box, saying, “God has a little gift for you — it’s your nose.” I floated a few of these ideas to my 45,000 Twitter followers, to a mixed reaction – one third of the responses were angry that I would show such disrespect to Jackson, and two thirds wanted the obituary gags to keep on coming.

I drew my favorite Michael Jackson cartoon when he was arrested. I had a police line-up, and the little boy/victim is pointing at Jackson saying, “That one;” the others in the line-up are a candy cane, a barber pole and the North Pole. Of course, the “secret” characteristic the kid identified was that Jackson’s penis was (allegedly) striped like a barber pole. I thought everyone knew this when I drew the cartoon, but unfortunately it turned out this was a little known bit of color about the King of Pop.

Soon after I drew my Jackson line-up cartoon, I got an e-mail from a couple of middle school kids that went something like this:

“Dear Mr. Cagle, Every week in our Social Studies class, our teacher, Ms. Fuddle, has what we call, “Cartoon Monday.” The class votes on an editorial cartoon that we will discuss that day. We voted to discuss your Michael Jackson cartoon in class next Monday, but we don’t understand it. Would you please explain it to us? Sincerely, Kid One and Kid Two”

I wrote back:

“Dear Kid One and Kid Two, Thank you for choosing my cartoon to discuss. The cartoon refers to Michael Jackson’s penis, which is striped like a barber pole …”

And the kids wrote back:

“Dear Mr. Cagle. Thank you for the explanation of your Michael Jackson cartoon. We think this will be our most interesting Cartoon Monday ever.”

When I think of all that cartoonists have lost with Michael Jackson’s passing, it makes me weep.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 850 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. Daryl’s books “The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2009 Edition” are available in bookstores now.

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Columns

What Do Political Cartoons and McDonalds Have in Common

?

Every time I open a newspaper I read another story about the decline of newspapers. Political cartoonists were the canaries in the newspaper-decline-coal-mine; our ranks have been shrinking for the past 30 years — but now the pace has quickened as only a few dozen editorial cartoonists are left, and they seem to be losing their jobs at a pace of about one per week.

Political cartoons won’t disappear. As long as there is a newspaper left, with a space for a cartoonist to fill, a cartoonist will step up to draw. What we’re seeing is the “McDonaldsization” of editorial cartoons. Like McDonalds, there aren’t a lot of choices on the menu, everything on the menu is pretty good, and everyone, everywhere, chooses from the same, few menu choices. We may soon be left with just a dozen political cartoonists, perhaps the best ones, drawing for all the newspapers — just as we all watch the same news on TV, buy the same products at Wal-Mart, and eat the same food at McDonalds.

To fans of political cartoons, the list of prominent political cartoonists who have recently lost their jobs is shocking. Here is a partial list:

Gary Brookins, The Richmond Times Dispatch (Va.). Buyout.

Tom Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle (Calif.). buyout.

Bill Day, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis,Tenn.). Laid off.

John Branch, San Antonio Express-News (Texas). Laid off.

David Horsey, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Wash.). Newspaper closed, will continue to work for Web site.

Jim Borgman, The Cincinatti Enquirer (Ohio). Buy out.

Eric Devericks, The Seattle Times (Wash.). Laid off.

Lee Judge, The Kansas City Star (Mo.). Laid off, now freelances.

Don Wright, The Palm Beach Post (Fla.). Buyout.

Steve Greenberg, Ventura County Star (Calif.). Laid off.

Stuart Carlson, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (Wisc.). Buyout.

Ed Stein, Rocky Mountain News (Colo.), Newspaper closed. Continues to draw in syndication.

Drew Litton (Sports Cartoonist) Rocky Mountain News (Colo.). Newspaper closed. Continues to draw in syndication.

Ben Sargent, Austin American-Statesman (Texas). Buyout.

Brian Duffy, The Des Moines Register (Iowa). Laid off.

Bill Schorr, quit print syndication.

Bill Garner, The Washington Times (D.C.). Laid off.

