DarylCagle.comEvery 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.
Last week, Joe Biden (view all our Biden Gaffe cartoons) got into some hot water when he awkwardly told a crowd during a campaign rally that “Romney’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules – unchain Wall Street!” adding, “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”
Well, our conservative flamethrower Gary McCoy responded with this cartoon about the gaffe-prone Vice President:
McCoy’s cartoon created a stir among readers, and led to a deluge of comments from our Facebook and Twitter pages. Here’s a sampling of their comments:
Paul Hartzer: Racism under the guise of rebuking Biden’s “racism”.
Jon Hall: Here come the defenders of the Progressive Faith — letting us all know he didn’t mean *those* chains …
Stilton Jarlsberg: I applaud Gary McCoy’s courage in speaking out about this. Racism is NOT acceptable – especially in the mouths of those on the Left who make it into policy.
Mary Lou Quinn: How can (inappropriately) referring to the early history of black americans be, in any way, compared as equal to references of watermelon and malt liquor? Weapons of mass distraction!
Anika Denton: This cartoon is so vile and unfunny. Biden didn’t even make a racist statement, it’s Republicans fake poutrage that made simple-minded people think it was racist.
What do you think? Comment below or drop us a line on our Facebook page.
Clay Jones, a funny cartoonist who have been a long-time contributor to Cagle.com (check out his cartoons here), announced today that he’s been laid-off from his staff cartooning job at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
“I’ve enjoyed the camaraderie of the newsroom, election night pizza, breaking news, racing to the newsroom at midnight on a Sunday to cover the death of Osama bin Laden, receiving angry phone calls from readers, physical threats from a fireman, and that exasperated look on my editor’s face every time I showed him a cartoon he didn’t like.”
Jones doesn’t know what he’ll do next, although he does mention he’ll still be drawing two cartoons a week for the Free Lance-Star, and will continue drawing for syndication.
“I do know my career as a staff cartoonist, something I spent seven years fighting for before it finally happened, is over. I do have other skills and I’m going to try to figure out what those are. There’s gotta be an opportunity for a professional smart ass somewhere out there.”
UPDATE: After his editor killed his final cartoon and asked him to draw a new one as he walked out the door, Clay has decided not to freelance two cartoons a week for the Free Lance-Star. Interestingly, the killed cartoon (which I have featured above) is live on the Free Lance-Star’s web site.
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.
Here’s my new cartoon about the Republican duo of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan:
It is a metaphor that made me laugh – Romney and Ryan, as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, chasing the “impossible dream” of vanquishing the entitlement windmills. It is great fun to rip off recognizable works of art for editorial cartoons – most editorial cartoonists do it every so often.
George W. Bush as King Henry VIII by Hans Holbien is one of my favorite oldies:
I’m sad to see the Olympics end. They offer so many great opportunities for cartoonists, especially when an election is occurring…
Too bad dogs weren’t allowed at the Olympics. Romney brought his horse, and Obama could have entered his small-bladdered attack dog…
Meanwhile, Mitt is still being weighed down by questions over the secrecy of his tax returns…
Good luck getting a straight answer from one of his surrogates. They’ve had nearly as many gaffes this cycle as Romney himself…
News of Mitt Romney’s choice of Wisconsonis Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate broke late Friday night. By Saturday morning, our conservative flamethrower Gary McCoy was first on the scene, beating everyone (including me) to the cartooning punch:
I asked McCoy what he thought of the pick, and he responded:
Obviously, I think Mitt Romney made a great choice by picking Rep. Paul Ryan for his Vice Presidential running mate. Could he have made a better choice? Oh sure, Jesus perhaps. But on second thought, that would have only invited more vitriolic criticism from the left, in particular, Bill Maher, who would have likely donated another million dollars to Obama’s super pac just to smear the Son of God as another extreme right-winger who is anti-government and for pushing his Christian values on America.
Despite lacking Christ’s pure divinity, Paul Ryan is a cool-headed, economic Einstein. Sure, with him as Vice President, the country will sorely miss Joe Biden’s hilarious gaffes. But that’s just the price we’ll have to pay to finally get our country out of the gigantic debt that team Obama has thrust upon America, and relieve our future generations of the China-red shackles that it has forged for them.
What’s your thought of the pick? Check out all of our Paul Ryan VP cartoons, and either comment below or drop us a note on our Facebook page.
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.
Sometimes, scrolling through classic political cartoons can offer unique insight of historic events. They also often comment on events and stories happening today with nearly as much relevance as they did when they first ran.
