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Let’s Run This Up the California Flagpole

My home state has been kicking the budget can down the road for years and is finally running out of road. California is facing its biggest budget deficit ever — a staggering $21 billion, or 49.3 percent of the state’s general revenue fund.

As a political cartoonist I look for bad guys to skewer in my cartoons. In California there are bad guys everywhere to be blamed for our fiscal mess: our good-for-nothing Governor Schwarzenegger; our greedy, irresponsible legislature; the media that ignores state issues; and the electorate who votes for more debt to fund wasteful projects like multi-billion dollar trains people don’t want to use. Voters have approved more bond debt than the state can sell. In short, everyone is a bad guy.

Different groups point to their own favorite villains. Liberals like to blame Proposition 13 for limiting the legislature’s ability to raise taxes, even though our taxes are crazy high. Conservatives like to blame labor unions for milking the state dry, and liberals for chasing away business with taxes and regulations. The media likes to blame voters who vote for constitutional amendments that micromanage our dysfunctional legislature. Populists want to tax the rich more, even though the state has gotten into trouble by relying too much on income taxes and crashed when the incomes of the rich fell with the current recession.

But cash-flow isn’t California’s only problem — we also have a water crisis. In Los Angeles I’m limited to watering my lawn after 5:00pm on Monday and Thursday, and I struggle with a low-flow toilet, that has to be flushed three times to work, while rice farmers flood their farms with cheap subsidized water and the legislature has approved a whopping $11 billion bond measure, laced with porky giveaways, to fix the “water problem.” California would have plenty of water and money to go around if we had leaders who could step up and make some serious choices.

My favorite California money pits are the state commissions; out-of-work legislators, who have been term-limited out of office, are appointed to these six figure, do-nothing jobs while they relax and wait for their next electoral opportunities.

We have colorful problems and goofy characters who should make great cartoon characters for me, but they all share the blame so equally, and are so uninteresting as individuals, that my life as a California editorial cartoonist is more frustrating than it should be.

Of course, this all leads me to suggest that we change our state flag.

The bear on our flag might be the only state government character who stands blame-free, and who looks good in a cartoon. We should keep the bear — but let’s change him every so often to let the government know how we feel about them. Here are a few of my suggestions for a new state flag.

California’s governor and legislature could run a few of these flags up the flagpole, and see who salutes them.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons as well as 50 other cartoonists, at www.caglecartoons.com 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, 2010 Edition” are available in bookstores now.

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Mix Apple with Politics – Not a Good Recipe

I’m holding my breath. I’m now into my third month of waiting for Apple to approve my iPhone app. Yesterday I heard from Apple that they need more time to think about it.

My app is pretty cool; it is called “MSNBC.com Cartoons” and it features a real time news feed of political cartoons by top cartoonists from around the world. My app will be supported and promoted by MSNBC.com along with their other iPhone apps … that is, if Apple approves it.

It seems I have plenty to worry about. Apps for the iPhone have been multiplying at an exponential rate, with over 100,000 now approved. Developers are looking to strike it rich with the next “iFart,” but as the sheer numbers of apps explodes, the chance of an app being a hit becomes more remote and frustration with Apple’s app approval process grows. Developers have to invest in creating a finished app before submitting it to Apple, which can arbitrarily trash the investments and hopes of aspiring developers – as happened to a friend of mine this week.

My buddy Tom Richmond, the brilliant Mad Magazine artist, just finished drawing 544 caricatures of members of congress for an app called “Bobble Rep.” The app works as a directory of every congressman, displaying their contact information by zip code or by the GPS location of the iPhone user. Shake the iPhone and the rep’s head “bobbles.” It is a cute app, and the caricatures are not unflattering. Apple rejected “Bobble Rep.”

A letter from Apple explained the rejection:

“… We’ve reviewed Bobble Rep – 111th Congress Edition and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states:

“Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”

A screenshot of this issue has been attached for your reference.”

Ray Griggs, the producer of the “Bobble Rep” app, suffered a blow as he saw his investment in programming and in 544 Tom Richmond cartoons arbitrarily flushed away. Griggs writes, “I wonder if they saw my website (www.iwantyourmoney.net) that promotes the iPhone app and rejected the app because I am making a Republican Documentary. Are they trying to shut me down? (Just speculation. However, it is uncanny that the “offensive” page image they sent me is of the California reps.) Is there anything on this page that could possibly be found offensive?”

My cartoonist buddy Tom Richmond writes, “Clearly this app does not ‘ridicule public figures’ and is violating nothing, but Apple has decided the world must be protected from the insidious subversiveness this would force upon the public and the brutal, heinous ridicule that my cruel, cruel caricatures would subject these politicians to.

Hard to believe that anybody could be this blind. Maybe they just have a monkey doing the approval of their apps, and he throws a dart at a dartboard with “approved” and “rejected” targets on it and whatever it hits is the fate of that app. That would explain how they could approve an app with a cartoon baby picture and when you shake the phone hard enough the baby dies. Yes, that one got through only to be yanked after some outraged people complained, but no way are a bunch of flame-throwing caricatures going to get through!!!

Unbelievable.”

Prolific iPhone app developer Brian Stormont has this advice for hopeful app applicants:

“Don’t make any jokes about political figures, past or present, in either your app or the description in iTunes. Apple will most-likely reject your app.”

Apple would seem to be a bi-partisan offendee. App developer Brandyn Brosemer reports that his “iBush” app was rejected for the same reason. The app was a collection of actual George W. Bush quotes that the reader could scroll through.

Another Apple political app rejection is “MyShoe” which allowed users to throw shoes at President Bush.

Studies show that people use the iPhone differently than other mobile devices – they read news content on the iPhone and tend not to do so on other phones. The iPhone’s market share for news and opinion is dominant, while all other phones have an insignificant market share. Although any publisher can decide what content he wants in his own publication, Apple’s phone-news monopoly brings with it a public trust and responsibility in controlling content for a whole category of media.

And with my own political cartoons app review dragging on, I’m still holding my breath.

Turning blue now.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons as well as 50 other cartoonists, at www.caglecartoons.com 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, 2010 Edition” are available in bookstores now.

____________________________________________________________

NOTES FOR IMAGES INCLUDED WITH THIS COLUMN:

Caption for “OffensiveImage.tif”image:

Apple cited this image as “objectionable” in a rejection letter to “Bobble Rep” developer Ray Griggs.

Credits for the images:

Screenshots from the “Bobble Rep” app, ©RG Entertainment, Ltd., Artwork by Mad Magazine’s Tom Richmond.

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Veterans Day Cartoons to Warm an Editor’s Cold Heart

Veterans Day Cartoons to Warm an Editor’s Cold Heart

I run a syndicate, Caglecartoons.com, that distributes political cartoons to newspapers, and every year at this time we hear from editors complaining that there are few or no Veterans Day cartoons.

Some editors think of editorial cartoons as nothing more than little, topical jokes — this is troubling to political cartoonists who want to draw cartoons about solemn topics and bring a tear to the reader’s eye.

Unfortunately, editors for some of the biggest, most influential publications treat editorial cartoons as trivial jokes; a good example is Newsweek magazine, which likes to reprint cartoons that are like Jay Leno jokes, about a topic in the news but conveying no opinion that anyone would disagree with. Jay Leno jokes about the news all the time, and I have no idea what his personal opinions are.

Another wretched publication that diminishes editorial cartoons is The New York Times, which prints a weekly round-up of insipid cartoons under the title “Laugh Lines.” Don’t expect to see any thoughtful Veterans Day cartoons under the title “Laugh Lines.”

So, if a cartoonist wants to get his cartoons reprinted in The New York Times, Newsweek or some other big, national publication that likes funny, trivial jokes, he won’t be drawing any Veterans Day cartoons.

I have gathered a batch of some of my favorite Veterans Day cartoons from cartoonists who don’t care what New York Times and Newsweek editors think. These cartoons will bring a patriotic glow to even the dimmest editor as the cartoonists express their appreciation to our veterans.

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, 2010 Edition” are available in bookstores now.

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Israel-Monsters and Arab Cartoonists

The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians still looms large in political cartoons around the world, with an endless flow of cartoons from Arab countries showing monster-Israel assaulting, eating, crushing or somehow decimating the poor Palestinians. The dove of peace has been killed by Israel in every imaginable cartoon — crushed, squeezed, stabbed, burned, eaten. Poor bird.