Kevin “Kal” Kallaugher, The Sun (Baltimore, Md.). Laid off.

Patrick O’Connor, Daily News (Los Angeles, Calif.). Laid off.

Corky Trinidad, Honolulu Star-Bulletin (Hawaii). Died; position not refilled.

Dick Adair, The Honolulu Advertiser (Hawaii). Laid Off.

Dwane Powell, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.). Now freelances.

Jim Lange, The Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Okla.). “Early” retirement.

Chip Bok, Akron Beacon-Journal (Ohio). Buyout.

Peter Dunlap-Shohl, Anchorage Daily News (Alaska). Buyout.

Sandy Huffaker, retired from syndication.

Jake Fuller, The Gainesville Sun (Fla.). Laid off.

Dave Granlund, The MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, Mass.). Laid Off.

Paul Combs, left syndication after leaving The Tampa Tribune (Fla.); position not refilled.

Mike Shelton, The Orange County Register (Calif.). Laid off.

Gordon Campbell, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, Calif.). Laid off.

Richard Crowson, The Wichita Eagle (Kan.). Laid off.

Mike Peters, Dayton Daily News (Ohio). Cut back on the number of editorial cartoons he draws.

Ann Telnaes, quit print syndication to focus on animation.

David Catrow, Springfield News-Sun (Ohio). Left to work on other projects.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 850 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. Daryl’s books “The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2009 Edition” are available in bookstores now. Read Daryl’s blog at www.blog.cagle.com/daryl.

—

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The Racist New York Post Dead-Monkey Cartoon

That Racist New York Post Dead-Monkey Cartoon

All the pundits are talking about the recent cartoon by the New York Post’s Sean Delonas, showing a chimp shot by two policemen who say, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” The prevailing view among the bloggers and talking-heads is that the cartoon is a racist depiction of Obama as a monkey. Al Sharpton has taken the opportunity to grab the media spotlight by condemning the cartoon. New York Post employees are reportedly “unhappy and ashamed” of the “offensive cartoon.” The media love arguments about race.

I was thinking of drawing a cartoon with the media frantically rushing to cover the “racist” Delonas cartoon, while Attorney General Eric Holder calmly stands in front of the melee telling Americans how they are “cowardly” in avoiding discussions about race. I expect we’re in for a lot of this for the next four years.

Some cartoonists (Ben Sargent of The Austin American-Statesman and Steve Bell of the Guardian in Britain, for example) consistently drew George W. Bush as a monkey. The cartoonists all chose to draw Bush with big monkey ears and a huge, monkey-like upper lip, so drawing Bush as a monkey was a natural progression. Now the cartoonists are all drawing Obama with similar, big monkey ears and we’re starting to hear complaints from readers about how we draw Obama’s lips. Presidents get shorter in cartoons if they don’t perform well — and chimps are short. Cartoonists tiptoe through a racial-metaphor minefield.

A standard, workday ritual that editorial cartoonists do is to list the major news stories of the day, and then think of how to combine two of the unrelated stories into a cartoon. Combining two unrelated things in a cartoon is funny. Monkeys are funny and the killer chimp was the big news one day along with the stimulus bill. Delonas is a staunch conservative who didn’t like the stimulus bill; this cartoon is a formulaic “no-brainer.” I’m sure the reaction to the cartoon was a surprise to Delonas.

But the reaction shouldn’t be a surprise. I’d suggest that every cartoonist should make a list of every racial stereotype to avoid regarding African-Americans, and assume that every cartoon will be considered to be a metaphor for Obama — then go through the check list before putting pen to paper, like a pilot goes through a check list before taking off in his plane.

And watch for a lot more cartoon plane crashes.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 850 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. Daryl’s books “The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2009 Edition” are available in bookstores now.

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How To Draw Obama

How to Draw Obama

Obama seems like an easy guy to draw; he’s skinny, has a big chin, expressive eyebrows and lips. As it turns out, no matter how a cartoonist draws Obama, somebody gets mad.

