DarylCagle.comMemorial Day is upon us, and while most people are thinking more about grilling hamburgers that our military, don’t forget make time to commemorate the U.S. servicemembers who died protecting your right to slop sauerkraut on that hot dog.
Click here to view our Memorial Day cartoon collection.
Oprah Winfrey ended her popular talk show last week after 25 years, outlasting Phil Donahue, Sally Jesse Rafael, Jerry Springer and nearly every other daytime TV challenger to come along.
The nation’s cartoonists have drawn lots of great cartoons about Oprah over the years. Come check out our best in our new Oprah Legacy cartoon collection.
We just posted our big Week in Review slideshow, with cartoons on the terrible tornados that struck the Midwest, The (non) Rapture and Obama’s attempt to restart peace negotiations in the Middle East.
Click here to view our Week in Review cartoon slideshow
The savage tornado outbreak that killed 117 people and injured over 500 in Joplin, Missouri could just be the start of a greater threat to the Midwest. According to msnbc.com, forecasters warn that a vast swath of the United States could be hit by severe thunderstorms, with a high risk of tornadoes in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Arkansas and Missouri.
Click here to view our Tornado Turmoil cartoon collection.
Popular revolts in the Middle East and North Africa, known as the “Arab Spring,” have already knocked out dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, triggered a civil war in Libya and prompted widespread and deadly demonstrations in Syria and Yemen. How this sudden change will play out, and what effect it will have on Israel, remains to be seen.
Come see how cartoonists have responded to these events with our new Arab Spring cartoon co0llection.
My only exposure to French culture as a child was Looney Tunes cartoons featuring the lecherous skunk, Pepé Le Pew. When I grew up, my views of France changed, and I thought of the French as romantic, a view that seems to contrast with Dominique Strauss-Kahn, whose alleged sexual assault on a hotel maid is remarkably similar to Pepé Le Pew’s antics. Maybe Warner Brothers got it right.
I recently visited France where I learned that the French were also raised with Looney Tunes characters from an early age, and they are all familiar with Pepé Le Pew. In France, the cartoons are dubbed into French and Le Pew loses his French accent; it isn’t widely known that he is supposed to be French. One French lady I spoke with told me:
“We never knew Pepé Le Pew was French — I didn’t learn that until I grew up — and I was shocked. We thought he was just a jerk.”
As a flood of news of past liaisons pours in, everyone now agrees that Strauss-Kahn is a jerk. This is the season for political-Le Pews, with Euro-Le Pews Schwarzenegger and Berlusconi joining our own chorus of American-Le Pew oldies: Clinton, Gingrich, Spitzer, Sanford, Vitter, Ensign, Edwards and more. It is a parade of schadenfreude delights for editorial cartoonists.
The French are remarkably tolerant of their leaders’ sexual indiscretions, and I was interested to see the America-bashing that accompanied the Strauss-Kahn news, as the French press was eager to bash the American legal system for publishing images of Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs. The American press wouldn’t publish the name of Strauss-Kahn’s victim — not so in France, where the victim’s name was broadcast widely.
I wondered what the French thought of sexy maids, and I just did a Google search — oh là là! It seems that every aspect of the Strauss-Kahn story reinforces our stereotyped images of the French. I suspect the same is true on the other side of the Atlantic as the French roll their eyes at puritanical Americans with their backward legal system.
I once got a job from a French magazine whose editors asked me to draw the archetypal American; they gave me a list of American attributes to incorporate into the image; they wanted an overweight man with: cowboy hat, hamburger, soda, jeans, sneakers and iPod. Hamburgers are an international cartoon symbol for America, understood worldwide, except in America.
Superman is another international cartoon symbol of America, a fact that may have recently led Warner Brothers to have Superman renounce his American citizenship. I hate to think that Warner Brothers might do the same with Pepé Le Pew. Without his French citizenship, Le Pew would be as pointless for us as he is in France.
Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society. Daryl’s cartoons are syndicated to more than 850 newspapers, including the paper you are reading now. Read Daryl’s blog at www.cagle.com/daryl.
My only exposure to French culture as a child was Looney Tunes cartoons featuring the lecherous skunk, Pepé Le Pew. When I grew up, my views of France changed, and I thought of the French as romantic, a view that seems to contrast with Dominique Strauss-Kahn, whose alleged sexual assault on a hotel maid is remarkably similar to Pepé Le Pew’s antics. Maybe Warner Brothers got it right.
I recently visited France where I learned that the French were also raised with Looney Tunes characters from an early age, and they are all familiar with Pepé Le Pew. In France, the cartoons are dubbed into French and Le Pew loses his French accent; it isn’t widely known that he is supposed to be French. One French lady I spoke with told me,
“We never knew Pepé Le Pew was French – I didn’t learn that until I grew up – and I was shocked. We thought he was just a jerk.”
As a flood of news of past liaisons pour in, everyone now agrees that Strauss-Kahn is a jerk. This is the season for political-Le Pews, with Euro-Le Pews Schwarzenegger and Burlusconi joining our own chorus of American-Le Pew oldies: Clinton, Gingrich, Spitzer, Sanford, Vitter, Ensign, Edwards and more. It is a parade of schadenfreude delights for editorial cartoonists.
The French are remarkably tolerant of their leaders’ sexual indiscretions, and I was interested to see the America-bashing that accompanied the Strauss-Kahn news, as the French press was eager to bash the American legal system for allowing images of Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs to be published. The American press wouldn’t publish the name of Strauss-Kahn’s victim – not so in France where the victim’s name was broadcast widely.
I wondered what the French thought of sexy maids, and I just did a Google search – ou la la! It seems that every aspect of the Strauss-Kahn story reinforces our stereotyped images of the French. I suspect the same is true on the other side of the Atlantic as the French roll their eyes at puritanical Americans with their backward legal system.
I once got a job from a French magazine whose editors asked me to draw the archetypal American; they gave me a list of American attributes to incorporate into the image; they wanted an overweight man with a: cowboy hat, hamburger, soda, jeans, sneakers and iPod. Hamburgers are an international cartoon symbol for America, understood worldwide, except in America.
Superman is another international cartoon symbol of America, a fact that may have recently led Warner Brothers to have Superman renounce his American citizenship. I hate to think that Warner Brothers might do the same with Pepé Le Pew. Without his French citizenship, Le Pew would be as pointless for us as he is in France.
Well, May 21st has come and gone, and it looks like we’re all still here. According to Alan Boyle at the Cosmic Log, at least one good thing may come out of today’s non-Rapture: More folks are likely to realize that there’s nothing to numerological mumbo-jumbo.
The other good thing were all the great cartoons drawn about today’s non-event. Check them out in our new Doomsday cartoon collection.
Editorial cartoonists have a tradition of drawing politicians in their underwear. President Clinton is often drawn with his pants around his ankles and boxer shorts with a pattern of little hearts. The same treatment is due for serial adulterer politicians like Newt Gingrich, Arnold Schwarzenegger and too many members of congress to list. Even Batman and Superman wear their underwear on top of their tights. As an editorial cartoonist, I cherish my right to draw anyone I want in their underwear.
Mitt Romney is a little different. He doesn’t seem to be an adulterer, and is certainly no superhero. As a devout Mormon, Romney is supposed to wear religious “garments” as his underwear, and I assume he does although he refuses to answer questions about his underwear. If Romney would talk about his underwear, I would be less motivated to draw him in his underwear; Romney’s “garment” silence interests me. Here are a couple of sample of cartoons with Romney wearing his Mormon “garments.” I have gotten a bit of flack from readers about drawing the mysterious underwear on Romney, but not as much as I expected, and I’ll keep drawing him this way at least until he talks about his underwear. Poor Bill Clinton will continue to be drawn in his underwear whether he talks about it or not.
The story of Arnold Schwarzenegger and his “love child” dominated a busy news week. Check out our big Week in Political Cartoons slideshow to get caught up the country’s best political cartoonists think about everything from Newt Gingrich’s implosion to Donald Trump’s decision not to run for President.