Here’s a cartoon drawn way back in 1931 by Pulitzer prize-winning cartoonist Harold Talburt, who was the Chief Washington Cartoonist (when such a thing existed) for Scripps-Howard and the Washington Daily News. In his cartoon, Talburt laments the influence of gangster movies on the young.
I’m guessing many politicians would agree with Talburt’s cartoon, and see a parallel to today’s children being exposed to violence not only in film, but on TV and in video games.
Four years later, and runners still can’t catch Usain Bolt. The Jamaican runner became the first man to repeat as 100-meter champion with his first place finish at the London Olympic Games.
Check out what our cartoonists think in our Usain Bolt cartoon collection:
We’ve received a lot of great cartoons about Chick-fil-A from both sides of the argument. Some cartoonists supported the First Amendment rights of a CEO voicing his own personal opinion, while other cartoonists thought spending corporate profits on anti-gay causes was bigotry that deserved to be called out.
The largest response came in reaction to this tough cartoon by Jimmy Margulies of The Record:
I asked Jimmy to comment on the cartoon, and here’s what he wrote:
I received both praise and condemnation for this cartoon. Those who agreed with me seemed to really like it. Those who did not expressed their disagreement in a few different ways. Some took the cartoon literally, suggesting I was saying that Chick-fil-A discriminates against its gay customers. I explained the cartoon was an exaggeration. Others felt that I was supporting the boycott of the restaurant and that I was denying the owner his freedom of speech. I explained that the cartoon took no position on the boycott, and that the owner is free to express his views, as well as give money to fund opposition to same sex marriage, but that I found this position objectionable, so I was using my cartoon to speak out about the injustice on the issue of same sex marriage.
Given the potency of the issue, I was glad my cartoon became part of the debate.
As you can imagine, readers on both sides of the argument weighed in on this polarizing cartoon:
Edward Bartunek: Disguesting and a insult to honest, god fearing, hardworking, Americans!
Teri Lesesne: I elect to boycott companies that spew inaccurate information and use their “fame” as a platform for hate. You are free to support them. That is what freedom is all about. But freedom has to be for everyone.
Kerry Wilson Cook: It doesn’t matter. Us gay people don’t go to chickfila anyway. We are all too health conscious to eat the slop that is fast food!!
Jamie Lockett: I wonder how political cartoonists would feel about mayors banning newspapers that carry their cartoons simply because those mayors didn’t like the content.
Robot Anna: Let’s please not appropriate the civil rights movement, thanks.
Jordan Fouts: I like how the same people who suck the invisible thumb of the free market get so mad about boycotts.
Joyce Linnae Crady: I hate boycotts. They hurt innocent workers & the economy. I vote for religious freedom and freedom of speech. As long as Chick-fil-A doesn’t discriminate in their establishments, they have a constitutional right to their beliefs and a right to express them.
Sunny Arts: This comic is an affront to the efforts of the civil rights movement – when segregation was truly being preached and enforced. Nobody is shoving gays to the ‘back of the bus’.
Steve Paysen: Have you seen the support of Chic Fil A today? I’d say you first of all are wrong in your portrayal, and who are you to take away the right of any man to answer a question with his conscience?
Terry Lee: Talk about rhetoric. Let’s be clear. People aren’t upset or up in arms about a man’s opinion or religious belief. People are boycotting this business because the BUSINESS donates large sums of money to anti-gay political/hate groups. He is free to express his opinion, certainly. I also am free to take my money elsewhere and encourage others to do the same.
What’s your opinion of the cartoon? Comment below, or drop us a note on our Facebook page.
I just drew another Muppet themed editorial cartoon, about Chick-Fil-A, below. I worked for the Muppets from the 1970’s into the 1990’s; the Jim Henson organization made my career as a cartoonist so whenever the Muppets make the news I feel nostalgic.
I drew this one when Congress was cutting funding to PBS.
I remember when Stephen Colbert testified before Congress, in character, and Republicans complained that they might as well have Elmo testify before Congress, another good occasion for a Muppet cartoon.
This one was when the evil Goldman-Sachs traders derisively called their customers “Muppets,” for them, synonymous with “suckers.”
The Children’s Television Workshop folks announced that Cookie Monster would no longer eat unhealthful cookies.
I drew this one when I was a local cartoonist in Hawaii, and Hawaii was running up to a vote to legalize gay marriage (which failed). A conservative Christian group was outraged by the cartoon and organized a noisy protest outside my newspaper, the Midweek, demanding that the cartoonist “come out!” (I wasn’t really inside, I was at home in California, pretending to be a local Hawaii cartoonist.)
Here are some examples of what I drew and designed back in my Muppet years … the good old days. I still love the Muppets.