The conflict goes on forever, long after every original cartoon idea has been exhausted. Americans don’t see much of these cartoons because they would be regarded here as anti-Semitic at worst, or as the same thing over and over, at best.

I just got back from a speaking tour in Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories. At my first event in Cairo I spoke to a group of Egyptian journalists who brought a newspaper up to me, proudly pointing out that in Egypt, editorial cartoons are often printed big and in color on the front page of the newspaper. The cartoon they showed me would make an American editor choke; it showed a spitting snake, in the shape of a Star of David; inside the snake/star was a peace dove, trapped behind bars, and above the snake, in Arabic, were the words, “It’s not about the bird flu, it’s about the swine flu.”

I explained that in America this cartoon would be regarded as anti-Semitic, and it would never be printed. The Egyptian journalists were emphatic, explaining to me that the cartoon was about Israel, not about Jews — an important distinction to them.

“Israel isn’t mentioned anywhere in the cartoon,” I said.

“But we all know the Jewish star is the symbol of Israel,” they responded.

I said, “It is a religious symbol. It is the same as if I took the star and crescent off of the flag of Pakistan and drew a similar cartoon, saying it was about Pakistan.” The journalists didn’t respond to me, my comment was such nonsense. I continued, “This cartoon seems to say that Jews are snakes and pigs.”

“No, no! We have lots of symbols for Israel that we all know, like the Jew with black clothes and a big hooked nose!” one of the Egyptian journalists insisted with some passion. “We like Jews, we just don’t like Israel!” The Egyptian journalists all continued to insist that I misunderstood what the cartoon meant.

I later had an opportunity to meet with a group of Palestinian editorial cartoonists in Gaza by teleconference. I sympathize with their plight; the poor cartoonists had almost no outlets to print their cartoons. One of the Gaza cartoonists showed me a cartoon he was proud of, showing an alligator eating a dove. I told him I didn’t understand the cartoon, and he explained that the alligator was blue, “which everyone understands to be Israel” and the dove had green wings, “which everyone understands to be Palestine.”

I tried to come up with some advice for the Gaza cartoonists on how to get their work published. I suggested that they could submit their work to international publications, but that it would be tough if every cartoon was another Israel-monster cartoon. The cartoonists responded to say that in Gaza, they are under siege, and they don’t care to draw anything else.

I suggested that the Gaza cartoonists need to coax Western editors into printing their cartoons, and they would do well to consider some other angles; for example, drawing about their personal experiences and day-to-day difficulties. Palestinian cartoons criticizing Hamas and Fatah are rarely seen and would get reprinted.

I explained to the Gaza cartoonists that when the Israel/Palestine conflict is big in the news, and we post cartoons about the topic on our site, our Web site (www.cagle.com) traffic goes down. Americans are not very interested in events that happen outside of America, especially when it is the same news story, year after year. I told them that the most popular topic ever on our site was Janet Jackson’s boob, and that our readers really like cartoons about cute puppies. Hearing this, the Gaza cartoonists stared at me blankly, and then urged me to organize an international exhibition of cartoons that highlight their plight at the hands of Israel.

I spoke with one West Bank Palestinian cartoonist, Amer Shomali, who lost his gig with his newspaper because he insisted on drawing cartoons critical of Fatah; he was so frustrated that he rented a billboard to post a Fatah cartoon that his newspaper refused to publish. The billboard was swiftly taken down.

I met an excellent West Bank cartoonist, Khalil Abu Arafeh who draws for Al Quds, the big newspaper in the West Bank; he makes his living as an architect. Another talented West Bank cartoonist, Ramzy Taweel, breaks the Israel-monster cartoon mold, drawing about everyday life in the West Bank; his cartoons are seen only by his friends on his Facebook page. Ramzy could use some more Facebook friends; I encourage everyone to befriend him.

It is tough to make a living as a cartoonist anywhere these days — especially tough when the world has grown weary of what you want to say, when a market for your work doesn’t exist where you live, and when passions run high.