When Obama burst into the presidential campaign cartoonists started drawing him as a caricature without much exaggeration. As time goes by, political figures morph in cartoons into caricatures of caricatures; George W. Bush shrank to knee height and grew huge bunny ears; Bill Clinton lost his pants and grew fatter (even as he got skinnier in real life). At the beginning of the Obama administration, everyone is watching to see how the cartoon Obama evolves.

I worked for twenty years as a cartoon illustrator, doing drawings for books, magazines and advertising. I was often given clear guidelines on how I was supposed to draw African-Americans: with “small noses” and “thin lips”. I was instructed to make any crowds of cartoon characters racially diverse, but only diverse in color, not in facial features. Thick lips and wide noses on African American faces would be returned to me for correction, with a polite reminder of the corporate policies on depictions of minority facial features.

Cartoonist Gary McCoy has been lambasted by readers, and by Salon.com, for drawing racially insensitive, big lips on Obama. Some cartoonists have drawn attention for giving Obama blue lips. Canadian cartoonist Patrick Corrigan of the Toronto Star had an Obama cartoon killed by his editor because of “racist” blue lips. Thomas “Tab” Boldt of the Calgary Sun and Cam Cardow of the Ottawa Citizen have also been rendering Obama with blue lips. Corrigan tells me that everyone in Canada, in the winter, has blue lips.

Readers of my blog explained to me that blue lips are racist and pointed out an old racist expression “blue gums,” which was a new one for me. Corrigan tells me he’ll be switching to purple lips, Cam will be giving up on the blue lips and Tab was laid off. That may mean the end of blue lips for Obama.

Syndicated caricaturist Taylor Jones also sees blue in Obama. He writes:

“One of the most interesting things about Obama’s eyes is the slight blue tinge to the flesh below his eyebrows. It’s also visible on his eyelids. It’s as though he’s wearing a bit of eye shadow. Don’t know if it’s actual blue pigmentation, or just the effect of light bouncing off the skin stretched against his eye sockets. But it adds a nifty touch whenever I’m drawing Obama’s caricature in color.”

I’m considering going all the way, making Obama completely blue (if that’s not racist).

Obama’s ears have grown huge for most cartoonists. George W. Bush’s ears also grew huge, but it took more than a year for Bush’s big ears to catch on — Obama’s ears started right away, and have been expanding faster than the national debt. It may be that after eight years of Bush, we now see huge ears as a standard, presidential attribute. I don’t see any particular reason for either Bush’s or Obama’s ears to grow in cartoons, but with cartoonist peer pressure it will soon be impossible to draw a likeness of Obama without colossal ears.

There seems to be an expectation that political cartoonists are mostly liberals who love Obama and will find it hard to make fun of him in cartoons. Some cartoonists have complained in the press that Obama is dull, and that there is little to criticize about him — we have a term of art for cartoonists like that, we call them “bad cartoonists.” It is the job of an editorial cartoonist to dislike everybody. Political cartoonists have nothing to gain by being in favor of anything. Cartoons that support anything are lousy cartoons. There is plenty for everyone not to like about Obama — and with the porky stimulus package and tax-evading cabinet appointments, there’s more every day!

The cartoon version of Obama will continue to evolve quickly. If we ever actually see him smoking a cigarette, he will always be smoking in cartoons. Obama may turn different colors, and he’ll grow or shrink with his performance. Obama’s ears will keep growing no matter what he does. As Obama’s honeymoon passes and the caricatures become more severe, I expect the complaints about racism in the cartoons will also grow more severe.

But I don’t care. I’m making Obama blue today.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 850 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. Daryl’s books “The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2009 Edition” are available in bookstores now.

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Columns

How to Draw President George W Bush

How to Draw President George W. Bush

Political cartoonists are not much different from comic strip cartoonists; both draw an ongoing daily soap opera featuring a regular cast of characters. While comic strip cartoonists invent their own characters, the political cartoonist’s characters are given to him by events in the world. For the past eight years, political cartoonists have been drawing little daily sagas starring the same main character, President Bush. Most people won’t miss Bush as a president, but we should all miss him as a great cartoon character.

