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Andy Singer’s Panel Cartoons in the Editorial Cartoon Spot

Editorial page editors typically reject anything new and different from editorial cartoonists. Unusual styles and formats are just not what editors want to see. Editors like cartoons that look like what they think editorial cartoons should look like – which leads to lots of cartoons that look much the same.

I’ve been a big fan of Andy Singer’s self-syndicated, altie “No Exit” panel for years, and I’ve been encouraging Andy to try his hand at more traditional editorial cartooning. Andy’s panel has content that is socially conscious, like an editorial cartoon, but it is not the right shape, and it is wordy, and it doesn’t have caricatures of politicians and the panel format with a title is simply not something editorial page editors will consider putting in their daily editorial cartoon hole.

What to do? Andy wanted to be on the editorial pages but was committed to continuing the “No Exit” panel. Then he gave me a new pitch, saying, “Daryl, you know, when I put two of my panels next to each other it becomes the shape of an editorial cartoon, and if I do two panels that are on the same topic, and color them, it looks like one big editorial cartoon.” The idea looked interesting to me. The result is rather stylistically different than what editors are used to but Andy’s new editorial cartoon format looks like wordy, multi panel editorial cartoons, and editors seem to be accepting them. The connection between the two panels might be a stretch, but no one seems to notice. So far, so good.

A number of comic strip cartoonists, Like Dan Piraro and Wiley Miller, have been doing their cartoons in both strip and panel format for years. Andy’s work has some format advantages over most magazine gag cartoonists’ work; Andy’s panels are topically editorial cartoons to start with, and he doesn’t have a classic gag cartoon style with a caption at the bottom, which would be more difficult to reformat. Still, it may be that some other socially conscious panel or gag cartoonists could develop a new market by finding a procedure to reformat their ongoing work as editorial cartoons. Andy Singer is the trailblazer.

One of Andy’s new, combined format cartoons for the editorial pages. With the same characters and consistent color and format, it looks right as a single editorial cartoon and is proving popular so far.

Here are a couple more new editorial cartoons from Andy. Follow Andy’s work on Cagle.com here.

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Monkey on Your Back

I’ve enjoyed the recent back-and-forth sniping between Donald Trump and Jeb Bush about whether President George W. Bush “kept us safe.” Of-course the answer to that is that he kept us safe, here but not overseas, from September 12th, 2001 going forward – a couple of qualifiers that Jeb neglected to mention.

A “monkey on the back” is an editorial cartooning standard – in fact, my buddy Taylor Jones drew a better George W. Bush monkey on the back cartoon recently, that I noticed just now, after I finished my cartoon above. I might not have drawn it had I noticed Taylor’s excellent work first – oh well, there will be plenty of monkeys on the back to come.
taylorMonkey

Here’s President George W. Bush as a monkey on the back of John McCain back in 2008, by David Fitzsimmons.

This is one of my favorite monkey-Bush oldies, by Sandy Huffaker, from the good old days of 2005.

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Tennessee Shooting Memorial

This is my cartoon on the Tennessee shooting tragedy. I didn’t think I could do anything more than the flowers and flags I’m seeing on the news, so I went with flags at half mast. This is probably a local cartoon, since many readers around the country won’t know the Tennessee flag, still, it is a local tragedy deserving of a local cartoon.

This reminds us that Tennessee is part of a big, ugly world.

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Cartoons

Tennessee Shooting Memorial

Tennessee Shooting Memorial © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,Tennessee,Chattanooga,flag,marine corps,memorial,flowers,shooting,ISIS,ISIL,terrorism,shooting,attack,recruiting

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Blog Columns Syndicate

Muhammad Cartoon Stimulus and Response … and Repeat

We just saw yet another terror attack provoked by cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, this time at a “Draw Muhammad” cartoon contest in Garland Texas. A competent cop shot two home-grown terrorist gunmen before much damage was done. The event was organized by a right-wing group called “Stop Islamization of America” that was best known for opposing the construction of a mosque in Manhattan. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists them as a hate group, which they deny.