The fact that there is still a market for cartoons about cute puppies and cats who like lasagna probably doesn’t make the Palestinians feel any better.

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, 2010 Edition” are available in bookstores now.

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My Cartoonist Week in Algeria

My Cartoonist Week in Algiers

One fun thing about being an editorial cartoonist is that I sometimes get invited to strange places as a cartoon celebrity. I just finished a week in Algiers at their second annual comics festival. Algeria is a huge country, a former socialist member of the Soviet bloc and a former French colony in North Africa.

The people here like to be thought of as more European than Arab, and they seem relieved that their country has recently emerged from many years of internal violence. There was an ugly civil war here in the 1990s that has wound down to the point where Algiers is pretty safe, but there are military guards with machine guns everywhere, and we can’t drive very far without going through armed checkpoints. That is probably why it is safe.

The “Casbah” is the old part of Algiers that is a giant bazaar. The streets in the Casbah are too narrow for cars. The bustling Casbah is filled with tiny shops and tables with every kind of stuff – except tourist junk, because there are so few tourists here. Algeria isn’t an easy place for a tourist to visit, so we don’t see Algiers t-shirts or snow globes; I saw no Starbucks and no McDonald’s.

The language here is a confusing mish-mash of French and Arabic. The economy is a mish-mash too; the government seems to still have its head stuck in a Socialist past. Under a new law, consumer credit is banned in Algeria. Any business in Algeria must be 51 percent owned by Algerians, driving foreign investment away. Getting anything done here is a quest. People don’t show up on time and don’t seem to have much concern about productivity. There is a lot of confusion. The economy is sustained by oil revenue.

Since emerging from the violence there seems to be a yearning for a cultural renaissance here, and the cartoon arts benefit from that. Algerians like a strange mix of Arabic manga and euro-style storytelling comics, but the star cartoonists are political cartoonists. The most famous cartoonist here is Ali Dilem, the cartoonist for the French-language newspaper Liberté.

Algerian cartoonists struggle under pressure from the government. I’m told that Ali Dilem, who now lives outside of Algeria, faces 25 lawsuits from government officials he has insulted in his cartoons. The threat of civil suits may keep some cartoonists from criticizing the government, but the cartoonists I met seemed eager to continue pushing the limits. They were all very interested in what the limits were for American political cartoonists, expecting that we had similar problems with our government.

There was an exhibition of the work of a famed Algerian cartoonist named “Slim,” who has drawn socially conscious newspaper comic strips for decades here, and saw some of his cartoonist colleagues killed in the violence of the 1990s. Slim likes making fun of Algerian women who wear veils; he draws the veils much like the beak of a bird, and has the women walk around looking like ducks.

The comics festival invited cartoonists from all over the world to attend; names I’d never heard of, from strange, exotic places. In many countries, editorial cartoonists are the most important cartoonists, and there were quite a few editorial cartoonists here — a candy store for me since I’m an international editorial cartooning buff. The festival was really very nice.

A question I got a lot was, “Have you drawn any cartoons about Algeria?” I haven’t. It is hard to think of when Algeria was in the headlines in America. The only time I remember reading about Algeria is when Algerian President Bouteflika was quietly hanging out with his more vocal buddies Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, affirming their coalition against evil America.

President Bouteflika won re-election recently with an unbelievable 90 percent of the vote. One Algerian told me that even the Prophet Muhammad himself couldn’t really get 90 percent of the vote.

Maybe I’ll draw a cartoon about Algeria. We’ll see.

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, 2010 Edition” are available in bookstores now.

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Political Cartoonists Mourn Michael Jackson

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.

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What Do Political Cartoons and McDonalds Have in Common

?

Every time I open a newspaper I read another story about the decline of newspapers. Political cartoonists were the canaries in the newspaper-decline-coal-mine; our ranks have been shrinking for the past 30 years — but now the pace has quickened as only a few dozen editorial cartoonists are left, and they seem to be losing their jobs at a pace of about one per week.

