Fox News is aghast and aflutter about President Obama saying he’ll unilaterally enter into an international agreement on Climate Change.  Obama touts that he has a “pen and a phone” to do business without congress.  The pen amuses me.

Like almost every cartoon I draw, I think the black and white line version looks better – and it is what most people will see in the newspaper …

I realized that kids these days might not be familiar with fountain pens, and how they would occasionally squirt by mistake. I was reading Classic Peanuts recently as Charlie Brown was writing to his pen-pal with a fountain pen, squirting all over the page. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a letter on paper, or the last time I used a fountain pen. Charlie Brown is a classic, but the strip seemed to define the elderly audience of the newspaper.

At the right is a close-up detail view of Obama’s head from this cartoon. Over the course of his presidency I’ve been drawing Obama more gray haired and more weary looking. He’s having a visual transformation in cartoons as well as in reality. Also, in his news conference yesterday Obama was wearing a light tan suit. I’ve never seen Obama wear anything other than a black suit! For cartoonists the tan suit should have been the big story of the day.  I like to draw pinstripes and I’ve gotten comments that Obama doesn’t wear suits like the ones I draw him in – artistic license – the cartoon above would have been lousy with a black suit, the composition needs the black pen and black ink to work – a black suit would ruin it.

The renewed talk about Obama’s “pen” got me thinking about a cartoon I drew when the “pen and phone” talk first came out …

My new Obama-pen cartoon is also phallic.  Editorial cartoonists love to make phallic references in their cartoons. At the right is one of my recent favorites from Taylor Jones.

International cartoonists draw a whole lot of phallic cartoons. A recurring image is a warlike character holding a missile in a manly position.  Below is one by South African cartoonist Jeremy Nell …

The charmer below is from German cartoonist Rainer Hachfeld …

And yes!  We now have a cartoon about Obama’s tan suit from Nate Beeler. I knew that tan suit would find its way into cartoons.