Ouch! Gas Prices!

The price of oil came close to the $100 dollar a barrel level recently as gas prices continue to climb. High gas prices are an evergreen theme for political cartoonists. Huge, menacing gas pumps have become a regular cartoon character.

After a while it gets tough. We’ve drawn every possible combination of SUV bashing, oil company logo parody; we drew paying an “arm and a leg” for gas, with actual arms and legs – or paying with your first born; or trading the college education for a tank of gas. Gas pumps are often guns pointed at the comsumers’ head – or nooses.

Just when it seems like every possible gas price gag has been done – we have another round of high gas prices and we’re all back to the drawing board.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com. Daryl is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 800 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. He runs the most popular cartoon site on the Web at Cagle.msnbc.com. His books “The BIG Book of Bush Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2005, 2006 and 2007 Editions,” are available in bookstores now.

Daryl is filling in for Susie Cagle, who is on vacation this week.