Political cartoons won’t disappear. As long as there is a newspaper left, with a space for a cartoonist to fill, a cartoonist will step up to draw. What we’re seeing is the “McDonaldsization” of editorial cartoons. Like McDonalds, there aren’t a lot of choices on the menu, everything on the menu is pretty good, and everyone, everywhere, chooses from the same, few menu choices. We may soon be left with just a dozen political cartoonists, perhaps the best ones, drawing for all the newspapers — just as we all watch the same news on TV, buy the same products at Wal-Mart, and eat the same food at McDonalds.

To fans of political cartoons, the list of prominent political cartoonists who have recently lost their jobs is shocking. Here is a partial list:

Gary Brookins, The Richmond Times Dispatch (Va.). Buyout.

Tom Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle (Calif.). buyout.

Bill Day, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis,Tenn.). Laid off.

John Branch, San Antonio Express-News (Texas). Laid off.

David Horsey, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Wash.). Newspaper closed, will continue to work for Web site.

Jim Borgman, The Cincinatti Enquirer (Ohio). Buy out.

Eric Devericks, The Seattle Times (Wash.). Laid off.

Lee Judge, The Kansas City Star (Mo.). Laid off, now freelances.

Don Wright, The Palm Beach Post (Fla.). Buyout.

Steve Greenberg, Ventura County Star (Calif.). Laid off.

Stuart Carlson, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (Wisc.). Buyout.

Ed Stein, Rocky Mountain News (Colo.), Newspaper closed. Continues to draw in syndication.

Drew Litton (Sports Cartoonist) Rocky Mountain News (Colo.). Newspaper closed. Continues to draw in syndication.

Ben Sargent, Austin American-Statesman (Texas). Buyout.

Brian Duffy, The Des Moines Register (Iowa). Laid off.

Bill Schorr, quit print syndication.

Bill Garner, The Washington Times (D.C.). Laid off.

Kevin “Kal” Kallaugher, The Sun (Baltimore, Md.). Laid off.

Patrick O’Connor, Daily News (Los Angeles, Calif.). Laid off.

Corky Trinidad, Honolulu Star-Bulletin (Hawaii). Died; position not refilled.

Dick Adair, The Honolulu Advertiser (Hawaii). Laid Off.

Dwane Powell, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.). Now freelances.

Jim Lange, The Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Okla.). “Early” retirement.

Chip Bok, Akron Beacon-Journal (Ohio). Buyout.

Peter Dunlap-Shohl, Anchorage Daily News (Alaska). Buyout.

Sandy Huffaker, retired from syndication.

Jake Fuller, The Gainesville Sun (Fla.). Laid off.

Dave Granlund, The MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, Mass.). Laid Off.

Paul Combs, left syndication after leaving The Tampa Tribune (Fla.); position not refilled.

Mike Shelton, The Orange County Register (Calif.). Laid off.

Gordon Campbell, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, Calif.). Laid off.

Richard Crowson, The Wichita Eagle (Kan.). Laid off.

Mike Peters, Dayton Daily News (Ohio). Cut back on the number of editorial cartoons he draws.

Ann Telnaes, quit print syndication to focus on animation.

David Catrow, Springfield News-Sun (Ohio). Left to work on other projects.

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. Read Daryl’s blog at www.blog.cagle.com/daryl.

—

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The Racist New York Post Dead-Monkey Cartoon

That Racist New York Post Dead-Monkey Cartoon

All the pundits are talking about the recent cartoon by the New York Post’s Sean Delonas, showing a chimp shot by two policemen who say, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” The prevailing view among the bloggers and talking-heads is that the cartoon is a racist depiction of Obama as a monkey. Al Sharpton has taken the opportunity to grab the media spotlight by condemning the cartoon. New York Post employees are reportedly “unhappy and ashamed” of the “offensive cartoon.” The media love arguments about race.

I was thinking of drawing a cartoon with the media frantically rushing to cover the “racist” Delonas cartoon, while Attorney General Eric Holder calmly stands in front of the melee telling Americans how they are “cowardly” in avoiding discussions about race. I expect we’re in for a lot of this for the next four years.

Some cartoonists (Ben Sargent of The Austin American-Statesman and Steve Bell of the Guardian in Britain, for example) consistently drew George W. Bush as a monkey. The cartoonists all chose to draw Bush with big monkey ears and a huge, monkey-like upper lip, so drawing Bush as a monkey was a natural progression. Now the cartoonists are all drawing Obama with similar, big monkey ears and we’re starting to hear complaints from readers about how we draw Obama’s lips. Presidents get shorter in cartoons if they don’t perform well — and chimps are short. Cartoonists tiptoe through a racial-metaphor minefield.

