DarylCagle.comHere is my New Years cartoon. Â First, I do a rough pencil sketch …
Then I do finished line art, also in pencil, but scanned as high contrast to look like I use ink. Â This is the image most people will see in the newspaper. Â My drawings are on 11″x17″ paper. Â I work bigger than most editorial cartoonists.
And then I color it in Photoshop for the few newspapers that print cartoons in color, and for the Web.
We have a policy on our site that we don’t edit cartoons for content. Â When we accept cartoonists on the site, we post all of their cartoons. Â Should we edit the cartoons? Here’s a new one from one of our regulars, Emad Hajjaj, a top cartoonist in Jordan, along with a reader email urging us not to post the cartoon below.
Daryl,
I have enjoyed your editorial cartoon collections for many years, it is really a great site. There have been a few occasion when a cartoon would offend and anger me, but  what I saw on your site this week caused me a different reaction : complete bafflement.
I am talking about Emad Hajjaj “cartoon” named “Israeli stole organs of wounded & dead Palestinians.  I am not going to talk about it’s subject. You certainly know as well as me that this disgusting rumor is an ugly fabrication of a Swedish tabloid; even it’s own editors and it’s alleged palestinian source admitted that it had no ground . Which will make no difference, of course, but that’s our world.
I am not going to talk about Mr. Hajjaj.  I used to respect the his art despite the fact that his views were more than different from mine; I certainly didn’t expect something that low, idiotic, despicable   and obsene from him.  But apparently that’s Emad Hajjaj.  Maybe one day his greatest fear will be a thought that his grandchildren will find out about this drawing.
What I don’t understand, is what does it do on YOUR site? Certainly if Dr. Goebbels had a website this drawing would be its centerpiece. But why did YOU publish it? There have to be SOME explanation, some reason why you wanted it shown under your heading – even if it means helping to spread a murderous rumor and bringing to yourself the disgust and revultion of many readers.  You wouldn’t publish a KKK drawing of a black person as an ape or cannibal, or a child pornography picture , would you? Then – why?
Don’t you think it needs to be explained to your readers? Hope to be able to check your blog.
Sincerely,
Boris I. Bronfine, MD.
I’m saddened to write that Larry Wright, who has worked as an editorial cartoonist for the Detroit News for decades, is retiring at the end of this month. We syndicate Larry’s cartoons to more than 800 newspapers. Â Larry was one of the first cartoonists to join us when we launched our syndicate nearly ten years ago. Â Larry writes:
It is difficult for me to accept an end to editorial cartooning — I started doing it in my first newspaper job in 1961. I have been retired from the Detroit News since April 2006 but they kept me on for 3 free-lance cartoons a week till the economy crash in 2008 had them cut me to 2 a week. As things got worse they cut me down to one a week a few months ago and are cutting me off the end of the year.
It’s not like I’m facing poverty. I have a full pension from Gannett and I just signed a new three-year contract for Kit ‘n’ Carlyle, a daily panel I’ve been doing for United Media since 1980.
Although we will miss him, Larry will be keeping busy.
The Detroit News still has me doing regular free-lance editing and photography of collector car shows on the Detroit News website. It’s called Joyrides and has had a big audience since the late 1990s. I also get to show off my Corvette convertible at these shows.
See an archive of Larry’s editorial cartoons here; he is well known for his conservative views and for cartoons about health care, the automobile industry and Detroit sports. Â A few of Larry’s recent cartoons are below. Â We miss him already!
A decade is a long time –and this is  a lot of cartoons!  See my selections of the decade here with more than 80 of my cartoons marking the significant issues of the decade starting off with Bush vs. Gore.
I drew the cartoon below when the Supreme Court selected George W. Bush as president. Â I “defaced” the justices who voted for Bush and my newspaper at the time, the Honolulu Advertiser, refused to run the cartoon. Â Ah … memories.
The cartoon at the right gave me some trouble. Â I drew it on the second anniversary of 9/11, which seems to have been too soon, as it drew some very angry reaction.
The cartoon below also garnered some angry reaction, with readers screaming that it was terrible for me to compare our nation’s president with that evil murderer, Osama Bin Ladin.
Another cartoon below drew some furious reaction from Republicans who wanted to argue with every little fact in the mind of Republicans – not to say that I was wrong, but to point out all the things they disliked about Democrats. Click to see them all.
It’s nearly the end of the year, which means everyone will be posting their “year in review” pieces, and here at Cagle Cartoons, we’re no exception (make sure you check out Will Durst’s hilarious Top Ten Comedic News Stories of 2009 column).
Here’s my contribution, the Daryl Cagle’s Cartoon Year in Review Slideshow, up now on msnbc.com now! Come look!
