Stinky Veterans Administration
Bowe Bergdahl Addition
Christmas GOP and Obama
When I was at the festival in St. Just, France I had the opportunity to interview Doaa el Adl. She is a rare female cartoonist in Egypt, and she has been persecuted by by the Morsi regime for drawing a cartoon that featured Adam and Eve, an opportunity for the Muslim Brotherhood to chill her speech. Editorial cartoonists are very important voices in Egypt, with their cartoons routinely running on the front pages of the many, vibrant newspapers in a culture that still reveres newspapers.
I think Doaa is a hero, for standing up to the regime, speaking truth to power, and putting herself at risk in doing so.
Interestingly, Doaa had some strong objections to my own cartoons. Here are a couple of my cartoons that she disliked the most …
Doaa says “Yes, Obama does that – but you draw him as an angel – he is no angel! He meddles in everything! He wants to control everything!”
To this one Doaa says, “Obama is not like that! He is in there fighting with everyone, making trouble, trying to run everything!”
Obama has managed to make all sides in the Middle East see him as the bad guy.
Here are my newest cartoons. Fans always tell me that they like to see my messy rough sketches, so here we go again.
Here’s my quick and dirty sequester cartoon sketch. I drew it up first in hard pencil, I wasn’t happy with my Obama so I drew over him in soft (darker) pencil, made a note to move his position, and fiddled with just how he should be twiddling his thumbs. I often don’t get things right the first time.
Then I drew it up in finished line art, in hard pencil on nice drafting vellum. This black and white line art image is what most people see in the newspaper and I always like the BW version best. I think about the heavy blacks to be sure the image pops and I saw that the speech balloons needed to be reversed to black to give the words more weight.
Then I saved it with the white background transparent, and colored behind the image in layers in Photoshop to get this …
The previous cartoon was about former Senator Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be Defense Secretary being held up by angry Republicans. I threw the sketch for this one away. Sorry. Here’s the black and white, which looks better.
I thought about how much cross-hatching to put into the elephant skin. Elephants have interesting, textural skin, and I think I got to the point where he started to look like a rhino – maybe I went too far. It was fun to draw, though. Here it is in color.
And here it is a couple of days later in my local newspaper, The Santa Barbara News-Press – printed nicely this time. I like how they put my liberal cartoon sneering at wing-nut Linda Chavez’s Hagel-bashing column.
The previous one was about North Korea’s “Li’l Kim” annoying China with his missile and bomb tests. Here’s the rough sketch. You can see I fiddled with the position of the missile-cigar and the Panda’s hand.
Here is the black and white art. I made the missile-cigar smoke the only gray part of the image, so it would stand out as extra annoying.
… and here’s the color version, with a nice Chinese red background.
The previous cartoon is an oldie that I reposted with the news of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation. I drew this one the last time the College of Cardinals met to choose a new Pope and we were all told that the Cardinals don’t really pick the Pope, it is God picking the Pope through the Cardinals. That struck me as funny.
It is pretty common for editorial cartoonists to use Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel image of God in editorial cartoons. Here’s a recent one by Nate Beeler.
… and a conservative one by Rick McKee …
… but I digress. I should post the new cartoons more often! Here’s the previous one, Obama has GOP fleas.
I didn’t do a color version of this one. That’s it – I’m all caught up!
Mail, China, Immigration and More!
Here are my most recent cartoons! Here’s the rough sketch for today’s cartoon, a little snarkiness pointed at troubled newspapers. I drew the three characters on the left, and then took a piece of tracing papers to make some changes for the panel on the right, to keep them looking consistent.
Then I drew it up as line art, in pencil on vellum. This black and white version is what most people will see in the newspaper – if newspapers will print this one. I always like the black and white version best.
And here I added color, in Photoshop layers behind the black line art.
Those young people are so disrespectful of Grandpa! Here is yesterday’s cartoon …
My wife’s Uncle Keene e-mailed this idea to me, which he tells me was given to him by a friend who prefers to remain anonymous. I usually don’t draw other peoples ideas, but what the heck, I liked this one. Thanks, Keene. Here it is as it looked in my local newspaper this morning.
I notice they picked up some gray scuzzy tone in the background. Yuck. Why do newspapers take pretty, clean crispy cartoons and muck them up? Here’s a previous cartoon, about the terrible air pollution in China.
This one was fun, and it is nice to do cartoons with no words. The previous cartoon was this quicky for Groundhog’s Day.
I didn’t bother doing color for this one. The previous one was about the immigration debate …
Now I’m caught up! I need to post more often.
Here are my most recent cartoons and the sketches that, for some reason, you like to see. The first one is on Obama’s apparent transformation into a more liberal Obama in his second term. First the pencil sketch.
Then I trace the sketch for line art on vellum. This is what most people see in the newspapers that still print in black and white.
Obama also seems to be getting more of a spine. Here is the previous cartoon, on Hillary’s testimony in congress.
That’s really Hillary’s testimony in the small type in her speech balloon, and that’s what she was really thinking in the thought balloon. Hillary is fun to draw, and the glasses are great.
At the right is my most recent cartoon about Defense Secretary Panetta’s announcement that all areas of the military, that had previously been closed to women, will now be open to qualified women – a change that is long overdue.
We have a great collection of cartoons on Women in Combat – come look!
Welcome Steve Sack!
I’m happy to announce that we have added my cartoonist buddy, Steve Sack, of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, to our newspaper syndication package.
Steve has been one of my favorite cartoonists for decades. Steve’s style is deceivingly cute and sweet, masking some nasty, hard-hitting commentary. Here are a few of my favorites from Steve’s last year. I’m still laughing at “Rice Konspiracies” below.
This one surely made Republicans growl …
Looney Michelle Bachmann is a local favorite for Steve in Minnesota …
This Donald Trump hair cartoon is great …
I thought this one was wonderful just because of the way Steve draws helicopters …
I’d suggest that a cool way to spend New Years Day is a stroll through our
Steve Sack cartoon archive. It is great fun.
Libya Mountain Out of a Molehill
It is fascinating to watch Fox News’ team effort to promote the Libya attack as an Obama administration scandal just before the election – and their consternation that other media doesn’t share their passion. Here’s the cartoon I drew on the topic.
Our liberal cartoonist, Adam Zyglis drew this “mountain out of a molehill” cartoon …
And our conservative-team-player cartoonist, Eric Allie, responded to Adam with the cartoon below …
Even though I think the Libya “scandal” is right wing wishful thinking, I love the ‘toon tit for tat. See more Libya “scandal” cartoons here.
Best Political Cartoons of the Week
Every Friday, we collect the best political cartoons of the week and stuff them into one big, glorious slideshow.
So just relax and catch up on a week’s worth of news with our Best Cartoons of the Week slideshow.