We’re having an alarming increase in coronavirus cases in Southern California. Restaurants are closed. Hospitals are filling up. Masks are mandatory as Trumpies demand their rights to go maskless. Fox News and President Trump tell us not to believe our lying eyes.
This California Bear cartoon seems especially apt right now. I drew this one a few years ago as California was suffering from an economic malaise and a variety of other problems that seem trivial now. I dusted this oldie off, gave it a fresh coat of paint and it is better now than ever, so I sent it out to newspapers again.
Our past economic problems seem quaint now. As I was rummaging around in my bear flag oldies I found the next one about California drowning in a sea of red ink. Cartoons like this don’t travel well. Outside of the USA, people don’t know our California flag, and they don’t know what “red ink” means (it means debt). To freshen this oldie up I added some coronavirus balls to the drowning bear in the red-ink red-stripe.
Back in the old days, California was drowning in red ink because of unfunded pension obligations and poor financial decisions by our irresponsible elected officials; the good old days. I exaggerate so much in my cartoons that my drawings for mildly bad times seem just as appropriate when times are much worse –there’s a cartoon “silver-lining” that we can all be grateful for.
See more of my favorite California Bear cartoons here.
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Stars signify pain in cartoons, so the Brexit bonk on the head to the stock market bull seemed appropriate. I put a bunch of texture in this one. Maybe someone will print it big.
