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An Interview with the Brave, Egyptian Cartoonist, Doaa el Adl

When I was at the festival in St. Just, France I had the opportunity to interview Doaa el Adl.  She is a rare female cartoonist in Egypt, and she has been persecuted by  by the Morsi regime for drawing a cartoon that featured Adam and Eve, an opportunity for the Muslim Brotherhood to chill her speech.  Editorial cartoonists are very important voices in Egypt, with their cartoons routinely running on the front pages of the many, vibrant newspapers in a culture that still reveres newspapers.

I think Doaa is a hero, for standing up to the regime, speaking truth to power, and putting herself at risk in doing so.

Interestingly, Doaa had some strong objections to my own cartoons.  Here are a couple of my cartoons that she disliked the most …

136481 600 An Interview with the Brave, Egyptian Cartoonist, Doaa el Adl cartoons

Doaa says “Yes, Obama does that – but you draw him as an angel – he is no angel! He meddles in everything!  He wants to control everything!”

136415 600 An Interview with the Brave, Egyptian Cartoonist, Doaa el Adl cartoons

To this one Doaa says, “Obama is not like that! He is in there fighting with everyone, making trouble, trying to run everything!”

Obama has managed to make all sides in the Middle East see him as the bad guy.

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Daryl Has a Cow

MeandJosette400wide Daryl Has a Cow cartoons

Here I am with my cow, Josette. I’m holding the St. Just porcelain statue depicting their logo that they give to grand prix winners.

I just got back from the grand editorial cartooning festival in St. Just le Martel, France where I won the grand prix, the “Prix de l’humor Vache” award, which was an actual cow, named Josette.

The “Salon de St. Just, ” in its 32nd year, draws cartoonists from around the world to a tiny town near Limoges.  The townspeople have adopted the cartoonists and hold a party that stretches over two weekends, in a grand cartoon museum they built in the middle of cow country.  Most of the cartoonists stay in the homes of volunteer villagers – the entire event is put together by townpeople  Cartoonists usually come for only one weekend of the festival, splitting the crowd between what becomes two different weekend groups of roughly 120 cartoonists each.

This was my second “Salon,” last year I went with our knuckle-dragging, conservative, “Tea Party” cartoonist, Eric Allie, who was a strange beast to the French.  This year I went with three liberal cartoonists, Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune, Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and Bob Englehart of the Hartford Courant for three days of open bar and schmoozing with our international colleagues.

Cowboys400wide Daryl Has a Cow cartoons

Here I am with my Cagle Cartoons colleagues, dubbed “Cagle Cowboys”, from left, Josette, Pat Bagley, Me, Bob Englehart and Steve Sack below.

My festival friends tell me that a cow is usually a placid animal, but sometimes the cow will get annoyed and give a swift, painful kick as a surprise to an unlucky bystander; this contributes to the idea that the cow is a little sneaky, nasty and unpredictable.  The “Prix de l’humor Vache,” the grand prize they gave me, is described as an award for “caustic humor.”  “Humor Vache” (funny cow) rhymes with “Amour Vache” (love cow, or more accurately “rough love”) a French idiom for a love affair that is nasty, consisting of harsh words and arguments.  In France, to refer to someone as a “vache” (cow) is a little bit nasty.  In contrast, on the first Saturday of the Salon, they give out the “Humor Tendre” (Tender Humor) award, which is a sheep, given to a sweet cartoonist such as a children’s book illustrator.

The Limoges area is proud of their cows, which are raised for beef and are all a warm brown color.  The cow is the symbol and mascot of the Salon.  Every year, the “Prix de l’humor Vache” cow is named “Josette” and is actually given to the winning cartoonist.  At the ceremony, the mayor of St. Just, Gerard Vandenbroucke, awarded Limoges porcelain cows to my three American compatriots, dubbing them “Cagle’s cowboys.” Bob, Pat and Steve, who can also claim to have won cows (although, not real cows) took their little cows around to all the other cartoonists at the Salon to sign; it was charming.

