SELL THE HOUSE: TOP TEN CARTOONS OF THE WEEK
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.
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Daryl Has a Cow
Here I am with my cow, Josette. I’m holding the St. Just porcelain statue depicting their logo that they give to grand prix winners.
I just got back from the grand editorial cartooning festival in St. Just le Martel, France where I won the grand prix, the “Prix de l’humor Vache” award, which was an actual cow, named Josette.
The “Salon de St. Just, ” in its 32nd year, draws cartoonists from around the world to a tiny town near Limoges. The townspeople have adopted the cartoonists and hold a party that stretches over two weekends, in a grand cartoon museum they built in the middle of cow country. Most of the cartoonists stay in the homes of volunteer villagers – the entire event is put together by townpeople Cartoonists usually come for only one weekend of the festival, splitting the crowd between what becomes two different weekend groups of roughly 120 cartoonists each.
This was my second “Salon,” last year I went with our knuckle-dragging, conservative, “Tea Party” cartoonist, Eric Allie, who was a strange beast to the French. This year I went with three liberal cartoonists, Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune, Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and Bob Englehart of the Hartford Courant for three days of open bar and schmoozing with our international colleagues.
Here I am with my Cagle Cartoons colleagues, dubbed “Cagle Cowboys”, from left, Josette, Pat Bagley, Me, Bob Englehart and Steve Sack below.
My festival friends tell me that a cow is usually a placid animal, but sometimes the cow will get annoyed and give a swift, painful kick as a surprise to an unlucky bystander; this contributes to the idea that the cow is a little sneaky, nasty and unpredictable. The “Prix de l’humor Vache,” the grand prize they gave me, is described as an award for “caustic humor.” “Humor Vache” (funny cow) rhymes with “Amour Vache” (love cow, or more accurately “rough love”) a French idiom for a love affair that is nasty, consisting of harsh words and arguments. In France, to refer to someone as a “vache” (cow) is a little bit nasty. In contrast, on the first Saturday of the Salon, they give out the “Humor Tendre” (Tender Humor) award, which is a sheep, given to a sweet cartoonist such as a children’s book illustrator.
The Limoges area is proud of their cows, which are raised for beef and are all a warm brown color. The cow is the symbol and mascot of the Salon. Every year, the “Prix de l’humor Vache” cow is named “Josette” and is actually given to the winning cartoonist. At the ceremony, the mayor of St. Just, Gerard Vandenbroucke, awarded Limoges porcelain cows to my three American compatriots, dubbing them “Cagle’s cowboys.” Bob, Pat and Steve, who can also claim to have won cows (although, not real cows) took their little cows around to all the other cartoonists at the Salon to sign; it was charming.
Typically, the winning cartoonist is expected to take a cash award (I still don’t know how much) in lieu of actually taking delivery of the real Josette, who would be difficult to check on a plane and would likely be an unpleasant roommate in my tiny, Nashville apartment. But, they make it clear that the cartoonist really won a cow and could actually take the cow if he or she chooses to, and there are stories of cartoonists in past years choosing to take the cow. I’m told that are some amusing movies of a past winner taking his cow to Paris, trying to bring the cow on the Metro, and taking the cow up the Eiffel Tower. If anyone can find these movies online, I’d love to take a look.
Part of winning the grand prize cow is the obligation to do the art for the poster for the next Salon. The poster this year featured a lovely Degas-like ballerina cow. The festival people then dress a cow sculpture, in the entry to the museum, to match the cow on the poster. My plan is to give the cow on next year’s poster a very elaborate costume that will be a unique challenge for a St. Just volunteer to create for the cow statue. Right now, I’m thinking of doing the poster cow as Marie Antoinette with a huge, elaborate, flowing gown.
Here’s Bob Englehart with the cow statue at the entrance to the exhibition. The cow is dressed to match the poster which is a ballerina this year. Next year I’ll be doing the poster and I plan to put the cow in a very elaborate costume that will be a challenge for St. Just’s volunteer seamstresses.
The whole event in St. Just is a lovely boost for our beleaguered editorial cartooning profession which is suffering in France as it is here and around the world with newspapers declining everywhere. I’d love to see some of the great French attitude about the value of editorial cartooning rub off on other parts of the world, like America, which treats cartooning as a second class art form. I can’t imagine a whole town in the USA choosing to build a municipal cartoon museum, opening their homes, and pitching together to cook dinner for hundreds of editorial cartoonists – and, of-course, a nine day open bar would be unthinkable in America.
From left to right, Bob Englehart, Stave Sack, St. Just’s Mayor Gerard Vandenbroucke in the red shirt, me holding my “Prix de l’humor Vache” porcelain statue, Josette, and Pat Bagley in the lower right corner.
Below is a scan of the Limoges newspaper front page and interior story from the day after I had a cow.
I am saddened to write that Cartoonists Rights Network reports that Syrian cartoonist Akram Raslan has been executed by the Syrian regime after a sham trial.
Click on the photo to see a larger view. That’s me sitting on the stage at the lower right. Such sad news for the cartooning community.
Just last week, at the Humor Salon in St Just, I joined a nice assembly and demonstration by world cartoonists in support of Akram – at the time we all thought Akram was imprisoned, but he had already been murdered. Akram’s crime was to make people laugh at the Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad in his cartoons.