A standard, workday ritual that editorial cartoonists do is to list the major news stories of the day, and then think of how to combine two of the unrelated stories into a cartoon. Combining two unrelated things in a cartoon is funny. Monkeys are funny and the killer chimp was the big news one day along with the stimulus bill. Delonas is a staunch conservative who didn’t like the stimulus bill; this cartoon is a formulaic “no-brainer.” I’m sure the reaction to the cartoon was a surprise to Delonas.

But the reaction shouldn’t be a surprise. I’d suggest that every cartoonist should make a list of every racial stereotype to avoid regarding African-Americans, and assume that every cartoon will be considered to be a metaphor for Obama — then go through the check list before putting pen to paper, like a pilot goes through a check list before taking off in his plane.

And watch for a lot more cartoon plane crashes.

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.

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How To Draw Obama

How to Draw Obama

Obama seems like an easy guy to draw; he’s skinny, has a big chin, expressive eyebrows and lips. As it turns out, no matter how a cartoonist draws Obama, somebody gets mad.

When Obama burst into the presidential campaign cartoonists started drawing him as a caricature without much exaggeration. As time goes by, political figures morph in cartoons into caricatures of caricatures; George W. Bush shrank to knee height and grew huge bunny ears; Bill Clinton lost his pants and grew fatter (even as he got skinnier in real life). At the beginning of the Obama administration, everyone is watching to see how the cartoon Obama evolves.

I worked for twenty years as a cartoon illustrator, doing drawings for books, magazines and advertising. I was often given clear guidelines on how I was supposed to draw African-Americans: with “small noses” and “thin lips”. I was instructed to make any crowds of cartoon characters racially diverse, but only diverse in color, not in facial features. Thick lips and wide noses on African American faces would be returned to me for correction, with a polite reminder of the corporate policies on depictions of minority facial features.

Cartoonist Gary McCoy has been lambasted by readers, and by Salon.com, for drawing racially insensitive, big lips on Obama. Some cartoonists have drawn attention for giving Obama blue lips. Canadian cartoonist Patrick Corrigan of the Toronto Star had an Obama cartoon killed by his editor because of “racist” blue lips. Thomas “Tab” Boldt of the Calgary Sun and Cam Cardow of the Ottawa Citizen have also been rendering Obama with blue lips. Corrigan tells me that everyone in Canada, in the winter, has blue lips.

Readers of my blog explained to me that blue lips are racist and pointed out an old racist expression “blue gums,” which was a new one for me. Corrigan tells me he’ll be switching to purple lips, Cam will be giving up on the blue lips and Tab was laid off. That may mean the end of blue lips for Obama.

Syndicated caricaturist Taylor Jones also sees blue in Obama. He writes:

“One of the most interesting things about Obama’s eyes is the slight blue tinge to the flesh below his eyebrows. It’s also visible on his eyelids. It’s as though he’s wearing a bit of eye shadow. Don’t know if it’s actual blue pigmentation, or just the effect of light bouncing off the skin stretched against his eye sockets. But it adds a nifty touch whenever I’m drawing Obama’s caricature in color.”

I’m considering going all the way, making Obama completely blue (if that’s not racist).

Obama’s ears have grown huge for most cartoonists. George W. Bush’s ears also grew huge, but it took more than a year for Bush’s big ears to catch on — Obama’s ears started right away, and have been expanding faster than the national debt. It may be that after eight years of Bush, we now see huge ears as a standard, presidential attribute. I don’t see any particular reason for either Bush’s or Obama’s ears to grow in cartoons, but with cartoonist peer pressure it will soon be impossible to draw a likeness of Obama without colossal ears.

There seems to be an expectation that political cartoonists are mostly liberals who love Obama and will find it hard to make fun of him in cartoons. Some cartoonists have complained in the press that Obama is dull, and that there is little to criticize about him — we have a term of art for cartoonists like that, we call them “bad cartoonists.” It is the job of an editorial cartoonist to dislike everybody. Political cartoonists have nothing to gain by being in favor of anything. Cartoons that support anything are lousy cartoons. There is plenty for everyone not to like about Obama — and with the porky stimulus package and tax-evading cabinet appointments, there’s more every day!