StJustPosterforBlog Daryl Has a Cow cartoonsTypically, the winning cartoonist is expected to take a cash award (I still don’t know how much) in lieu of actually taking delivery of the real Josette, who would be difficult to check on a plane and would likely be an unpleasant roommate in my tiny, Nashville apartment.  But, they make it clear that the cartoonist really won a cow and could actually take the cow if he or she chooses to, and there are stories of cartoonists in past years choosing to take the cow.  I’m told that are some amusing movies of a past winner taking his cow to Paris, trying to bring the cow on the Metro, and taking the cow up the Eiffel Tower.  If anyone can find these movies online, I’d love to take a look.

Part of winning the grand prize cow is the obligation to do the art for the poster for the next Salon.  The poster this year featured a lovely Degas-like ballerina cow. The festival people then dress a cow sculpture, in the entry to the museum, to match the cow on the poster.  My plan is to give the cow on next year’s poster a very elaborate costume that will be a unique challenge for a St. Just volunteer to create for the cow statue.  Right now, I’m thinking of doing the poster cow as Marie Antoinette with a huge, elaborate, flowing gown.

 Daryl Has a Cow cartoons

Here’s Bob Englehart with the cow statue at the entrance to the exhibition. The cow is dressed to match the poster which is a ballerina this year. Next year I’ll be doing the poster and I plan to put the cow in a very elaborate costume that will be a challenge for St. Just’s volunteer seamstresses.

The whole event in St. Just is a lovely boost for our beleaguered editorial cartooning profession which is suffering in France as it is here and around the world with newspapers declining everywhere.  I’d love to see some of the great French attitude about the value of editorial cartooning rub off on other parts of the world, like America, which treats cartooning as a second class art form.  I can’t imagine a whole town in the USA choosing to build a municipal cartoon museum, opening their homes, and pitching together to cook dinner for hundreds of editorial cartoonists – and, of-course, a nine day open bar would be unthinkable in America.

1375278 10151580985341735 237710961 n Daryl Has a Cow cartoons

From left to right, Bob Englehart, Stave Sack, St. Just’s Mayor Gerard Vandenbroucke in the red shirt, me holding my “Prix de l’humor Vache” porcelain statue, Josette, and Pat Bagley in the lower right corner.

Below is a scan of the Limoges newspaper front page and interior story from the day after I had a cow.

FrontPage600Wide Daryl Has a Cow cartoons

Page7 600wide Daryl Has a Cow cartoons

 

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A Brave Cartoonist is Murdered by the Syrian Regime

I am saddened to write that Cartoonists Rights Network reports that Syrian cartoonist Akram Raslan has been executed by the Syrian regime after a sham trial.

StJustAkram A Brave Cartoonist is Murdered by the Syrian Regime cartoons

Click on the photo to see a larger view. That’s me sitting on the stage at the lower right. Such sad news for the cartooning community.

Just last week, at the Humor Salon in St Just, I joined a nice assembly and demonstration by world cartoonists in support of Akram – at the time we all thought Akram was imprisoned, but he had already been murdered. Akram’s crime was to make people laugh at the Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad in his cartoons.

Truly tragic news.  From the Cartoonists Rights Network report:

 A Brave Cartoonist is Murdered by the Syrian Regime cartoons     We’ve learned that on July 26, Akram Raslan and other prisoners of conscience including journalists, artists, singers and other intellectuals were secretly put on trial with no witnesses, no defense attorneys, no appeal, and no hope for justice.  From unconfirmed and sketchy reports we learned that they were all condemned to life imprisonment.
     Somehow, along the way to prison young 28-year-old Akram Raslan (and possibly others) was peeled off,  taken out and executed. He is reported to be in a mass grave somewhere near Damascus. Our reliable but for obvious reasons anonymous sources further allege that the murder of Akram and other condemned prisoners was carried out by Mohammad Nassif Kheir Bek, currently the Deputy Vice President for Security Affairs in Syria.  He has already been sanctioned by the European Union for the use of violence against protesters and the Syrian civil war.
     Akram Raslan was the winner of the Cartoonists Rights Network International, Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning for 2013.  Past award winners have hailed from Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey, Palestine, Iran, and India,  including last year’s winner, Ali Ferzat, also from Syria.
     Here in the United States we are experts in the knowledge that editorial cartooning is a dying art.  In other areas of the world, however, it is an art that people die for.
     CRNI has been monitoring and assisting political cartoonists in trouble for the last 20 years.  They are often victims of failing regimes stamping out criticism, drug cartels squashing investigations, corporate interest protecting money and political manipulation, and religious zealots stamping out thinking.
     About nine months ago young Akram Raslan was abducted from the offices of his newspaper and “disappeared” into the Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad’s prisons for the next six months.  Readers might remember the case of Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat who in 2011 had his hands broken by the Syrian regime’s thugs. As they finished the job they told Ali that his broken hands would prevent him from disrespecting their master through his cartoons.  Ali Ferzat was lucky.  He survived the beating and eventually found safe haven in another Middle Eastern country.   His revenge was to live to draw again.
     The hue and cry over this attack that grew from the world’s journalists and cartoonists must have made an impression on Bashir al-Assad. This time, a beating wasn’t enough. This time he decided to “disappear” the cartoonist permanently.
Here are a couple of Akram Raslan cartoons that likely angered his murderers, from the Cartoonists Movement site …
AkramRaslanToonAssadOrBurnTheCountry A Brave Cartoonist is Murdered by the Syrian Regime cartoons
 A Brave Cartoonist is Murdered by the Syrian Regime cartoons
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Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo

