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New Years BITE

Happy cartoon New Year! I was busily drawing my New Years Day cartoon, with Obama going out and coming in for the year, and with little biting GOP elephants, when the news started blaring about North Korea calling Obama a “monkey.” I am a slave to the news, so I had to do a second version with L’il Kim. Here’s the GOP …

And here is the L’il Kim version …

L’il Kim may be a plague to the world, but he is a gift to cartoonists.

The “Father Time and Baby New Year” thing is standard cartooning fodder. Here’s my New Year cartoon from last year …

Back in December, 2012, all the talk was about the “Fiscal Cliff” budget fight in Congress; it looked like doomsday. I drew this one …

At the end of 2010 the house had fallen under Republican control, and it looked like the GOP was eager to jump into more war – instead, Congress didn’t do much of anything, and Obama got us into more war. Oh well …

At the end of 2008: Obama won the presidency, George W. Bush was out of a job, and my drawings of Obama needed some more time to mature.

As 2005 turned into 2006 George W. Bush’s Republicans had lost the mid-term elections, but Bush was doubling down on the Iraq War anyway. There was lots more war to come.

Back in 2001 all the news was the 9/11 attacks as our troops poured into Afghanistan. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

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Superbug, Obama’s Budget Battle and more L’il Kim!

Here is the back story on my last three editorial cartoons!

With Obama’s “middle of the road” budget that was attacked by both sides last week, there have been lots of budget cartoons showing both the left and the right angry at Obama. This is much the same thing, but without picturing the budget, so it might last a little longer.

Notice that in my drawing, Obama is not exactly in the middle … from the reader’s perspective, Obama is a little to the left of the middle -although, from Obama’s perspective, he has moved a bit to his right.

Maybe I’m overthinking this. Here is the rough pencil sketch, on tab sized copier paper in pencil.

MiddleSketch600wide Superbug, Obamas Budget Battle and more Lil Kim! cartoons

Next I drew the finished line art for the cartoon (below), also in pencil, on drafting vellum. This is what most people will see in the newspapers, that still usually print in black and white.

There is something lovely about a black and white editorial cartoon, particularly if it is only line art, without gray tone. I know that people will choose any color over black and white – but I think it is kind of like a classic sail boat vs. a speed/power boat – the sail boat is slow and classy, the power boat is fast, flashy, and people will choose it over the sail boat – still, the sail boat has more class and is nicer to look at.

130233 600 Superbug, Obamas Budget Battle and more Lil Kim! cartoons

Here’s a detail – isn’t the black and white nice? It is saved as 1000 dpi tiff and has a nice pencil line quality, up close.

detail Superbug, Obamas Budget Battle and more Lil Kim! cartoons

Then I add the color, for the image most online visitors see.

130234 600 Superbug, Obamas Budget Battle and more Lil Kim! cartoons

The previous cartoon was another one about L’il Kim. Here’s the black and white – I thought I had to resort to gray to make the multi-panel format work. I like to avoid gray when I can.

130080 600 Superbug, Obamas Budget Battle and more Lil Kim! cartoons

Here’s the color …

130081 600 Superbug, Obamas Budget Battle and more Lil Kim! cartoons

The next cartoon was intended to be an evergreen. There was a big, Sunday section front in my local newspaper Health section about  “superbugs” – antibiotic resistant diseases that are a new plague in hospitals. The newspaper didn’t run one of our nice cartoons or illustrations with the feature article, they had some lousy clip art; and I noticed that we didn’t have good “superbug” art in the database – so this is an attempt to fill the “Superbug” void in the CagleCartoons.com/PoliticalCartoons.com databases. Here is the rough pencil sketch on 11″x17″ paper.

SuperbugSketch600wide Superbug, Obamas Budget Battle and more Lil Kim! cartoons

I know, I know, bacteria don’t look like this kind of bug. Here is the black and white line art.

129945 600 Superbug, Obamas Budget Battle and more Lil Kim! cartoons

And I thought it might need a bit of gray tone – I’m not sure on this one.

129946 600 Superbug, Obamas Budget Battle and more Lil Kim! cartoons

And here is the color, added behind the line art in layers in Photoshop.

129947 600 Superbug, Obamas Budget Battle and more Lil Kim! cartoons

This one was fun to draw. Here is a detail.

BugDetail Superbug, Obamas Budget Battle and more Lil Kim! cartoons

 

 

 

 

 

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Cyprus, GOP Autopsy, Netanyahu, Li’l Kim, the New Pope, Europe and So Much More!

Cyprus, GOP Autopsy, Netanyahu, Lil Kim, the New Pope, Europe and So Much More! cartoons

Saturn/Bankers Eating Cyprus, by Goya and Daryl. Click on the image for a larger view.

It has been too long since I have posted my new cartoons in the blog; so here is a big batch, with some comments.

