DarylCagle.comIt’s Friday, when we post our big, glorious slideshow recapping the week’s best political cartoons. This is a good one, covering everything from budget cuts to a possible government shutdown, as well as some great cartoons about a Koran-burning nutcase and some guy named Glenn Beck who got booted from his Fox News show.
So stop tending to your farm on Facebook for a second and take the time to check out The Week in Political Cartoons.
The federal government has ramped up planning for a possible shutdown as Republicans and Democrats can’t come to an agreement on the remainder of this year’s budget.
Fortunately, few cartoonists work for the federal government, so they’ll still get to opine about our disfunctional politicians even if all of Washington shuts down. To see what they think, check out our new Government Shutdown cartoon slideshow
Cartoonists across the nation who have become accustomed to Glenn Beck’s one-sided attacks on “progressives” and paranoid conspiracy theories must have shed their own Beck tears when Fox News announced that his show would be ending in the next few months.
As a national pundit, Beck left a lot to be desired. But as a convenient punching bag for the nation’s cartoonists, he was perfect, as our new Bye, Bye Beck cartoon slideshow illustrates.
RELATED: Top Ten Glenn Beck Cartoons
Sometimes I wonder if Fox News will let Glenn Beck say any crazy thing he wants – but with Fox’s decision to give Glenn Beck the boot, I guess the answer is a resounding no.
Plagued by sinking ratings and an advertising boycott, Fox announced that Beck would lose his show later this year. This might be a happy day for many, but most editorial cartoonists will be sad to see Beck and his conspiracy-minded gobbledygook leave television.
So I thought it would be fun to post the top ten Glenn Beck cartoons from our archives, and remember the good old days of usurping Martin Luther King, Jr. and calling President Obama a racist.
Here’s my new cartoon about protesters in Afghanistan fighting and killing because some dumb, bigoted pastor in Florida decided to burn a Koran for some publicity.
The whole situation reminds me of the protests and violence following the Danish Cartooning Controversy that occurred back in 2005, when 12 editorial cartoonists were commissioned by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten to draw caricatures of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in attempt to contribute to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship. Even with a free press defined by law, there are other constraints regarding what can or can’t be published.
Here’s the cartoon I drew back then. It’s sad that for some, things never change.
Oh dear, I haven’t been good about posting my most recent cartoons – here they are. This is my annual cartoon about tax time …
This one is about the NATO bombing/no-fly-zone in Libya …
Here’s one on the Republican union bashing.
..and the looming government shutdown …
This is a local cartoon about our ridiculous, multi-billion-dollar trains to nowhere in California. Our new/old Governor Brown is eager to have an election so we can approve new taxes. With all the billions of dollars poured into the ground for a worthless Los Angeles subway, and the local $500 million dollar, most expensive high school ever built, it is hard to make a convincing argument that we need higher taxes.
Here’s my portrait of Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad and his father, Hafez al-Assad.
Here’s another drawing of Bashir. He is fun to draw (his neck makes me laugh). As a manly cartoonist, I don’t like to put sissy labels on my caricatures; regrettably, most people don’t know what Bashir looks like, and he needs a label – still, I’m no sissy cartoonist.
Online dating has exploded in recent years, with everybody from busy stockbrokers to soldiers overseas using sites like Match.com and eHarmony to find their soul mates.
Check out some funny cartoon about this brave new world of internet romance in our new Online Dating cartoon slideshow.
Protests in Afghanistan against the burning of a Quran in Florida by Pastor Terry Jones has entered a third straight day. The Taliban seem to be stoking the fires of the angry mobs, who have already killed 20 people and injured nearly 100 more.
It’s always interesting to see how the world’s cartoonists react to an event like this – a single, idiotic American motivated by religious intolerance stirring up trouble and creating violence halfway across the world out of bigotry and hatred.
Slovakian cartoonist Martin Sutovec drew Pastor Jones trying to use the flames of liberty to get his Quran-burning started…
While Signapore cartoonist Deng Meil Coy shows us the face of terrorism.
Israeli cartoonist Shlomo Cohen shows Jones responding to warnings about creating violence in a Dirty Harry moment…
While Jordanian cartoonist Emad Hajjaj suggests it’s the media that are the true fire-starters.
Bulgarian cartoonist Christo Komarnitski draws a comparison between Jones’ Quran-burning and the terrorists behind 9/11.
Meanwhile, I just think he’s kind-of an ass…
RELATED: More cartoons about Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones
