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Cartoons

Putin Ukraine Purse Bandit

145372 600 Putin   Ukraine Purse Bandit cartoons

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Cartoons

Shadow Over Ukraine

145254 600 Shadow Over Ukraine cartoons

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Cartoons

Putin and Ukraine Marshmallows

144636 600 Putin and Ukraine Marshmallows cartoons

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Cartoons

Putin Tears Ukraine

141470 600 Putin Tears Ukraine cartoons

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Blog

Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More!

Here are my new cartoons!  The big news the past couple of weeks has been the run up to war, and the run down from the rup up to war with Syria. Obama pitched the idea as hard as he could to a war-weary nation.

136862 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

137026 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

Putin saw an opportunity to jump in with a plan to get Syria to give up their chemical weapons, putting a damper on Obama’s bombing plans.

137234 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

I see that I have fallen behind on posting these.  I’ll try to do better … so, there was a lot of Putin this week.  Putin is fun, he’s easy to draw and he’s a funny character with his shirtless macho swagger that reminds me of Miley Cyrus’ twerking.

137408 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

A lot of pundits were talking about how Putin and Russia had “put America into a box.” which reminded me of Marcel Marceau.

137468 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

Putin looks pretty French in this cartoon, huh?  Here’s Putin and Assad as the “Alien” from the “Alien” movies.

137307 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

I notice whenever the cartoons are about foreign news, our traffic goes down.  We need more Miley Cyrus.  Here’s my most recent cartoon, about the budget showdown in Congress, that hasn’t been getting as much news as it would if other things weren’t always happening.

137579 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

This one is a little surreal, a little disturbing, and a little stinky.  The last one is an oldie that I drew fifteen years ago when I was a local cartoonist in Hawaii, and there was a controversy about how gifted kids were treated in schools – as conscripted labor because they “didn’t need to study with the others.” This is something I recall with my gifted daughter, Susie, who was often put to work tutoring other students, by her lazy public school teachers.
137066 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

That’s it for this week.  Now I’m back to life in Nashville.  For a guy who doesn’t go to church, doesn’t like football, doesn’t care about music and shouldn’t eat too much bacon – remind me, why am I in Nashville again?

 

 

 

 

 

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Uncategorized

Russia Putting the USA Into a Box

137468 600 Russia Putting the USA Into a Box cartoons

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Uncategorized

Putin Twerking

137408 600 Putin Twerking cartoons

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Uncategorized

Syrian Alien Daddies

137307 600 Syrian Alien Daddies cartoons

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Blog

Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville!

Here I sit in my new Nashville, Tennessee apartment, trying out a new restaurant for every meal, and finally drawing cartoons.  I finished my second cartoon in Nashville today – a busy, crowd scene cartoon about Obama and foreign aid to Egypt.  Here is my rough pencil sketch.
EgyptAidSketch600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

I drew this first with a light, hard, #5 pencil to get the people in the crowd into the right composition, so they are interacting with each other, have expressive body language, their faces aren’t obscured, the feet and arms are on right … all those details need to be thought through for each figure; better to do it in a sketch than on the fly in in finished art.   The line art is below.  I debated whether to go with just line for the black and white version that most people see in the newspaper.

136479 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Here is the gray-scale version.  I thought it read a bit better with tone.  I do the gray-scale separately.  It isn’t just a gray version of the color cartoon.

136480 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

I usually avoid doing crowd scenes.  When I was an illustrator, I used to do a lot of crowd scenes.  I think art directors would sit in a brainstorming meeting and come up with a list of too many things that they needed to put in an ad – so they would call a cartoonist to jam it all into one piece of art.  Cartoonists get these jobs because the lists are too long, so the art has to be crazy. In fact, crowd scenes are usually not very effective compositions.  The most effective compositions show powerful character and expression, which is better done with large figures and faces.  With too many little figures in a crowd, the power of the expressions and body language are lost to tiny details.  That said, I hate to admit that sometimes a concept calls for a crowd scene.

Here’s the color cartoon …

136481 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

This one suffers from low resolution on the web, and will look much better in print, with crisp lines and texture in the tiny characters.  Here is a detail.

aiddetail Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

One funny thing about cartoon crowd scenes; when readers send me unsolicited ideas for cartoons, the ideas are almost always for crowd scenes.  The reader wants to say so much in his cartoon idea, that he comes up with a list of junk to include, just like the sloppy advertising art directors.  Some ideas I get start with, “draw an army on the left, and another army on the right …” or the reader will write, “fill the sky with helicopters …” Not only am I too lazy for this, all the tiny details would be ineffective in the composition, and the cartoon would be lousy.  For people who think in words, not images, these list-cartoons make perfect sense; to cartoonists, they are nonsense.

The previous cartoon is another Egypt/Arab Spring drawing.  Here’s the rough pencil sketch.  Notice that I drew Obama too low and made a note to move him up.  I make lots of mistakes.  Mistakes are easy to fix.  Better to make lots of mistakes and have no fear of mistakes – at least in cartoons.  I wouldn’t give that advice to my dentist.

AmericanSketch600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Here is the line art version that most people will see in the newspapers.  No gray version for this one.  I like to keep them as line art if possible – there is something more elegant about not having to rely on tone.

136409 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

And here is the color …

136415 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

This cartoon is similar to one I drew a week earlier, with Obama and the Republicans.  I like the yellow ochre texture background for dirty fighting scenes.

135857 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

 

Obama doesn’t actually wear pinstripe suits.  He wears plain black and blue suits, which are no fun to draw.  So I take some artistic license.  This recent Detroit-in-the-toilet cartoon also uses the yellow ochre, grungy theme that I’m fond of right now.

136000 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Another recent one I neglected to post is this one about the chilly relations with Russia – not much of a cartoon, just an illustration of chilly relations.

135924 600 Egypt, Obama, Putin, Detroit and Nashville! cartoons

Sorry, with the move to Nashville I’ve fallen behind.  I’ll catch up soon.

Nashville is starting to grow on me.  I’ll get used to it soon – when it cools off and the humidity goes down.

 

 

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News

Chilly Relations With Russia

135924 600 Chilly Relations CMYK cartoons