The cartoon version of Obama will continue to evolve quickly. If we ever actually see him smoking a cigarette, he will always be smoking in cartoons. Obama may turn different colors, and he’ll grow or shrink with his performance. Obama’s ears will keep growing no matter what he does. As Obama’s honeymoon passes and the caricatures become more severe, I expect the complaints about racism in the cartoons will also grow more severe.

But I don’t care. I’m making Obama blue today.

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.

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How to Draw President George W Bush

How to Draw President George W. Bush

Political cartoonists are not much different from comic strip cartoonists; both draw an ongoing daily soap opera featuring a regular cast of characters. While comic strip cartoonists invent their own characters, the political cartoonist’s characters are given to him by events in the world. For the past eight years, political cartoonists have been drawing little daily sagas starring the same main character, President Bush. Most people won’t miss Bush as a president, but we should all miss him as a great cartoon character.

Around the world, cartoonists almost always draw President Bush as a cowboy. Outside America, a Texas cowboy is seen as: uneducated, ill mannered, a “trigger-happy marshal” or outlaw who is prone to violence. Cowboy depictions of the president by worldwide cartoonists are meant to be insults, but Americans see cowboys differently. In the USA, cowboys are noble, independent souls, living a romantic lifestyle by taming the wilderness and taking matters into their own hands whenever they see a wrong that needs to be righted. We are a nation of wanna-be cowboys.

The image of President Bush evolves with each cartoonist’s personal perspective. Back in 2000, Bush started out as most political cartoon characters start out, as a caricature of a real person, meant to be recognizable from a photograph. The cartoonists soon stopped looking at photographs and started doing drawings of drawings, then drawings of drawings of drawings, so that the George W. Bush drawings morphed into strangely deformed characters that looked nothing like the real man, but are instantly recognizable because we’ve come to know the drawings as a symbol of the man. It is surprising that each cartoonist’s drawings of the president look entirely different, but each is easily recognizable as representing the same character.

For most cartoonists, the president’s ears have grown huge; a strange phenomenon, since the president doesn’t have unusually large ears, and isn’t well known for listening. Some cartoonists have seen President Bush shrink in height; a combination of these has the president sometimes looking like a little bunny rabbit. Barack Obama’s cartoon ears have also begun to grow in cartoons, for no good reason – maybe big ears are the cartoon presidential curse of the new millennium.

The president who shrank most in cartoons was Jimmy Carter. At the end of Carter’s term he was a Munchkin, standing below knee height on almost every cartoonist’s drawing table. President Bush shrank for only the more liberal cartoonists early on, but is short for all of us at the end of his term. President Reagan grew taller during his cartoon term in office. President Clinton grew fatter, even as he lost weight in real life. Bill Clinton’s personality was fat, and the cartoonists drew the personality rather than the man. President Clinton is now skinny, but he will always be fat in cartoons.

Another cartoon characteristic that has grown from years of drawing President Bush are his eyes, two little dots, close together, topped by raised, quizzical eyebrows. The close, dotted eyes are an interesting universal phenomenon, shared by almost every cartoonist, that doesn’t relate to the president’s actual features. Over time, most cartoonists will draw a character with eyes that grow larger, but President Bush’s eyes shrink, while his ears grow. There may be a political message in that, but I can’t figure it out.

I once played “Political Cartoonist Name That Tune.” The game went like this:

“I can draw President Bush in SIX LINES.”

“Well, I can draw President Bush in FOUR LINES!”

“I can draw President Bush in THREE LINES!”

“OK. Draw that President!”

…and I did, two little dots topped by a raised, quizzical eyebrow line. It looked just like him.

Now I need to learn how to draw Obama with three lines; it may take me eight years to do it.

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 runs the most popular cartoon site on the Web at www.cagle.msnbc.com. His books “The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2009 Edition” are available in bookstores now.

See Daryl’s cartoons and columns at http://blog.cagle.com/daryl.