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Chinese Dragon and Me

I drew a self-portrait in today’s cartoon. All the news about Chinese hacking strikes close to home as we’ve had lots of trouble with hacker attacks on our servers, that our ISP has traced to China. I’m guessing that the Chinese junta doesn’t like American editorial cartoons much. I drew a Chinese dragon looking over my shoulder.

I did a State Department sponsored speaking tour in China some years ago, and I told the Chinese audiences that when I draw cartoons about China I represent China with a Panda, or a dragon, or the Great Wall, or that guy standing in front of a tank in Tienanmen Square.  The Chinese audience would always murmur and look at each other when I mentioned the tank in Tienanmen Square, which was quite provocative for them and always stirred up the crowd. At one college I said that line and one excited college kid stood up and asked in English, “Oh! Oh! What KIND of dragon?!” That still makes me laugh.

Here’s my very rough pencil sketch.

DragonSketch600wide Chinese Dragon and Me cartoons

 

Next I do the finished line art, in dark, hard pencil on a 14″x17″ piece of Duralene drafting vellum. This is what most people will see in the newspapers since most of them still print in black and white.

127671 600 Chinese Dragon and Me cartoons

Here is the color version. The color on this one was fun. I grabbed a bunch of Chinese dragons from Google Images for scrap on the dragon, and I pulled details from three or four different dragons that I thought were cute.

127672 600 Chinese Dragon and Me cartoons

I don’t know what kind of dragon it is. Sorry.