Truly tragic news. From the Cartoonists Rights Network report:
We’ve learned that on July 26, Akram Raslan and other prisoners of conscience including journalists, artists, singers and other intellectuals were secretly put on trial with no witnesses, no defense attorneys, no appeal, and no hope for justice. From unconfirmed and sketchy reports we learned that they were all condemned to life imprisonment.
Somehow, along the way to prison young 28-year-old Akram Raslan (and possibly others) was peeled off, taken out and executed. He is reported to be in a mass grave somewhere near Damascus. Our reliable but for obvious reasons anonymous sources further allege that the murder of Akram and other condemned prisoners was carried out by Mohammad Nassif Kheir Bek, currently the Deputy Vice President for Security Affairs in Syria. He has already been sanctioned by the European Union for the use of violence against protesters and the Syrian civil war.Akram Raslan was the winner of the Cartoonists Rights Network International, Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning for 2013. Past award winners have hailed from Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey, Palestine, Iran, and India, including last year’s winner, Ali Ferzat, also from Syria.Here in the United States we are experts in the knowledge that editorial cartooning is a dying art. In other areas of the world, however, it is an art that people die for.CRNI has been monitoring and assisting political cartoonists in trouble for the last 20 years. They are often victims of failing regimes stamping out criticism, drug cartels squashing investigations, corporate interest protecting money and political manipulation, and religious zealots stamping out thinking.About nine months ago young Akram Raslan was abducted from the offices of his newspaper and “disappeared” into the Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad’s prisons for the next six months. Readers might remember the case of Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat who in 2011 had his hands broken by the Syrian regime’s thugs. As they finished the job they told Ali that his broken hands would prevent him from disrespecting their master through his cartoons. Ali Ferzat was lucky. He survived the beating and eventually found safe haven in another Middle Eastern country. His revenge was to live to draw again.The hue and cry over this attack that grew from the world’s journalists and cartoonists must have made an impression on Bashir al-Assad. This time, a beating wasn’t enough. This time he decided to “disappear” the cartoonist permanently.
Here are a couple of Akram Raslan cartoons that likely angered his murderers, from the Cartoonists Movement site …
Here is my last week of cartoons. Today I’m headed out for the editorial cartooning convention in St. Just, France, with my brilliant cartoonist buddies, Steve Sack, Bob Englehart and Pat Bagley.
Here’s my most recent cartoon, with the GOP all tied up in a knot. They seem to be pretty dysfunctional right now, gumming up the government for everybody. (I was just drawing the heels of his shoes with the old fashioned nails and gripper on the back, I wasn’t think of his heels having happy faces. I guess I have to think of everything.)
I did a second GOP knot cartoon this week, which makes the point more about the split in the Republican party.
I’m trying to do more texture in my cartoons. I’ve been asked why I do the yellow backgrounds so often in my cartoons. I like the yellow because it is intense and light so that it doesn’t draw away from the line art.
I drew a THIRD Republican knot cartoon this week. This is my knotty Republican week. Here is the GOP hanging himself on the medical Caduseus (Obamacare).
Enough of knots. When Ted Cruz was doing his useless filibuster, reading from Dr. Seuss, and the other cartoonists were all making Dr. Seuss metaphors, I was rather more annoyed with Cruz, so I drew him as a monkey throwing his poop.
I know that there won’t be many newspapers that will print this (if any will at all). I guess that is one of the perks of being my own editor – I can draw whatever I want even if nobody wants to see it. This cartoon is actually a homage to the great, British cartoonist Steve Bell, who drew a famous image of George W. Bush in a similar pose. I’m a big Steve Bell fan.
The last one for the week is this Republican suicide bomber cartoon. I’m leaving for the convention in France at a difficult time, with all the wonderful, crazy politics going on now. I won’t be drawing new cartoons for a week or so, but when I come back I expect to have some pent up angst, ready for the drawing board.
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GOP Caduseus Nooseus
I will crawl out of my spider hole for two events! Come see me!
I’ll be speaking, and giving a Powerpoint presentation, to the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society (NCS) in Knoxville, TN on Saturday, October 26th, at about 11:00am, at the Crowne Plaza Knoxville (University), in Salon B on the mezzanine level. The NCS chapter folks tell me that anyone can come, so here is your chance to tell me off face to face, no hiding behind those nasty e-mails.
I’m impressed with the NCS Southeast Chapter, they put on an ambitious gathering and have a lot of cartooning luminaries in their ranks. I’m looking forward to it.
Next week I’m going to the big, international, editorial cartooning convention in St. Just le Martel, France. This is a little town that has decided that they love editorial cartoons – they built an impressive cartoon museum and the whole town comes out in wholehearted support of our troubled art form. They also love cows; this is French cow country, down by Limoges.
Three of the cartoonists I syndicate are coming along, Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune, Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and Bob Englehart of the Hartford Courant. I think this will be the biggest American turnout that little St. Just has ever had. And none of us speak French. Here is a list of all the attending editorial cartoonists, and the days that they will be in attendance.
So, if there are any editorial cartooning fans in France who want to visit with some obscure, American editorial cartoonists, the four of us will be hanging with all the other world cartoonists at the cartoon museum the second weekend of the Salon, October 4th, 5th and 6th.