Around the world, cartoonists almost always draw President Bush as a cowboy. Outside America, a Texas cowboy is seen as: uneducated, ill mannered, a “trigger-happy marshal” or outlaw who is prone to violence. Cowboy depictions of the president by worldwide cartoonists are meant to be insults, but Americans see cowboys differently. In the USA, cowboys are noble, independent souls, living a romantic lifestyle by taming the wilderness and taking matters into their own hands whenever they see a wrong that needs to be righted. We are a nation of wanna-be cowboys.

The image of President Bush evolves with each cartoonist’s personal perspective. Back in 2000, Bush started out as most political cartoon characters start out, as a caricature of a real person, meant to be recognizable from a photograph. The cartoonists soon stopped looking at photographs and started doing drawings of drawings, then drawings of drawings of drawings, so that the George W. Bush drawings morphed into strangely deformed characters that looked nothing like the real man, but are instantly recognizable because we’ve come to know the drawings as a symbol of the man. It is surprising that each cartoonist’s drawings of the president look entirely different, but each is easily recognizable as representing the same character.

For most cartoonists, the president’s ears have grown huge; a strange phenomenon, since the president doesn’t have unusually large ears, and isn’t well known for listening. Some cartoonists have seen President Bush shrink in height; a combination of these has the president sometimes looking like a little bunny rabbit. Barack Obama’s cartoon ears have also begun to grow in cartoons, for no good reason – maybe big ears are the cartoon presidential curse of the new millennium.

The president who shrank most in cartoons was Jimmy Carter. At the end of Carter’s term he was a Munchkin, standing below knee height on almost every cartoonist’s drawing table. President Bush shrank for only the more liberal cartoonists early on, but is short for all of us at the end of his term. President Reagan grew taller during his cartoon term in office. President Clinton grew fatter, even as he lost weight in real life. Bill Clinton’s personality was fat, and the cartoonists drew the personality rather than the man. President Clinton is now skinny, but he will always be fat in cartoons.

Another cartoon characteristic that has grown from years of drawing President Bush are his eyes, two little dots, close together, topped by raised, quizzical eyebrows. The close, dotted eyes are an interesting universal phenomenon, shared by almost every cartoonist, that doesn’t relate to the president’s actual features. Over time, most cartoonists will draw a character with eyes that grow larger, but President Bush’s eyes shrink, while his ears grow. There may be a political message in that, but I can’t figure it out.

I once played “Political Cartoonist Name That Tune.” The game went like this:

“I can draw President Bush in SIX LINES.”

“Well, I can draw President Bush in FOUR LINES!”

“I can draw President Bush in THREE LINES!”

“OK. Draw that President!”

…and I did, two little dots topped by a raised, quizzical eyebrow line. It looked just like him.

Now I need to learn how to draw Obama with three lines; it may take me eight years to do it.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 850 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. Daryl runs the most popular cartoon site on the Web at www.cagle.msnbc.com. His books “The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2009 Edition” are available in bookstores now.

See Daryl’s cartoons and columns at http://blog.cagle.com/daryl.

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Columns

Cartoony Politics in Canada

I’ve never paid much attention to Canadian politics and I’ve never really understood the cartoons that my colleagues north of the border draw.

But lately, the Canadian political cartoons have taken on a frantic tone and I asked two of my Canadian cartoonist buddies, Thomas “Tab” Boldt, of the Sun Media newspaper chain, and Patrick Corrigan, of The Toronto Star, to explain it all to me in a way that even an American cartoonist can understand.

CAGLE: What’s happening with the crazy politics in Canada?

CORRIGAN: Well, Daryl, we don’t elect our Prime Ministers up here, our Parliament picks them, and sometimes decides to throw Prime Ministers out with a “no confidence vote,” also known as “throwing the bums out.”

