I just found out that my friend Bil Keane, the legendary cartoonist and creator of “The Family Circus,” died yesterday of congestive heart failure at the age of 89.
Bil started his career as a messenger fro the Philadelphia Bulletin before serving in the Army, drawing for Yank and Pacific Stars and Stripes. It’s hard to believe that Bil starting drawing the adventures of Billy, Jeffy, Dolly and P.J. all the way back in 1960. After nearly a half century of continuous publishing, Family Circus is in over 1,500 newspapers across the country.
Bil was also the president of the National Cartoonists Society from 1981 to 1983 and was the emcee of the Society’s annual awards banquet for 16 years. He was also named the Society’s Cartoonist of the Year and received the Reuben Award in 1982.
Bil’s talented son Jeff, who has been working on Family Circus for many years, will continue the legendary panel.
Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to start slideshow)
Joe Paterno is Penn State. The legendary coach is now expected to retire at the end of the season as he has suddenly found himself in the middle of a horrifying child sex abuse scandal.
Jerry Sandusky, his former assistant coach and one-time heir, is accused of assaulting boys as young as 10 between 1994 and 2009.
If you’re a publisher, what do you do after your offices are firebombed and your Web site is hacked after you release an issue “guest edited” by the Prophet Muhammad?
You double down, of course!
The French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo hasn’t let last week’s firebombing keep them down. In fact, they didn’t even let it mess up their production deadline. Their next issue was released on schedule, and features a doozy of a cover drawn by the French cartoonist Luz showing the cartoon likeness of Charlie Hebdo publisher and cartoonist Charb engaged in a sloppy kiss with a bearded Muslim man. The headline reads L’Amour plus fort que la haine, which translates into “love is stronger than hate.”
Unlike last week’s edition, which featured the Prophet Muhammad on the cover saying, “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter”, there is nothing specifying that it’s Muhammad on their latest cover. Last week’s edition was also renamed Charia Hebdo (which is a play on the Islamic word sharia), and was intended to “celebrate” the victory of an Islamic party in last month’s Tunisian elections.
For his part, Luz refuses to condemn religious extremists for the attack, writing that people should be cautions before laying blame.
“There’s every reason to believe it’s the work of fundamentalists,” he wrote. “But it could just as well be the work of two drunks.”
Bill Day / Cagle Cartoons (click to start slideshow)
Herman Cain dominated the news cycle, as sexual harassment allegations were unearthed about the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO. In addition, the Occupy Wall Street protests continued to pick up steam, even as Greece threatens to destroy us all!
UPDATE #4: Susie appeared on ABC7 News to talk about her arrest:
UPDATE #3: Susie has been released from Santa Rita, but she has been charged with misdemeanor “present at raid.” According to Susie, she had her press pass in full view when she was arrested, and one of the Oakland Police Department officers even recognized her and knew her comics.
UPDATE #2: Susie has been “signed out” of Santa Rita, but it’s still an indefinite amount of time before she is released.
UPDATE #1: Susie is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County, California, charged with unlawful assembly, even though she was there covering the event and had a press badge. Obviously, they took her phone when she was arrested, but you can follow updates on her Twitter feed, @Susie_C. It’s being updated by her friend Joel Kraut (@myunderpants).
I’ll keep you posted as I know more.
One of Susie's sketches.
As many of you know, my daughter, cartoonist Susie Cagle, has been covering the Occupy Oakland protests. Last week, she was teargassed when police attempted to prevent a peaceful march of Occupy Oakland protesters from walking to the police department.
Last night, Susie was arrested along with dozens more, according to police. She’s been spending time at Occupy Oakland as part of her graphic series of the movement, which she funded through Spot.Us.
She’s not the first journalist to be arrested trying to cover Occupy movements. Nashville Scene reporter Jonathan Meador was one of two dozen or so people arrested by Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers at Occupy Nashville. And just yesterday, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel photographer Kristyna Wentz-Graff was arrested covering an Occupy rally.
Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner (click to view cartoon collection)
Up until a couple of days ago, Herman Cain enjoyed being the media darling of the GOP presidential race. Unfortunately, Politico unearthed the news that the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO had been accused of sexual harassment. Now Mr. 9-9-9- has been bending and contorting like a pretzel, trying to defend himself amid the increased media scrutiny.