The Cyprus bank crisis is great fun, and a good excuse for another cartoon abusing an art masterpiece. This time it is Saturn Devouring his Children by Francisco Goya. Of-course, Saturn knew one of his children would kill him, so eating the kids was the obvious thing to do. Goya painted this on the wall of his dining room. A charming, dinnertime feast for the eyes.

Saturn’s son, Zeus, escaped being eaten, came back, cut open Dad’s belly (or induced Dad to vomit, depending on the version of the story) freeing his siblings, who emerged just fine from their digestive confinement. This is an apt metaphor for Cyprus bankers, who consumed Cyprus’ economy, only to have the EU cut their financial belly open sometime next week, freeing the Cypriot economy which will come out of its digestive confinement, looking no worse for wear. By some accounts Zeus also went on to castrate his father, also an apt metaphor for the EU and Cyprus.

GoyaClip Cyprus, GOP Autopsy, Netanyahu, Lil Kim, the New Pope, Europe and So Much More! cartoons

A clip from Goya’s Saturn Devouring his Children.

That’s a clip from Goya’s unaltered painting on the left. The problem I had was that I couldn’t just replace Saturn’s child/dinner with a map of Cyprus, because the child and Cyprus aren’t the same shape. And people want to see me draw in my cartoons, not just retouch masterpieces, so I decided to obviously draw over the painting.

What are public domain masterpieces good for, if not a lack of respect?

It is common for cartoonists to use famous paintings as metaphors in cartoons, and I notice that when I do it the cartoons are reprinted much more than any others.  Editors seem to love it – and it amuses me.  So there should be more to come.

My previous cartoon defaced a famous 1632 painting by Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. The cartoon mocks the GOP “autopsy” this week by GOP Chair Reince Priebus – it amused me that Priebus chose to use the word “autopsy,” acknowledging that the patient was already dead. It was actually a pretty good GOP autopsy, and the reaction from the GOP old-guard made me laugh.

129098 600 Cyprus, GOP Autopsy, Netanyahu, Lil Kim, the New Pope, Europe and So Much More! cartoons

The previous cartoon was about President Obama’s trip to Israel, and how I imagined his conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu would go. “Overstating the obvious” always works in cartoon.

128867 600 Cyprus, GOP Autopsy, Netanyahu, Lil Kim, the New Pope, Europe and So Much More! cartoons

 

Bellicose rhetoric from North Korea dominated the news the day I drew the cartoon below. I enjoy drawing the crazy, comicana cursing. This story doesn’t change much. I think North Koreans and Li’l Kim look for slow news days when they can make crazy threats and get some attention.

128777 600 Cyprus, GOP Autopsy, Netanyahu, Lil Kim, the New Pope, Europe and So Much More! cartoons

The cartoon below is a Euro-evergreen. When I draw “everyman” characters in cartoons, I try to make them look like real people, rather than big-nosed-nobodies. I thought the girl looked kind of like Penny from The Big Bang Theory. Some readers commented that she looked more like Chelsea Clinton, with a “There’s Something About Mary” hairdo, having lunch with young Nicolas Cage. Oh well …

128609 600 Cyprus, GOP Autopsy, Netanyahu, Lil Kim, the New Pope, Europe and So Much More! cartoons

Everyone drew something about Rand Paul’s filibuster. I thought John McCain’s strained reaction, calling Rand Paul a “Wacko Bird” was great fun, and I drew this … I think McCain is hard to draw. His face is like pudding, with no particular shape to it. And, whatever he has to say, he has a “GET OFF MY LAWN” expression on his face.

128537 600 Cyprus, GOP Autopsy, Netanyahu, Lil Kim, the New Pope, Europe and So Much More! cartoons

The cartoon below is about Obama’s recent “charm offensive” where he invited GOP leaders over for dinner or lunch. We saw lots of smiling faces.

128475 600 Cyprus, GOP Autopsy, Netanyahu, Lil Kim, the New Pope, Europe and So Much More! cartoons

This is another “charm offensive” cartoon about Obama’s dinner with Republicans. This was a quickie and I didn’t bother to color it. I got comments from conservatives who thought it was funny that I drew Obama in the role of Jesus at the last supper. hmmm.

128425 600 Cyprus, GOP Autopsy, Netanyahu, Lil Kim, the New Pope, Europe and So Much More! cartoons

128663 600 Cyprus, GOP Autopsy, Netanyahu, Lil Kim, the New Pope, Europe and So Much More! cartoons

Pope Francis as a gaucho.

One last one and I’m caught up! I drew this one (on the right) as fast as I could, when the new Pope was announced, and we learned he was from Argentina. I went to Google Images and looked up all I could find on gaucho costumes. So here is Pope Francis as a gaucho.

I won’t fall so far behind again!  I promise!