Our Parliament was just about to toss Prime Minister Harper out, so Harper decided to close Parliament down, as any bona fide third-world dictator would do.

On bended knee, Harper begged the Queen’s representative to Canada, a former TV reporter who usually doesn’t do much of anything except swan around and look official, to help him out.

She agreed to “prorogue” parliament … and if you say “prorogue” fast enough, it sounds like “democracy,” or, maybe not.

TAB: Not so fast here! Technically my colleague is correct, just a little hazy on the details. First of all, we had to suffer through an eye-glazing Canadian election just a few short weeks ago. Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party got more seats than the other parties, not enough to govern with authority, but enough seats to somehow run the country in cooperation with the other parties.

As it turned out, the opposition didn’t like the results of that election; they also didn’t like that Harper was attempting to withhold their public funding. So like bona-fide-tin-pot-would-be-coupists, the opposition parties tried to overturn the results of the election, claiming that the Conservative government was not acting fast enough on the economic crisis.

Prime Minister Harper’s main opponent, a chap named Dion, lucked into the leadership job of the Liberal Party. Dion’s main platform in the recent election was to raise “green” taxes. A sure-fire winner that somehow failed to get the voters excited.

Then Dion, still unable to articulate whole sentences in clear English, thought he’d have another kick at the can, this time without having to bother the voters or having to count ballots. It’s easier that way.

Dion’s slick move to oust Harper and the Conservatives was supported by the two other opposition parties, the Liberal-Socialist-Separatist Coalition, but we’re already seeing cracks in that group. Dion just got booted and the whole coup junta will last as long as an election promise.

Speaking as a cartoonist, it’s been an exciting time. It’s a little like shooting piranhas in a waste barrel, you can’t miss, and whatever you hit probably had it coming anyways. There are no innocent parties in this spat.

CAGLE: Yikes! When will Parliament come back and try to throw Harper out again?

CORRIGAN: Not until late in January. In the meantime we’ll all just cozy up in front of our TVs and watch curling … I can explain that too if you’d like.

TAB: Anyway, Harper’s main opponent, who is from Quebec and barely speaks English, and couldn’t lead anybody to the men’s room, is walking the plank as we speak. He’ll end up on YouTube selling organic backpacks.

CAGLE: So … what do most Canadians think about this mess?

TAB: All we can agree on is 100 lashes on the foot soles for every member of Parliament (double that number for the separatists).

CORRIGAN: I think Tab is sending out a petition in Alberta to quit Canada and hook up with Idaho — or Frankfurt. Nova Scotia has returned to Scotland and pledged allegiance to Sean Connery. Toronto has acquired Buffalo on the NASDAQ .

TAB: Actually, I’m sending out petitions to join Hawaii. It’s as close as Eastern Canada is to us in Alberta, but a lot warmer.

CORRIGAN: Harper gets a second chance, but the rest of Parliament will gang up again as a rickety “coalition” and try to throw the Prime Minister out. By then the Queen’s representative will be tired of canceling her dinner parties and make the clowns have another election. That’ll be sometime next summer, and by then, Canadians will all be unemployed; record numbers will go the polls and vote for a new and truly inspiring party… the Wayne Gretzky party

CAGLE: Should I be worried about our once reliable, stable neighbor?

CORRIGAN: Naw, we’re OK. We’ve put up “no trespassing” signs around all our nuclear reactors. Rumor has it that the Queen may intervene if things get out of hand. Apparently she’s more than willing to send Prince Charles over to take charge and become the King of Canada.

TAB: Should Canadians be concerned about the U.S. would be a better question. What we have seen these past 8 years wasn’t exactly confidence and friendship inspiring. We up north are old fashioned; we believe in the Geneva Convention and basic human rights. We are such softies.

CORRIGAN: Just tell your friends south of the border that an Alberta Clipper temporarily burst the pipes of Parliament so we shut her down for a couple of weeks. No worries. Until then, you can reach all 35 million of us in the Bahamas at the Banana Republic Lounge, leg-wrestling in the back corner, near the kitchen.

