DarylCagle.com
In a cost cutting move, The Jerusalem Post has dropped “Dry Bones,” the comic strip by my buddy, Yaakov Kirschen who has drawn it for the Post for 35 years. We syndicate Yaakov’s cartoons and he will continue to draw Dry Bones for syndication.
See Yaakov’s cartoons here and see his blog.
Yaakov will be leaving Israel to do an “Artist in Residence” stint at Yale, which sounds like fun.
I’m still here in Seattle at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) annual convention, and in this video, I speak with syndicated cartoonist Matt Bors.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5g8OrMvxCY&hl=en&fs=1&]
Matt is in a tough position in the market, as he is a left-wing multiple-panel cartoonists in an environment where editors like to buy single-panel conservative cartoons.
Matt and I talk about the marketplace for his cartoons, why he chooses to continue down the path he’s chosen and what the future of the cartooning profession holds.
Here are some of Matt’s cartoons that we featured in the video (view more of Matt’s cartoons here):
Michael Jackson was God’s gift to editorial cartoonists. Now that the gift has been “returned to sender” the cartoonists are mourning the loss of one of their most evergreen gags.
Jackson was a wonderful character for cartoons. From “Jesus Juice” to chimps and burning hair, he was a cartoon treasure. One of my all time favorites was a Mr. Fish cartoon during the jury selection process from Michael’s trial, showing Michael’s “nightmare jury” or “nightmare witnesses” of scowling Fruit of the Loom fruit characters in the jury box.
The political cartoonists have been emailing each other, warning that we should not do the obvious obit cartoons, like Michael at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter says, “You’re bad, beat it;” or Jesus dangling little Michael from a heavenly window; or Michael and St. Peter “moon-walking” backwards through the Pearly Gates into heaven. And I can’t help but think of how Jackson’s children must have recoiled in horror when he played “got your nose”…
I was thinking of drawing Michael and Jesus on a cloud sharing a white wine “Jesus Juice” as Jesus holds a little box, saying, “God has a little gift for you — it’s your nose.” I floated a few of these ideas to my 45,000 Twitter followers, to a mixed reaction ““ one third of the responses were angry that I would show such disrespect to Jackson, and two thirds wanted the obituary gags to keep on coming.
I drew my favorite Michael Jackson cartoon when he was arrested. I had a police line-up, and the little boy/victim is pointing at Jackson saying, “That one;” the others in the line-up are a candy cane, a barber pole and the North Pole. Of course, the “secret” characteristic the kid identified was that Jackson’s penis was (allegedly) striped like a barber pole. I thought everyone knew this when I drew the cartoon, but unfortunately it turned out this was a little known bit of color about the King of Pop.
Soon after I drew my Jackson line-up cartoon, I got an e-mail from a couple of middle school kids that went something like this:
“Dear Mr. Cagle, Every week in our Social Studies class, our teacher, Ms. Fuddle, has what we call, “Cartoon Monday.” The class votes on an editorial cartoon that we will discuss that day. We voted to discuss your Michael Jackson cartoon in class next Monday, but we don’t understand it. Would you please explain it to us? Sincerely, Kid One and Kid Two”
I wrote back:
“Dear Kid One and Kid Two, Thank you for choosing my cartoon to discuss. The cartoon refers to Michael Jackson’s penis, which is striped like a barber pole “¦”
And the kids wrote back:
“Dear Mr. Cagle. Thank you for the explanation of your Michael Jackson cartoon. We think this will be our most interesting Cartoon Monday ever.”
When I think of all that cartoonists have lost with Michael Jackson’s passing, it makes me weep.
Michael Jackson was God’s gift to editorial cartoonists. Now that the gift has been “returned to sender” the cartoonists are mourning the loss of one of their most evergreen gags.
Jackson was a wonderful character for cartoons. From “Jesus Juice” to chimps and burning hair, he was a cartoon treasure. One of my all time favorites was a Mr. Fish cartoon during the jury selection process from Michael’s trial, showing Michael’s “nightmare jury” of scowling Fruit of the Loom fruit characters in the jury box.