Cartoonist Rénald “Luz” Luzier, who drew the famous Charlie Hebdo cover after the shootings in France, recently decided he would no longer draw Muhammad cartoons. I can sympathize with Luz’s choice, since he’s now “typecast” as the premier Muhammad cartoonist – It seems reasonable that Luz wouldn’t want his career to be boiled down to being the “Muhammad cartoon guy.”

I’m an editorial cartoonist; I haven’t drawn a Muhammad cartoon myself, because I haven’t been inspired to do so. I shy away from drawing cartoons that some people would find offensive. I don’t use four letter words, or the “N-word” in my cartoons. I don’t draw sexually explicit cartoons. Offensive subject matter in cartoons can be so loud that it drowns out anything else I might want to say in a cartoon, except, “Look, I have the freedom to draw something offensive.”

Many cartoonists have drawn Muhammad cartoons, and racist cartoons, and dirty cartoons; that’s fine, that’s their business – but drawing offensive stuff just to draw attention to myself, or to prove that I have the right to do so, just looks like lousy cartooning to me. The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were doing more than that; they were addressing issues in French culture that were important to them, and rejecting all religions that they felt didn’t fit with their secular society.

I knew three of the five Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who were murdered earlier this year and I got to know more of them at French cartoon festivals. They have a genuine passion for their issues and our conversations always turned to a discussion of their religion-bashing cartoons. Here in America we’re not faced with the same social pressures and similar cartoons here should seem out of place.

The “Stop Islamization of America” people, who sponsored this contest, are poking the extremist Islamic beast to elicit a predictable response. This violent, cartoon stimulus and response will surely continue to be repeated.

It doesn’t matter that I personally don’t choose to draw Muhammad cartoons, or that most cartoonists don’t care to draw offensive cartoons, all editorial cartoonists are now being seen as recklessly poking surly Islamic beasts. My profession is being painted with the Muhammad cartoon broad-brush.

I was recently asked to speak at a local college, and I met the college president; the first thing he said to me was, “Now, don’t show any of those Muhammad cartoons.” This is not unusual. Casual conversations with editorial cartoonists often start with, “So, do you draw those Muhammad cartoons too?”

Like Luz was typecast, it seems we’re all typecast now.

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Cartoons

Draw More Muhammad Cartoons

Draw More Muhammad Cartoons © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,Cartoons, Muhammad, Prophet Muhammad, Danish, French, France, Charlie Hebdo, Isis, Isil, Daesh, Islamic State, Garland, terrorism, texas, satan, devil, KKK, Ku Kux Klan, Nazi, Swastika, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, SIOA, Stop Islamization of America, Pamela Geller

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Cartoons

Garry Trudeau and Charlie Hebdo

Garry Trudeau and Charlie Hebdo © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,Garry Trudeau,Doonesbury,Yale,Universal Press Syndicate,Charlie Hebdo,Tignous,Wolinski,Honore,Charb,Cabu,Comic Strip,grave,graveyard,terrorism,murder,vulgar,graffiti

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Blog

American Response to the Charlie Hebdo Tragedy

American Response to the Charlie Hebdo Tragedy © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,Charlie Hebdo, terrorism, killing, France, Paris, cartoonists, cartoon, Stéphane Charbonnier, Charb, Cabu, Wolinski, Tignous, media, television, TV, news, cartoonist, pundits, fox news, can, msnbc, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Ft Lauderdale, Obama, president, community colleges, st louis spurs, basketball, sports

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American Response to the Charlie Hebdo Tragedy

American Response to the Charlie Hebdo Tragedy © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,Charlie Hebdo,terrorism,killing,France,Paris,cartoonists,cartoon,Stéphane Charbonnier,Charb,Cabu,Wolinski,Tignous,media,television,TV,news,cartoonist,pundits,fox news,can,msnbc,Los Angeles Times,Wall Street Journal,New York Times,Florida Sun-Sentinel,Fort Lauderdale,Ft Lauderdale,Obama,president,community colleges, st louis spurs,basketball,sports

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Freedom of Expression

158580 600 Freedom of Expression cartoons

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Charlie Hebdo TV Pundits

158510 600 Charlie Hebdo TV Pundits cartoons

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The Media and Red Lines

158487 600 The Media and Red Lines cartoons