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Cagle Cartoonists in France!

I just got back from our big convention at the editorial cartooning festival in the little village of St Just le Martel, France.

The French call editorial cartoons “press cartoons” and editorial cartoonists are “dessinateurs de presse.”  It was a struggle to get our dessinateurs de presse together for a group Cagle photo this year! Here’s one attempt.

CagleCartoonists above, standing from left to right are Iranian exile and new Cagle.com cartoonist, Hasan Kareimsdeh, Pierre Ballouhey from France, Manny Francisco from the Philippines, Gatis Sluka from Latvia, on top of the cow in the red hat is Cristina Sampaio from Portugal, standing below her is David Fitzsimmons, Ed Wexler, Steve Sack, Adam Zyglis and Pat Bagley. Kneeling or sitting from left to right are Christo Komarnitsky from Bulgaria, Jeff Koterba, me (Daryl Cagle), Emad Hajjaj from Jordan and Gary McCoy.

And here’s another attempt about fifteen minutes later with two new French CagleCartoonists added on the left, Robert Rousso and Jean-Michel Renault. Others wandered off. We missed seven or eight of our CagleCartoonists who were in St Just and didn’t show up for either photo. The cats just won’t stay in one place, and they don’t come when called.

This short video shows about half of our CagleCartoons Trump vs. Iran exhibit at St Just. We also participated in two other exhibits there, one bashing The New York Times for dropping editorial cartoons, and another, of memorial cartoons for the festival’s beloved founder, Gerard Vandenbroucke, who passed away in the last year.

https://youtu.be/54vreTdaJQ4

My charming and generous St. Just family, Greg and Geraldine Decoster, who hosted us, in the cartoon museum with me and my cartoonist/musician son, Michael.

I’ve been coming to St Just for seven or eight years now and it has grown into an effective Cagle Cartoons convention for us. There is no other festival for editorial cartoons in the world that is anything like it. All the folks in the little village turn out to welcome the cartoonists, who they host in their homes. The cartoonists bond with their local host families and stay with the same family year after year. The charming and generous St. Just family, Greg and Geraldine Decoster, who hosted me and my cartoonist/musician son Michael, are shown in the photo at the right, in the cartoon museum.

The town’s teenagers are waiters at the huge, impressive dinners for the many editorial cartoonists from around the world. The video below was created by our CagleCartoonist, David Fitzsimmons, which shows the dinner scene, along with showing the cool editorial cartoon museum, the cute little town, St Just’s medieval church, the presentation of the cow to the cartoonist of the year (Swiss cartoonist, Thierry Barrigue) and more. (See my son, Michael drawing on the table at dinnertime in the video.)

 

Here are a bunch of Americans drinking and carousing at the home of Steve Sack‘s lovely St Just family (who prefers to remain anonymous).

Who are we?  From the bottom going clockwise: in the red shirt there’s Jeff Koterba, in the lower left is my cartoonist/musician son, Michael, moving up and around the table, there’s Ed Wexler, Gary McCoy, Steve Sack‘s son and daughter-in-law Adam and Mandy, Dave Fitzsimmons, Ed Wexler‘s daughter Sarah, Adam Zyglis, Dave’s wife Ellen, Pat Bagley‘s girlfriend Kate and Pat, Steve Sack, and Ed Wexler‘s wife Toni. I’m missing from the photo. (Maybe I’m taking the picture, holding that mysterious glass of red wine.)

The festival (or “salon” as they call it) is growing and this was their biggest year out of nearly 40 years in existence, and they are taking on an increasingly important role for our troubled profession. St Just le Martel is much appreciated!  Thanks everyone!

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Memorial Cartoons for Gérard

Updated 2/19/19 with new cartoons – Daryl

Cartoonists around the world are drawing memorial tribute cartoons for our dear, departed friend Gérard Vandenbroucke, the founder and president of the Salon at St Just le Martel and long time champion of our editorial cartooning profession. Read my obit here.  I’ll post new cartoons as they come in.

Gérard was also a politician who rose from being the mayor of the tiny village of St Just le Martel to being the president of the Limousin region of France, famous for their brown cows that are an icon of the cartoon museum – that’s why there are so many cows in the cartoons.