Here is my last week of cartoons.  Today I’m headed out for the editorial cartooning convention in St. Just, France, with my brilliant cartoonist buddies, Steve Sack, Bob Englehart and Pat Bagley.

Here’s my most recent cartoon, with the GOP all tied up in a knot.  They seem to be pretty dysfunctional right now, gumming up the government for everybody.  (I was just drawing the heels of his shoes with the old fashioned nails and gripper on the back, I wasn’t think of his heels having happy faces.  I guess I have to think of everything.)

600 GOPknot300dpiCMYK9 Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo cartoons

 

I did a second GOP knot cartoon this week, which makes the point more about the split in the Republican party.

600 ElephantKnot300dpiCMYK Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo cartoons

 

I’m trying to do more texture in my cartoons.  I’ve been asked why I do the yellow backgrounds so often in my cartoons.  I like the yellow because it is intense and light so that it doesn’t draw away from the line art.

I drew a THIRD Republican knot cartoon this week.  This is my knotty Republican week.  Here is the GOP hanging himself on the medical Caduseus (Obamacare).

1790B GOPCadeuseus300dpiCMY Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo cartoons

Enough of knots. When Ted Cruz was doing his useless filibuster, reading from Dr. Seuss, and the other cartoonists were all making Dr. Seuss metaphors, I was rather more annoyed with Cruz, so I drew him as a monkey throwing his poop.

600 CruzMonkey300dpiCMYK Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo cartoons

I know that there won’t be many newspapers that will print this (if any will at all).  I guess that is one of the perks of being my own editor – I can draw whatever I want even if nobody wants to see it.  This cartoon is actually a homage to the great, British cartoonist Steve Bell, who drew a famous image of George W. Bush in a similar pose.  I’m a big Steve Bell fan.

The last one for the week is this Republican suicide bomber cartoon.  I’m leaving for the convention in France at a difficult time, with all the wonderful, crazy politics going on now.  I won’t be drawing new cartoons for a week or so, but when I come back I expect to have some pent up angst, ready for the drawing board.

600 GovtBomb300dpiCMYK Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo cartoons

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Come See Daryl Cagle in Knoxville and St. Just le Martel!

I will crawl out of my spider hole for two events!  Come see me!

I’ll be speaking, and giving a Powerpoint presentation, to the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society (NCS) in Knoxville, TN on Saturday, October 26th, at about 11:00am, at the Crowne Plaza Knoxville (University), in Salon B on the mezzanine level.  The NCS chapter folks tell me that anyone can come, so here is your chance to tell me off face to face, no hiding behind those nasty e-mails.

affiche web

I’m impressed with the NCS Southeast Chapter, they put on an ambitious gathering and have a lot of cartooning luminaries in their ranks.  I’m looking forward to it.

Next week I’m going to the big, international, editorial cartooning convention in St. Just le Martel, France.  This is a little town that has decided that they love editorial cartoons – they built an impressive cartoon museum and the whole town comes out in wholehearted support of our troubled art form. They also love cows; this is French cow country, down by Limoges.

