Britain’s fever pitch of stress about Brexit is cranking up, day by day, as each new deadline approaches. One thing all the Brits seem to agree about is how they dislike Theresa May, her Brexit deal, and how she has gone about pitching and re-pitching the deal to Parliament. The topic dominates the minds of our international editorial cartoonists.

I like Theresa May. I don’t think her position on Brexit matters much since Parliament and the EU wouldn’t be able to agree on anything. Whatever position May had taken would lead to the same toxic impasse. My cartoon with May struggling to support Big Ben is actually a positive cartoon about her – I think she’s trying hard in a no-win situation.

I like the vertical cropping of my cartoon better than the wide version that I sent out to newspapers. I wanted May to look small under the crushing weight of the huge tower that looms over Parliament, but I wasn’t quite sure how small she could be to still be perceived as holding up the tower, rather than just looking like she’s being crushed –which would be a cartoon that means something else. I drew this as two pieces, one was the “Elizabeth Tower” (Big Ben), and the other was Theresa May, then I placed and sized May in Photoshop, making her as small as I thought I could for the cartoon to work.

I thought the tower was pretty forgiving and I got most of the architectural details wrong along with the perspective. The circle of the clock face is especially bad – I wasn’t thinking much about that at the time but now that I look at the reduced version, it bothers me. I should have generated a good circle in Photoshop and traced it, but no, I thought my lousy cartoonist freehand was fine. Too late now; it went out to newspapers already. Water under the bridge.

I don’t think I’ve seen any cartoons supporting May in the deluge of Brexit bashing that has been pouring into Cagle Tower in recent weeks. Powerful people get no sympathy, and editorial cartoonists aren’t known for sympathy. Here’s my wide cartoon and some of my recent Brexit favorites.

 

This one is by my buddy, Steve Sack of The Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

This one is by the brilliant, Dutch cartoonist, Hajo.

 

This one is by self-syndication king, Joe Heller.

 

This is by my new pal. Nicola Listes from Croatia.

 

And this Brexit Mobius Strip is by John Cole from Scranton, Pennsylvania!