DarylCagle.comThis Trump/Cruz cartoon shows the poor Statue of Liberty reacting to the rhetoric. I hesitate every time I draw Liberty now. The Onion has made Lady Liberty into a symbol of third-rate editorial cartooning, always appearing with a tear in her eye. There’s some truth in that.
This cartoon is an update of the oldie below, where I had a Republican elephant at the left. This one needed an update!
Watch me draw this one in real time in the video below!
As the economic problems facing newspapers continue, it is easy to presume that cartoonists are sacked because of tight budgets. Money troubles shouldn’t give cover to publications that dump cartoonists because of politics, particularly when the politics involve corrupt governments strong-arming the press.
My cartoonist buddy, Gado, is probably the best known African cartoonist. He recently lost his job, according to a report in the Times of Africa. Here is a notable quotes from the article:
In 2009 President Kenyatta, then the finance minister, tried to sue Gado over a cartoon pillorying him for a $100 million accounting error. In 2005 Gado outraged Muslims with a drawing of a woman suicide bomber asking: “I’m also going to get the 72 virgins… right?!”.
Gado was persuaded by his bosses to take a sabbatical last year after the Nation’s sister paper, The EastAfrican, was banned in Tanzania over a cartoon mocking President Kikwete. When he tried to return to work, Tom Mshindi, the editor-in-chief, said his contract would not be renewed.
Mr Mshindi denied that the decision was a reflection on the freedom of the press, which he said was “no better or no worse” than under Kenya’s previous government.
Gado said Mr Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, had often put pressure on the paper’s management. “Freedom of the press is being rolled back and it’s dangerous,” he said. The Nation’s managing editor, Denis Galava, was sacked in January for an editorial attacking the government’s “almost criminal negligence”.
I spent some extra time on this cartoon which was more complicated to draw than usual. I always complain about the cartoon ideas that enthusiastic readers suggest I draw because the readers think in words rather than images, and I get pitches like, “have one army on the left clashing with another army coming in from the right while the sky is filled with helicopters.” I’m much too lazy for that.
So, here I’m drawing a crowd of refugees crashing down on, and running through Europe. I’m too lazy for that, but, well … at least the sky isn’t filled with helicopters.
I laid it out in pencil first …
And here’s a close-up view of the little refugees …
This is much bigger than my actual drawing and it looks pretty messy when it is blown up – rather disturbing – makes me want to go back in and clean it up a bit. I have to be realistic here; like the European Union, there’s a limit to how much of my resources I can free up for refugees.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been eager to be the “take action guy” with Ebola. He sometimes gets the facts wrong, accusing a nurse of having ebola symptoms when she didn’t have ebola symptoms – and that’s great for me; as a cartoonist, I gotta love Chris Christie.
I get requests to show my rough pencil sketches – here’s the sketch for this one …
I draw these on tab sized paper, 11×17. I almost had Christie with multi-hand-motion-chip-eating-action, but that was too complicated. Simple is better.
It is rare that I draw governors; most readers don’t know the governors of other states, let along their own states. Christy stands above the other governors as a great character. Here he is bouncing back from this “bridge-gate” scandal.
The guy is fun. Here’s Christie on running for president – I’d like to see him run.
For a while, Christie’s “Bridge-gate” traffic-jam scandal looked like it would sink Christie and I drew this umbrella cartoon.
I need to keep drawing this guy.