CAGLE: Very good. I’m relieved to hear that there are only 35 million of you.

Cartoons by Thomas “Tab” Boldt of Sun Media Newspapers, and Patrick Corrigan of The Toronto Star.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 850 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. Daryl runs the most popular cartoon site on the Web at www.cagle.msnbc.com. His books “The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2009 Edition” are available in bookstores for Christmas.

See Daryl’s cartoons and columns at www.caglepost.com.

Categories
Columns

Celebrity Fires Consume the Media

A mandatory evacuation remains in effect for my neighborhood in Montecito after the devastating “Tea Fire” this week. My son and I stayed at my house longer than we should have, filling the cars with keepsakes and watering the place down with a garden hose until the howling winds driving the smoke and embers our way become too much for us.

The fire was churning on all the hills behind my house in wide, glowing swaths — not like the usual thin line of flame we’re used to seeing at the leading edge of a fire. Being in the path of the fire, the wind blew the smoke, soot and embers directly at us making it difficult to see more than a few feet at times, and sometimes clearing to reveal a brightening, eerie, orange glow as the fire drew closer. I was sure the fire was only a couple of houses away when we fled. Firemen were directing traffic and calling on people to evacuate; I didn’t see them doing any fire fighting when we left. The fire was moving too fast for fire fighting and all they could do was focus on people.

I found my way past police barricades the next morning to see that my house survived, along with all the houses on my street. I live adjacent to Westmont College, which lost a half dozen buildings, and the next street over from mine, Westmont Road, lost a number of homes. The hills all around are barren and charred. The last report I saw estimated 150 homes lost.

I know how my neighbors feel. I was a college student, living with my mother in the same spot, when the 1977 Sycamore Canyon fire destroyed our home and about 250 others. Both fires started in the exact, same location and burned much the same area.

I also get a sense of deja vu from the media coverage of the fire. Reports from around the world have focused on celebrities who live in town. The news leads with quotes from Oprah Winfrey (her house is fine; she was out of town at the time) and actor Rob Lowe (whose house was undamaged). We see lists of celebrities with recognizable names who live in town. Actor Christopher Lloyd was out of town as his caretaker fled his house, which was “valued last year at $11.3 million.” Crazy prices of local mansions are listed. We read about how many acres there are on Oprah’s estate. Readers love stories about rich, beautiful, powerful celebrities who are made to suffer. Schadenfreude sells. Supermarket tabloids delight us with one celebrity hardship after another.

American celebrity suffering is even more titillating to audiences around the world. I was in London some years ago when there was a fire in Malibu, and I witnessed firsthand the delight screaming from tabloid headlines. I remember watching the puppet show, “Spitting Image,” the number-one show on British TV at the time; the audience roared in laughter as puppet caricatures of celebrities ran this way and that, chased by fire. A screaming, flaming Sylvester Stallone puppet yelled, “Yo! Yo! Yo!”

The media’s celebrity obsession has little to do with actual events on the ground. Most of the homes that were lost belong to regular folks. I inherited my house from my mother who spent her career working for the local school district. The homes of 14 teachers at Westmont College were lost. I don’t know where those celebrities live.

In 1977 the media’s trivial obsessions had a tangible effect. President Jimmy Carter refused to declare a federal disaster area, noting that the people here are wealthy and can take care of themselves. A disaster declaration would have meant that my mother and I could have lived in a FEMA trailer for a year, while our house was being re-built.

A few months later there was a similar fire in Malibu; for some reason, the media didn’t focus on celebrities that time and Carter declared a disaster area, even though the average income of the Malibu fire victims was higher than the income of victims of my fire. Media coverage made the difference.

President Carter’s smarmy, hypocritical response turned me into a Republican.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 850 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. Daryl runs the most popular cartoon site on the Web at Cagle.msnbc.com. His book “The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons,” is available in bookstores now, and he has a new book coming out before Christmas, “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2009 Edition.” See Daryl’s cartoons and columns at www.caglepost.com.