(Click on the cartoon to view the slideshow)
Here’s my latest cartoon. First, there is the rough sketch; here I drew it in hard pencil and came back to tighten it up with a ball point pen.
Next I draw up the finished line art in pencil on drafting vellum. Â This is the image that most people will see in the newspapers.
Then I do the color version, for the newspapers that print in color and for the web. Â I really wish I could do “scratch ‘n sniff.”
Here’s my new cartoon on Tiger Woods. Â We have a great new collection of cartoons about Tiger Woods’ troubles here. Â Come look!
I know that I make people angry when I draw any kind of religious metaphor. Â Be polite with comments. Â The caricature of Woods at the right was drawn by Nate Beeler of the Washington Examiner; Nate is a brilliant caricature artist who deserves more attention.
I wanted to pass along the happy news that Apple has finally approved our iPhone app, and it’s available for download right now at iTunes.
Our new MSNBC Cartoons is very cool. It enables iPhone and iPod Touch users to see the newest editorial cartoons, updated in real-time as soon as dozens of the participating editorial cartoonists from our site finish drawing them. Browsing the cartoons is easy, as it’s built to work just like iPhoto, with pinch zoom and tilt rotation features. Â Users can even shake their iPhone to show a random cartoon!
Open the app when it is convenient to be online and you’ll cache more cartoons each time, for viewing right away or at your convenience when your device is offline.
You can also share your favorite political cartoons by e-mail, or post them to your Twitter and Facebook pages, without ever having to leave the app.
It has more cartoons, more often, than any other app out there, and it’s free!
Click here to download the app!
Here’s a video we put together showing how the app works:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baEC7STennM&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
And here are some screenshots:
I was saddened to read that editorial cartoonist Don Addis has died.
On a less sad but still somber note, I would urge everyone to read this latest post by my editorial cartoonist friend, Steve Greenberg, about recent challenges in his career. Â This is must reading for the legions of aspiring editorial cartoonists who are always sending their samples to us.
My home state has been kicking the budget can down the road for years and is finally running out of road. California is facing its biggest budget deficit ever — a staggering $21 billion, or 49.3 percent of the state’s general revenue fund.
As a political cartoonist I look for bad guys to skewer in my cartoons. In California there are bad guys everywhere to be blamed for our fiscal mess: our good-for-nothing Governor Schwarzenegger; our greedy, irresponsible legislature; the media that ignores state issues; and the electorate who votes for more debt to fund wasteful projects like multi-billion dollar trains people don’t want to use. Voters have approved more bond debt than the state can sell. In short, everyone is a bad guy.
Different groups point to their own favorite villains. Liberals like to blame Proposition 13 for limiting the legislature’s ability to raise taxes, even though our taxes are crazy high. Conservatives like to blame labor unions for milking the state dry, and liberals for chasing away business with taxes and regulations. The media likes to blame voters who vote for constitutional amendments that micromanage our dysfunctional legislature. Populists want to tax the rich more, even though the state has gotten into trouble by relying too much on income taxes and crashed when the incomes of the rich fell with the current recession.
But cash-flow isn’t California’s only problem — we also have a water crisis. In Los Angeles I’m limited to watering my lawn after 5:00pm on Monday and Thursday, and I struggle with a low-flow toilet, that has to be flushed three times to work, while rice farmers flood their farms with cheap subsidized water and the legislature has approved a whopping $11 billion bond measure, laced with porky giveaways, to fix the “water problem.” California would have plenty of water and money to go around if we had leaders who could step up and make some serious choices.
My favorite California money pits are the state commissions; out-of-work legislators, who have been term-limited out of office, are appointed to these six figure, do-nothing jobs while they relax and wait for their next electoral opportunities.
We have colorful problems and goofy characters who should make great cartoon characters for me, but they all share the blame so equally, and are so uninteresting as individuals, that my life as a California editorial cartoonist is more frustrating than it should be.
Of course, this all leads me to suggest that we change our state flag.
The bear on our flag might be the only state government character who stands blame-free, and who looks good in a cartoon. We should keep the bear — but lets change him every so often to let the government know how we feel about them. Here are a few of my suggestions for a new state flag.
California’s governor and legislature could run a few of these flags up the flagpole, and see who salutes them.
We’ve just added a new cartoonist to our Cagle.msnbc.com site. Â Ramzy Taweel is a freelance, West Bank Palestinian cartoonist, who works as a graphic artist and as a “media officer” for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Â See Ramzy’s cartoon archive here. Â And there’s more on Ramzy in my blog four weeks ago.
Here’s my latest cartoon on the upcoming Israel/Hamas prisoner swap. I’m putting it here in the blog because I know how all of you love to comment on Palestinian cartoons.