The political cartoonists have been emailing each other, warning that we should not do the obvious obit cartoons, like Michael at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter says, “You’re bad, beat it;” or Jesus dangling little Michael from a heavenly window; or Michael and St. Peter “moon-walking” backwards through the Pearly Gates into heaven. And I can’t help but think of how Jackson’s children must have recoiled in horror when he played “got your nose”…
I was thinking of drawing Michael and Jesus on a cloud sharing a white wine “Jesus Juice” as Jesus holds a little box, saying, “God has a little gift for you — it’s your nose.” I floated a few of these ideas to my 45,000 Twitter followers, to a mixed reaction – one third of the responses were angry that I would show such disrespect to Jackson, and two thirds wanted the obituary gags to keep on coming.
I drew my favorite Michael Jackson cartoon when he was arrested. I had a police line-up, and the little boy/victim is pointing at Jackson saying, “That one;” the others in the line-up are a candy cane, a barber pole and the North Pole. Of course, the “secret” characteristic the kid identified was that Jackson’s penis was (allegedly) striped like a barber pole. I thought everyone knew this when I drew the cartoon, but unfortunately it turned out this was a little known bit of color about the King of Pop.
Soon after I drew my Jackson line-up cartoon, I got an e-mail from a couple of middle school kids that went something like this:
“Dear Mr. Cagle, Every week in our Social Studies class, our teacher, Ms. Fuddle, has what we call, “Cartoon Monday.” The class votes on an editorial cartoon that we will discuss that day. We voted to discuss your Michael Jackson cartoon in class next Monday, but we don’t understand it. Would you please explain it to us? Sincerely, Kid One and Kid Two”
I wrote back:
“Dear Kid One and Kid Two, Thank you for choosing my cartoon to discuss. The cartoon refers to Michael Jackson’s penis, which is striped like a barber pole …”
And the kids wrote back:
“Dear Mr. Cagle. Thank you for the explanation of your Michael Jackson cartoon. We think this will be our most interesting Cartoon Monday ever.”
When I think of all that cartoonists have lost with Michael Jackson’s passing, it makes me weep.
Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 850 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. Daryl’s books “The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2009 Edition” are available in bookstores now.
Here are three recent cartoons from Mana Neyestani, the Iranian cartoonist who was jailed by the government for his cartoons, and who fled Iran to Malaysia.  Read more about Mana here and see the cartoon that landed him in jail.  (Thanks to Nik Kowsar.)
I just had an interesting telephone conversation with my friend, Nik Kowsar. Nik was a top editorial cartoonist in Iran until his cartoons became too much of an irritant to the regime and he was thrown into the notorious Evin Prison. Nik left Iran for Canada where he now lives and he works for Radio Zamaneh, based in Holland. A selection of Nik’s recent cartoons about the election turmoil in Iran is posted below.
Nik tells me he is not optimistic about prospects in Iran in the short term. He’s been working with a group of Iranian ex-pats to confirm information that is pouring out of Iran now that the government is cracking down on protestors. Nik’s group will be putting up a new web site in the next few days, with the latest, vetted news from sources in Iran.
Nik has been keeping in close touch with many Iranian bloggers, who are drying up as sources as they are “detained” by the regime. Popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have been blocked in Iran. My cagle.msnbc.com site has long been blocked in Iran. However, the Internet is still available in Iran and people are finding ways to get their e-mail out to the rest of the world.
Nik tells me that vetting the reports is often difficult. He gave me an example of a photograph of a baby that had been shot in the back that came to him from multiple sources, reportedly shot by Iranian government “goon squads.” In fact, the photo was from Gaza. When information is passed around on the web, it can take on a life of it’s own ““ making Nik’s job a tough one.
Nik also gave me an update on Mana Neyestani, the Iranian cartoonist that I reported on a couple of years ago, here in my blog. Mana drew a cartoon of a bug that was interpreted to be an ethnic slur, and he was thrown in prison. Mana escaped Iran but found it difficult to get political asylum; he is currently fine, and attending college on a student visa in Malaysia. Nik will soon be sending along some recent cartoons from Mana for the blog.
See an archive of Nik Kowsar’s cartoons here.
I’m pretty reclusive and enigmatic, but you can spot me at a rare public appearance in Tokyo at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art on Saturday, June 13th from 3:00 to 4:30pm. I’ll be giving a talk on The Evolving Role of Political Cartoons with Japanese translation.
If you’re passing through Tokyo, come on by. A reservation is required. Please make your reservation by phone at TEL: 03-3445-0669 or E-mail: [email protected] with your name, contact phone number and number of people attending. I’m told there is an interesting exhibition there: “The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art.”