Categories
Columns

See Me at the University of Virginia

I’ll give a speech, show a lot of cartoons
and answer questions at the University of Virginia on October
22nd in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is a rare opportunity to
see me, since I’m such a recluse. Here is what the University
has announced …

The daily editorial cartoonist for MSNBC.com,
Daryl Cagle, will discuss with words and artwork the sometimes
seemingly irreverent and provocative role of editorial cartoonists
in capturing and dissecting issues and events in politics. Mr.
Cagle’s recently published Big Book of Campaign 2008 Cartoons
will be available for sale at the event and he will sign books
following his presentation. The event is free and open to the
public, but advance registration
is required.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Drawing Politics
is part of the University of Virginia Center for Politics National
Symposium Series of 2008, titled Not Taboo at Our Table! Race,
Religion and Gender in American Politics. The Center for
Politics launched the National Symposium Series in 1999 to explore
current and relevant issues in American politics. For questions,
contact Megan Davis at [email protected]
or 434-243-3539.

This event is co-sponsored by the University
of Virginia Center for Politics
and the University
of Virginia Miller Center of Public Affairs.

Categories
Columns

Our New Campaign Book is in Stores Now!

Our big collection
of cartoons covering the presidential campaign is out in bookstores
a month before election day!

We’ve got the best of the campaign from
start to almost-finish, with Obama, McCain, Sarah Palin, the
convention, Hillary Clinton and all those wonderful memories,
like 3:00am phone calls, super-delegates and crazy preachers!
We even have a chapter on John Edwards’ affair!

This book is a must have for every political
wonk! And you must have it now, while we’re still obsessed with
the campaign!



Click here to order The BIG Book of Campaign
2008 Political Cartoons, from Amazon.com at a nice discount

I have to thank our editor, Laura Norman,
at Que Publishing, division of Pearson, for being so fast getting
the book published and shipped to stores. We closed the book
after we had a whole lot of cartoons for a chapter on Sarah Pain
and her pregnant daughter, and we have the book in stores a month
later, which is amazing for book distribution. Still, everyone
is better off ordering from Amazon.com, where it is cheaper.
You can even search inside the book on Amazon.com, which is pretty
cool.

Right now we’re busy working on our regular,
annual Best Political Cartoons of the Year book, which is due
at the printer on the day after election day, and should be in
stores the first week of December. These deadlines are why I’m
not drawing as many cartoons as I should be right now. Sorry
about that.

Categories
Columns

Two of our Favorite Cartoonists Retire









I’m sorry to
write that two of my favorite political cartoonists have retired
from our tiny profession.



Sandy Huffaker is one my cartoon heroes.
When I was in college I was a big fan of his cartoons that were
running every week in Time Magazine. Sandy worked as a regular
editorial cartoonist for a newspaper when he was young, then
spent his career as a cartoon illustrator. Now he spends
most of his time at his ranch in Virginia doing paintings. He
had been drawing editorial cartoons regularly for our syndicate
for the past few years.

Sandy called me a couple of months ago
to say he was tired of the daily editorial cartooning grind.
He is an Obama supporter, he thinks Obama will win and prospect
of losing President Bush makes him lose his anger and passion.
I encouraged Sandy to draw whenever the inspiration hits him,
and last week he sent us this portrait of McCain and baby Palin
(right).

If any of our readers are Huffaker fans,
as I am, and are sorry to see him go, send
Sandy an e-mail and tell him he is missed!

The other cartoonist we’re losing is M.e. Cohen, a freelancer with a wild style
from New Jersey. M.e. is retiring from editorial cartooning because
of a detached retina. He plans to keep doing illustrations, but the daily, freelance political
cartoons were just too much. I’m also hopeful that M.e. will
come back; it is tragic to see him leave us.

See more cartoons by M.e.
here. That is one of his samples
below. Click here to send
M.e. an e-mail and let him know he is also missed.