My Missing Donald Trump Cartoon
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Russia and Oil Price Drop
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Iran and Oil Price Drop
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Venezuela and Oil Price Drop
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“Like a Red Flag in Front of a Bull”
Today’s cartoon is inspired by a quote from incoming Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, who said that if President Obama does immigration reform with an executive order, over the objections of Republicans, that would be like, “waving a red flag in front of a bull.” Kind of obvious, but it was fun to draw McConnell and Boehner as bulls.
The drawing was a bit more difficult than usual. I think this is the first time I’ve ever drawn McConnell and I’m not really comfortable with him yet. My rough sketch is below.
I was going to label the “red flag” as “immigration reform” but I decided that was unnecessary. I struggled with McConnell and I did a little patch to draw his face over until I was happy with it. Those marks between Obama and the bulls remind me to reposition them when I do the finished line art.
I also struggled with how to draw the bulls’ penises in a way that editors could stand, without killing my cartoon. I like how bull penises seem to come out of the middle of their bellies, and I tried to be discreet.
I like to do line art for the black and white version of a cartoon, without gray tones. There is something more elegant about lines – although it is hard to call this cartoon “elegant.” Here is the color version …
I played a bit with making Boehner orange, and with making the bulls have more light and shadow, but whatever I tried was too busy and I ended up with dull bulls. I’m not really happy with the color on this one. In fact, I’m usually never happy with my color.
I’m looking at doing a video of my drawing my cartoons to post on the site, or possibly to do live as a rather long and boring podcast. It is cartoons like this one that give me podcasting pause, because I fiddled around with it for a long time before I was happy with the caricatures – and cartoonists like to give the impression that drawing everything is quick and easy. I’ll have no secrets. On the other hand, the videos may be so boring that no one will notice.
I looked around for some other bulls and I found this one by Georgia cartoonist, Mark Streeter, who beat me to the matador punch.
Here’s an oldie by RJ Matson.
There was a big Yahtzee of matador cartoons about the European Union, back when Spain was having big financial problems and needed a bail-out. Here’s one I drew then.
This is a nice bull-fight cartoon from John Cole that is probably better now than when he drew it back in 2006. I like the blank, Orphan Annie eyeballs.
There are a whole lot of matador cartoons out there, but there’s always room for more.
And thanks to Jerry Moore for sending me this nice shot of the Op-Ed page of the Los Angeles Times today.
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More Troops for Iraq
I voted for Obama because he promised to get the US out of Iraq – now he’s creeping us back in. With the Republicans controlling Congress, I’m guessing that the mission creep will continue. What is so bizarre is that everyone seems to recognize that Iraq (and the rest of the Middle East for that matter) is an endless quagmire – but still public opinion is solidly behind jumping back in to bash “ISIS-ISIL-IS-Islamic State-Daesh”.
It is fascinating to me that the vast majority of editorial cartoonists draw cartoon after cartoon about how bad the “ISIS-ISIL-IS-Islamic State-Daesh” guys are, and seem to be on the mission creep bandwagon, headed back to Iraq. Here’s today’s cartoon about the 1,500 additional troops Obama is sending to Iraq now.
Here’s a tiny detail, so we don’t lose track of the troops.
We’re bombing “ISIS-ISIL-IS-Islamic State-Daesh” in Syria also – but not bombing Bashar Assad. It wasn’t long ago that Obama was eager to bomb the Assad regime, after they used chemical weapons and crossed his “red line”. At the time, I drew this one …
and this one …
maybe these two cartoons were right for a few minutes – Obama seemed to back off and lose interest in bombing Assad. That red line nonsense seemed less important.
But now it has gone full circle – and the press, reflecting public opinion seems to be pushing Obama. I can’t really tell if Obama is reluctant or not. I suppose it doesn’t matter whether he’s being pushed or leading the charge when the direction is clear.
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Big Election for Republicans and Tic-Tac-Toe
The big election wins for Republicans gave us an elephant cartoon festival that continues today. Here is our great new collection of cartoons on the GOP sweep.
I posted three cartoons yesterday! The first one started out as I was thinking of the Republicans taking “a big bite of the apple” which didn’t quite work, because it looked like the elephant was damaging and consuming the capitol, so I went with a Capitol ice cream cone and a big lick. (No, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the perspective on the Capitol – hey, this is a cartoon.)
And here’s the GOP having a nice day, while the Democrats are having a lousy day.
Here’s the GOP win. They played a good game this time around.
Tic-Tac-Toe cartoons are a favorite of mine; they show more than winners and losers, tic-tac-toe shows a strategy. I drew this one when it became clear that Obama was going to beat Mitt Romney.
I drew this one four years earlier, when it was clear that Obama was going to beat McCain.
Tic-tac-toe isn’t only good for elections. I drew this one a few years ago, when Saddam Hussein’s regime fell.
I regret that my early Iraq cartoons were not very sophisticated, and were much to supportive of the war. I’ve learned my lesson this time around and all the warmongering media and public support for going back into Iraq looks like the old rush to war winning over the public again … as illustrated in the tic-tac-toe-oldie below. Somehow it looks like there is more tic-tac-toe to come.
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Obama Anchors the Mid-Term Elections
The idea of President Obama as an anchor makes me laugh.
The feet amuse me on this one. And the brown/blue color palette is unusual for me. Obama also makes a great stand-alone anchor …
