An Italian study released this week found that due to weight gain, smoking, stress and environmental factors, the average male penis was 10 percent smaller than just 50 years ago.
Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who got into trouble earlier this year for calling Georgetown Law Student Sandra Fluke a “slut” for her advocation of birth control, blamed the male “shrinkage” on a group he dubs the “feminazis.” (view all our Rush Limbaugh cartoons)
“I think it’s feminism,” he said. “If it’s tied to the last 50 years — the average size of [a male’s] member is 10 percent smaller than 50 years — it has to be the feminazis, the chickification and everything else.”
According to our terrific caricaturist Taylor Jones (whose cartoons I syndicate in our Cagle Cartoons package), that “chickification” has effected Limbaugh too:
Less than a year after their offices were firebombed for publishing a caricature of the prophet Muhammad, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has created a controversy in France for publishing cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad naked in their latest issue.
Stephane Charbonnier, the editor of Charlie Hebdo, says the cartoons were an attempt to poke fun at the furor over the anti-Muslim film causing protests throughout the Arab world, and will “shock those who will want to be shocked.”
According to the French newspaper Le Monde, one of the cartoons inside the magazine, entitled “Muhammad: a star is born,” depicts a bearded figure crouching over to display his buttocks and genitals.
The front-page of the magazine features a cartoon of an Orthodox Jew pushing a Muslim man in a wheelchair, who is saying, “You mustn’t mock us!” under the headline “Untouchable 2,” a reference to a popular French film about a paralyzed rich man and his black assistant.
NBCNews.com has reported that France is temporarily closing its embassies and schools in 20 countries, fearing a violent backlash from protestors over the cartoons. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on France Info radio, “Is it relevant and intelligent in this environment to add fuel to the fire?”
Charlie Hebdo is available on news stands all over France and is a top publishing venue for many top, French gag cartoonists. “Hebdo” is French for “weekly” and “Charlie” is a reference to the iconic cartoon character, Charlie Brown.
Charlie Hebdo’s web site went down yesterday because of a hacker attack. Our own site at cagle.com went down for a time yesterday in response to an unusually sophisticated, denial of service attack.
Here’s my new cartoon about the protests going on throughout the Middle East and Asia over an anti-Muslim film posted on YouTube:
Most American cartoonists have spent the past few days drawing about Mitt Romney, after a grainy video was released of the Republican Presidential candidate telling a group of fundraisers almost half of the country feel they are “entitled” to government benefits and “lazy.”
So I thought I’d share a handful of cartoons by foreign cartoonists weighing in on the growing protests and outrage in the Arab world:
Luojie / China Daily, PoliticalCartoons.comPatrick Chappatte / International Herald Tribune, PoliticalCartoons.comEmad Hajjaj / Jordan, PoliticalCartoons.comTom Janssen / The Netherlands, PoliticalCartoons.com
Mitt Romney is getting slammed by our cartoonists over a video released yesterday where the Republican Presidential nominee tells fundraisers that he thinks 47 percent of Americans are “dependent” on the government, and will automatically vote for President Obama because of the government benefits they receive.
Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune evokes the etch-a-sketch in his cartoon about Romney’s flubs…
Rob Tornoe shows how Romney can do no wrong on Fox News, no matter what he says…
The Hill’sChris Weyant sums up the only message Romney seems to be able to stick to…
Dave Granlund see’s the Romney campaign as just one pothole after another…
Tim Eagan goes a bit existential with his cartoon about Romney’s continued pandering…
This past weekend, editorial cartoonists from all across the country gathered in Washington, D.C. for our yearly Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) convention.
C-SPAN aired a segment about the role editorial cartoonists play in journalism featuring syndicated cartoonist Mark Fiore and our very own John Cole, the staff cartoonist for the Scranton Times-Tribune (whom I syndicate via Cagle Cartoons).
R.J. Matson, the editorial cartoonist for Roll Call in Washington, D.C. (and who I syndicate via Cagle Cartoons) came up with an original take on Mitt Romney’s much-maligned comments following the tragic attack on the U.S. consulate on Benghazi, Libya:
Matson is one of the most prolific editorial cartoonists working today. In addition to his job with Roll Call, Matson was the daily staff cartoonist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for seven years, before being laid-off last month as part of a paper-wide cutback of employees to save money.
I interviewed Matson about being laid-off, and he shares my fear about the future of editorial cartoons, which are more popular than ever online and in syndication, but threatened by these continued job cuts.
