I recently put together an illustration portfolio on Behance.net/darylcagle including some of my old Muppet artwork, which got me to thinking of Oscar the Grouch as the metaphor for grouchy Iowa Republicans. I draw a Muppet metaphor about once every two years – I miss the old Muppet days of my youth.
I drew this one as a live stream on Twitch – come watch me draw the whole thing in real time in the YouTube videos below …
I just drew another Muppet themed editorial cartoon, about Chick-Fil-A, below. I worked for the Muppets from the 1970’s into the 1990’s; the Jim Henson organization made my career as a cartoonist so whenever the Muppets make the news I feel nostalgic.
I drew this one when Congress was cutting funding to PBS.
I remember when Stephen Colbert testified before Congress, in character, and Republicans complained that they might as well have Elmo testify before Congress, another good occasion for a Muppet cartoon.
This one was when the evil Goldman-Sachs traders derisively called their customers “Muppets,” for them, synonymous with “suckers.”
The Children’s Television Workshop folks announced that Cookie Monster would no longer eat unhealthful cookies.
I drew this one when I was a local cartoonist in Hawaii, and Hawaii was running up to a vote to legalize gay marriage (which failed). A conservative Christian group was outraged by the cartoon and organized a noisy protest outside my newspaper, the Midweek, demanding that the cartoonist “come out!” (I wasn’t really inside, I was at home in California, pretending to be a local Hawaii cartoonist.)
Here are some examples of what I drew and designed back in my Muppet years … the good old days. I still love the Muppets.