Three of the cartoonists I syndicate are coming along, Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune, Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and Bob Englehart of the Hartford Courant.  I think this will be the biggest American turnout that little St. Just has ever had.  And none of us speak French.  Here is a list of all the attending editorial cartoonists, and the days that they will be in attendance.

So, if there are any editorial cartooning fans in France who want to visit with some obscure, American editorial cartoonists, the four of us will be hanging with all the other world cartoonists at the cartoon museum the second weekend of the Salon, October 4th, 5th and 6th.

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Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More!

Here are my new cartoons!  The big news the past couple of weeks has been the run up to war, and the run down from the rup up to war with Syria. Obama pitched the idea as hard as he could to a war-weary nation.

136862 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

137026 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

Putin saw an opportunity to jump in with a plan to get Syria to give up their chemical weapons, putting a damper on Obama’s bombing plans.

137234 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

I see that I have fallen behind on posting these.  I’ll try to do better … so, there was a lot of Putin this week.  Putin is fun, he’s easy to draw and he’s a funny character with his shirtless macho swagger that reminds me of Miley Cyrus’ twerking.

137408 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

A lot of pundits were talking about how Putin and Russia had “put America into a box.” which reminded me of Marcel Marceau.

137468 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

Putin looks pretty French in this cartoon, huh?  Here’s Putin and Assad as the “Alien” from the “Alien” movies.

137307 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

I notice whenever the cartoons are about foreign news, our traffic goes down.  We need more Miley Cyrus.  Here’s my most recent cartoon, about the budget showdown in Congress, that hasn’t been getting as much news as it would if other things weren’t always happening.

137579 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

This one is a little surreal, a little disturbing, and a little stinky.  The last one is an oldie that I drew fifteen years ago when I was a local cartoonist in Hawaii, and there was a controversy about how gifted kids were treated in schools – as conscripted labor because they “didn’t need to study with the others.” This is something I recall with my gifted daughter, Susie, who was often put to work tutoring other students, by her lazy public school teachers.
137066 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

That’s it for this week.  Now I’m back to life in Nashville.  For a guy who doesn’t go to church, doesn’t like football, doesn’t care about music and shouldn’t eat too much bacon – remind me, why am I in Nashville again?

 

 

 

 

 

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The Cartoon That Facebook Won’t Let You See

My buddy, cartoonist Kianoush Ramezani, an Iranian cartoonist who escaped from probable imprisonment by the Iranian Regime and was given asylum in France, posted this funny cartoon that was censored by Facebook (Facebook also blocked his account for 12 hours). I thought I would post it on Facebook too, and sure enough, they censored my posting too. The cartoons is below.  It makes me laugh, and it makes a religious/political point that I would expect, from Kianoush’s point of view.  See my buddy Kianoush here.

I’ve been blocked from Facebook for the next twelve hours.  Ouch!

Facebook censored my cartoon The Cartoon That Facebook Wont Let You See cartoons

Here’s what I got when I posted it – a double Facebook removal …

DoubleCensorKianoush The Cartoon That Facebook Wont Let You See cartoons

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Yelling Into an Empty Head!

Every so often I have to draw a cartoon with Uncle Sam yelling into the empty head of a politician who just doesn’t get what the public clearly wants.  Here’s my most recent cartoon, in advance of President Obama’s speech to drum up support for a strike against Syria, that the public strongly opposes.

137120 600 Yelling Into an Empty Head! cartoons

Obama doesn’t seem to hear the public on the NSA. I thought about drawing Obama with little ears going forward in all of my cartoons, but I decided that would just be spitting into the cartoonists wind.
133187 600 Yelling Into an Empty Head! cartoons

Mitt Romney was also deaf to public opinion …
104908 600 Yelling Into an Empty Head! cartoons

As was George W. Bush …
19459 600 Yelling Into an Empty Head! cartoons

 

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Syria and Twerking!

Here are my new cartoons for the week!  Even as Americans rage against their government and everyday injustices here at home, I think we have it pretty good.  There are few places in the world where I could annoy politicians, in the way I do, with the impunity I enjoy with my rights as an American (yes, England, Australia, Canada, France, some other places) but, by and large, even though I have nothing good to say in my cartoons, I’m in a good place in the USA, and I appreciate that.