Adam Zyglis / Buffalo News (click to view cartoon collection)
Talk about an explosion. It only took the planet about 12 years to add a billion new people, as the United Nations declared on Monday that the world’s population officially surpassed 7 billion.
India is creating people at a rate of nearly one per second, so it seems likely the 7 billionth baby will be born there. They are also expected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country by 2030.
Check out what cartoonists think about the world’s growing population with our 7 Billion People cartoon collection.
Happy Halloween! The Northeast is expected to get hit today with a classic nor’easter, which is expected to dump anywhere from a dusting of snow to about 10 inches throughout the area.
So if you live anywhere from Washington D.C. to Boston, warm up some hot coco and relax by enjoying these funny snow cartoons. For more, check out new October Snow cartoon slideshow. You’ll need the rest before shoveling, anyway.
Daryl Cagle / msnbc.com (view more of my cartoons)
John Cole / Scranton Times-Tribune (view more cartoons by Cole)
Rob Tornoe / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Tornoe)
Bob Englehart / Hartford Courant (click to view more Englehart cartoons)
My daughter, cartoonist Susie Cagle, was teargassed on Tuesday and had to avoid rubber bullets fired by Oakland police attempting to prevent a peaceful march of Occupy Oakland protesters from walking to the police department. Susie shot the iPhone video above.
“As I crouched down to protect myself, a teargas canister rolled right under my face and exploded,” she told The Daily Crosshatch. She’s been spending time at Occupy Oakland as part of her graphic series of the movement, which she is funding through Spot.Us.
A sketch from Susie's Occupy Oakland graphic series.
She’s also decided to change the original scope of her series:
Yeah. It’s going to have to be totally different now. It was going to be a five-part piece about how different Occupy Oakland is from the rest of the occupation. When the camp was up, it was very different. They were primarily concerned with creating this functional mini-city, rather than doing focused protests and actions, which is very different than the other ones. They spent more time trying to figure out how to feed everyone and building a kids’ area, and a library and a community garden. That’s what they were spending their time on.
David Fitzsimmons / Arizona Daily Star (click to start slideshow)
Every Friday, we collect the best political cartoons of the week and stuff them into one big, glorious slideshow.
The big news this week was the fact we’re finally pulling our of Iraq, but the resurgence of the “flat tax” and crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street protesters also sprinkled into the news cycle. GOP Presidential hi-jinks are always welcome news to cartoonists as well.
Click to view our collection of Reynolds Halloween cartoons
My buddy, famed greeting card artist Dan Reynolds, has put together a collection of his hilarious Halloween cartoons for us to share. Dan’s cartoons are read by millions of readers across the U.S., Canada and points beyond all the way down under in Australia. His work is seen in every issue of Reader’s Digest (where he is known for his cow, pig and chicken cartoons), on greetings cards everywhere, and in his many book collections.
Dan is also a fantastic painter, and has set up a Web site (Danreynoldsart.blogspot.com) to showcase his wonderful pastel paintings.
Here’s what Dan said about painting:
“Painting is my way of relaxing after a hard day of cartooning. For me, cartooning is an exercise of the mind. Painting is an exercise of the heart. Painting, for me, is the next step in my evolution as a creative person. It gives me a different sense of accompishment. As a cartoonist, I feel like I’m eating candy all day long. Painting give me the sense that I’m eating my vegetables, too, and enriching my body and soul.”
Click to view more of Dan Reynolds fantastic paintings.
I am thrilled to announce that we’ve added Augusta Chronicle cartoonist Rick McKee to our site and to our Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Rick is a talented cartoonist with a very unique drawing style, and his conservative opinions set himself apart from most cartoonists that tend to drift more to the left.
A native of Tallahassee, Florida, Rick has been editorial cartoonist for The Augusta Chronicle in Georgia since January 1998, and in 2006, McKee was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. Along with everybody else.
Make sure you bookmark his page to keep up with this latest work, and check out some of his recent cartoons. Welcome aboard Rick!