This one is by Christo Komarnitsky from Bulgaria

 

This one by Bob Englehart may require some explanation. Gérard was the mayor of St Just le Martel and he championed the cartoon museum and Salon in the tiny village.  St Just le Martel translates to “Saint Just the Hammer.” As the story goes, God told Saint Just to throw his hammer and build a church where it landed; Bob’s cartoon puts Gérard in the St Just role, throwing his hammer to decide where to build the cartoon museum/festival.

 

This one is by Osmani Simanca from Brazil

 

This one is from Gary McCoy

 

Here is my own cartoon.

 

This one is by Ed Wexler!

 

This one is by Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

 

This cartoon is by Marilena Nardi from Italy

 

This one is by Jeff Koterba of the Omaha World Herald.

 

By Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune.

 

This is by Firuz Kutal of Norway.

 

 

This one is by Tchavdar Nicolov from Bulgaria’s Prass Press.

 

This one is by my buddy, Robert Rousso, who is the dean of the French cartoonists.

This linoleum block print is by Randy Enos.

 

This one is by Danish cartoonist Neils Bo Bojesen.

 

 

This one is by my buddy, Batti Manfruelli from Corsica.

 

Pierre Ballouhey drew Gérard on the left, resuming a conversation with his two deceased pals on a cloud. In the middle is the priest of the lovely, little, medieval church of St Just le Martel. At the right is the late, chain-smoking, French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Loup, a talented cartoonist who curated the exhibitions at the museum for many years.

Here’s another by Pierre, the Limousin cows paint themselves black with grief.

 

This charming cartoon is by the charming French cartoonist, Placide. The village of St Just le Martel is behind the statue of Gérard, with the cartoon museum in the middle and the medieval church on the right.

 

This cartoon is by Romanian cartoonist Pavel Constantin.

 

This one is by Rick McKee of the Augusta Chronicle.

 

By Oguz Gurel from Turkey

 

This one is by Cristina Sampaio from Portugal.

 

This Gérard tribute is from Brazilian cartoonist and animator, CAó Cruz Alves

From the French cartoonist, my buddy Noder

 

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Our Friend Gérard Passes Away

I was saddened to learn that our dear friend, Gérard Vandenbroucke passed away today. Gérard was a tireless proponent of our cartooning profession.
Gérard started the Salon at St Just le Martel, France, more than 40 years ago with a group of teenagers in the village, who continue to run the Salon. They decided to make a festival for “Press Cartoons” (editorial cartoons) and they invited prominent French political cartoonists to attend. A handful came at first, and the Salon has grown steadily ever since into the worldwide editorial cartoonists convention that CagleCartoonists attend every year.
 
Gérard supported the Salon, along with fund raising and construction of St Just’s lovely cartoon museum, as he rose through the French political ranks, starting as mayor of St Just le Martel, then as president of the Limoges region and then the Limousin region. He has continued to be the president of the Salon all this time, and more recently he was the force behind the founding of the Cartooning Global Forum last year at UNESCO in Paris.
 
It is a sad day for our profession. Gérard was our hero; he was beloved by the cartoonists he loved. He is already missed.

That’s Gerard in the chair next to me, backed by CagleCartoonists.
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Cagle Cartoonists in France

Every year a big group of cartoonists from our syndicate meet up in France with cartoonists from around the world.

This year 23 CagleCartoonists were there. The “Salon” at St. Just le Martel has become a Cagle convention as we meet with the French cartoonists at their “National Assembly.” There is a great atmosphere as the townsfolk all turn out to support the editorial cartoonists at their very impressive, municipal cartoon museum. We did an exhibition about “guns.”

Here are a few pics of the cartoonists. The first is a group shot of the CagleCartoonists who happened to be there on the last day. That’s me in front, with festival president/founder Gerard Vandenbroucke. There are 19 CagleCartoonists in the photo, which were all we could round up at the moment. A nice French lady who is a courtroom artist wandered into the photo by mistake, so I replaced her head with the head of Angel Boligan, who should have been there but was confused, in the other room. Trying to get cartoonists to do anything together requires mastery in cat herding.