136572 600 Syria and Twerking! cartoons

All the news is the run up to war with Syria – except that we had a charming interruption with Miley Cyrus and her twerking.  I may draw another Miley cartoon – she is a gift to cartoonists.

136635 600 Syria and Twerking! cartoons

The next one is a little trite, but accurate, I think.  There are no good guys in Syria, and I’m not sure it is a bad thing if Assad wins his civil war over the other devils.  Presidents always feel the need to meddle in these things.  It is a presidential disease.

136616 600 Syria and Twerking! cartoons

Here’s my most recent one, with Obama ready to take a blood bath.  There have been so many cartoon about Syria and blood, I had to join in.

136801 600 Syria and Twerking! cartoons

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Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville!

Here I sit in my new Nashville, Tennessee apartment, trying out a new restaurant for every meal, and finally drawing cartoons.  I finished my second cartoon in Nashville today – a busy, crowd scene cartoon about Obama and foreign aid to Egypt.  Here is my rough pencil sketch.
EgyptAidSketch600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

I drew this first with a light, hard, #5 pencil to get the people in the crowd into the right composition, so they are interacting with each other, have expressive body language, their faces aren’t obscured, the feet and arms are on right … all those details need to be thought through for each figure; better to do it in a sketch than on the fly in in finished art.   The line art is below.  I debated whether to go with just line for the black and white version that most people see in the newspaper.

136479 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Here is the gray-scale version.  I thought it read a bit better with tone.  I do the gray-scale separately.  It isn’t just a gray version of the color cartoon.

136480 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

I usually avoid doing crowd scenes.  When I was an illustrator, I used to do a lot of crowd scenes.  I think art directors would sit in a brainstorming meeting and come up with a list of too many things that they needed to put in an ad – so they would call a cartoonist to jam it all into one piece of art.  Cartoonists get these jobs because the lists are too long, so the art has to be crazy. In fact, crowd scenes are usually not very effective compositions.  The most effective compositions show powerful character and expression, which is better done with large figures and faces.  With too many little figures in a crowd, the power of the expressions and body language are lost to tiny details.  That said, I hate to admit that sometimes a concept calls for a crowd scene.

Here’s the color cartoon …

136481 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

This one suffers from low resolution on the web, and will look much better in print, with crisp lines and texture in the tiny characters.  Here is a detail.

aiddetail Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

One funny thing about cartoon crowd scenes; when readers send me unsolicited ideas for cartoons, the ideas are almost always for crowd scenes.  The reader wants to say so much in his cartoon idea, that he comes up with a list of junk to include, just like the sloppy advertising art directors.  Some ideas I get start with, “draw an army on the left, and another army on the right …” or the reader will write, “fill the sky with helicopters …” Not only am I too lazy for this, all the tiny details would be ineffective in the composition, and the cartoon would be lousy.  For people who think in words, not images, these list-cartoons make perfect sense; to cartoonists, they are nonsense.

The previous cartoon is another Egypt/Arab Spring drawing.  Here’s the rough pencil sketch.  Notice that I drew Obama too low and made a note to move him up.  I make lots of mistakes.  Mistakes are easy to fix.  Better to make lots of mistakes and have no fear of mistakes – at least in cartoons.  I wouldn’t give that advice to my dentist.

AmericanSketch600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Here is the line art version that most people will see in the newspapers.  No gray version for this one.  I like to keep them as line art if possible – there is something more elegant about not having to rely on tone.

136409 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

And here is the color …

136415 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

This cartoon is similar to one I drew a week earlier, with Obama and the Republicans.  I like the yellow ochre texture background for dirty fighting scenes.

135857 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

 

Obama doesn’t actually wear pinstripe suits.  He wears plain black and blue suits, which are no fun to draw.  So I take some artistic license.  This recent Detroit-in-the-toilet cartoon also uses the yellow ochre, grungy theme that I’m fond of right now.

136000 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Another recent one I neglected to post is this one about the chilly relations with Russia – not much of a cartoon, just an illustration of chilly relations.

135924 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Sorry, with the move to Nashville I’ve fallen behind.  I’ll catch up soon.

Nashville is starting to grow on me.  I’ll get used to it soon – when it cools off and the humidity goes down.