Above, from left to right: Tom Janssen (Holland), Jos Collignon (Holland), Jeff Koterba (USA), Pierre Ballouhey (who is also the president of the French cartoonists association), Gary McCoy (USA), Gatis Sluka (Latvia), Emad Hajjaj (Jordan), Joep Bertrams (Holland), Rick McKee (USA), Bruce Plante (USA), Cristina Sampaio (Portugal), Osama Hajjaj (Jordan), Ed Wexler (USA), Nate Beeler (USA), the head of Angel Boligan (Mexico), pasted on top of a lady who wandered into the photo, Pat Bagley (USA), Brian Adcock (Britain), and Christo Komarnitsky (Bulgaria).

Above, a group of us are having dinner on the first night, taken by a waiter who was rather challenged by the very difficult idea of getting everyone’s face in the photo. That’s me on the left, brave Russian cartoonist Sergey Elkin, who is blocking the face of his wife Tatiana, then there’s Sergei’s son, Toni and Ed Wexler, Nate Beeler and 1/3 of Bruce Plante’s face.

Above, a bunch of us are having dinner at Chez Denise on our last night there – from left to right, Jeff Koterba and his girlfriend Christine, me wearing my son’s band’s t-shirt, Ed Wexler, our waiter/cartoonist/host Noder (Cyril Redon), Cristina Sampaio, Toni Wexler (Ed’s wife) Nate Beeler, brilliant French cartoonist Jackie Redon (Noder’s father and name spelled backwards), and Yves Frémion who publishes the cartoon journal on the table under Jeff’s phone. The restaurant is great, and festooned with 1970’s illustration art like I grew up with in college.

Funny how so much of the internet is devoted to pictures of people eating.

The pic above is the room where the Paris City Council meets, in the Paris City Hall – it is the “Tignous Room” named after the famed, late, beloved Charlie Hebdo cartoonist, Tignous, whose cartoons adorn the walls. I can’t imagine a City Council doing something like that in the USA. We had a cocktail party there.

 

The pic above is a panorama photo from my seat at the Cartooning Global Forum at UNESCO in Paris – this shows about a third of the 100 people there. It is very difficult to get cartoonists to agree on what issues face us, even as print is dying for all of us and our colleagues are brutalized around the world. Also, the USA pulled out of UNESCO. Any talk about cartooning issues is a good thing and it looks like this conference will be an annual event. That’s good.

Below are a couple more from the Cartooning Global Forum at UNESCO, from Nicolas Jacquette, one of the tireless, heroic organizers …

And another from Jacquette and his “Studio Irresistible” (with brilliant co-organizer Jerome Leninger) … I’m hidden in this one.

Below are 7 Cagle Cartoonists at an exhibition opening in Limoges, from left to right, Nate Beeler, Me, in the background, the tiny head of Jean-Michel Delambre (the French cartoonist who won the cow/grand prize at St Just this year), Rick McKee, Gary McCoy, Jeff Koterba, Pat Bagley and Emad Hajjaj.

Regrettably, the tradition of a live cow for the grand cow winner in St Just has come to an end. Last year, when Angel Boligan won the cow, the cow went a little “vaca loco” and charged away from its handler, a kid who broke his finger handling the wild cow leash. This year there was a much better behaved inflatable cow for Jean-Michel Delambre.

In the pic below, a bunch of us are drinking at 1:00am in a cafe in Paris. From left to right are Jeff Koterba, the two wives of Tom Janssen and Jos Colignon (Els and Irma), Bruce Plante, Pat Bagley and his lovely girlfriend Kate, Gary McCoy, Ed Wexler, Rick McKee, Christo Komarnitsky, Jos Collignon, a tiny face of Toni, Ed’s wife, me, Gatis Sluka leaning back, Tom Janssen, Jeff’s girlfriend Christine and Nate Beeler. It looks like our waitress is in the back room, throwing up, or “boofing” as Justice Kavanaugh would say.

In the pic below are Cagle Cartoonists Cristina Sampaio (Portugal), Chris Weyant (New Jersey) and Neils Bo Bojesen (Denmark) in the St Just parking lot next to the giant lunch/dinner tent where big, heavy construction vehicles are parked, to prevent a terrorist from driving a truck into the dinner tent. Editorial cartoonists are always under threat, and always hungry.

Here’s a group of cartoonists in a pic from the St Just Salon folks …

I must thank the inspired volunteers for the Salon at St Just le Martel, and the heroic volunteers who put together the Cartooning Global Forum, which I hope to see continue as an annual event!

 

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Daryl Has a Cow

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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.

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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.

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