“It’s such a difficult job to do well day after day, I don’t see how cartoonist can crank out stuff like that unless it’s a full-paid job treated with a lot of respect by the publisher,” Matson said.
“The cartoonist is essentially a columnist and a vital voice for the paper, and a vital voice for the community,” Matson continued. “People love to see events in their town reflected back in editorial cartoons… If newspapers give up on that, they’re giving up on their local scene.”
Mitt Romney’s comments following the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans has been referred to as a “Bungle… utter disaster…not ready for prime time… not presidential… Lehman moment.” And that was just from Republicans!
That's me with famed Kerala cartoonist, Toms, and his character "Unni" kicking me in the groin. Ouch.
Kerala is wet, steamy, tropical and charming, with an extensive network of estuaries called the “backwaters.” While I was here there was a big trade show going on, which brought India’s Prime Minister to town and was an excuse for me to do some cartooning speaking engagements. I had a lovely exhibition of my work here and I spent a sightseeing day with my new, Indian cartoonist buddies.
One highlight was meeting legendary Indian cartoonist “Toms,” who draws what I think Americans would describe as an Indian Dennis the Menace cartoon called Unnikkattan. Toms is the elder statesman of the cartoonists here, and we celebrated the 25th anniversary of “Unni.”
Here I am accepting a lovely portrait from talented young cartoonist Anjan Sathish.
Special thanks to my new friend, Sudheer Nath, the cartoonist for the Thejas newspapers, in Kerala’s Malayalam language; also Prasannan Anikkad, the freelance cartoonist chairman of the Kerala Art Academy and Unnikrishnan, the cartoonist for the Mathnubhumi newspaper – they all showed me a great time touring Kerala’s historic sights, and introducing me to the fascinating food here, which is served on big banana leaves, eaten with much drama with gooey fingers mushing things all about.
From left to right, Unnikrishnan, the cartoonist for the Mathnubhumi newspaper, me, Prasannan Anikkad, the Kerala Cartoon Academy Chairman, and Sudheer Nath, cartoonist for the Thejas newspapers.
Kerala has an outsized cartooning tradition, and the Kerala Cartoon Academy (KCA) is at its heart. The KCA doesn’t exist as a school, rather it is a cartoonist professional organization that organizes events, like my visit here and the tribute to Mr. Toms. They do “cartoon camps” for kids and publish books and magazines; I was very impressed with them.
I’m so rushed I haven’t had a chance to write about my visit to Hyderabad – that will come next.
Near the end of my visit we got the sad news of the murder of J. Christopher Stevens, the US Ambassador to Libya, who was a career foreign service officer, and a friend and colleague of the State Department people who were hosting me here. It was a grim reminder that the world outside of Kerala can be an ugly place, putting things into some perspective. I’m impressed with the dedication of the State Department people I’ve met on my travels and I appreciate their service.
Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was released from jail in Mumbai on $100 bail and a promise that sedition charges against him would be dropped. It was interesting to watch the media storm about Trivedi explode in the middle of my speaking tour of India.
Trivedi's drawing shows India's Parliament building as a toilet, a commentary on corruption in India's government.
The Cartoonists Rights Network, a foundation associated with my professional organization, The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, is giving their Courage in Cartooning award to Trivedi this weekend at our convention in Washington DC. I’ve been spending the past two weeks talking to the media in India, and early on I would get no interest or follow up questions about Trivedi – then when Trivedi went to jail it was all over the news, in banner headlines in all the newspapers and dominating TV news. All of India was outraged at the ridiculous charges and injustice of putting a cartoonist in jail for drawing symbols of the state.
I heard and read a lot of outraged opinions on the case in the media here, and I don’t recall hearing anyone argue in favor of jailing Trivedi. He got support from all corners of India, although I notice that nowhere in the media did I see anyone reprint or show the offending cartoons.
Also interesting was the motivation of journalists here to tell “both sides” of the story, but since nobody would speak in favor of jailing the cartoonist, the “other side” came out as derision, describing Trivedi as a “bad cartoonist,” and the cartoons as “terrible,” although “nothing that should land the cartoonist in jail.” I think that attitude is just plain rude. Trivedi isn’t a bad cartoonist – as regular readers of our site can see, his cartoons hold up pretty well to cartoons by other foreign cartoonists, and cartoonists from India. I think he’s a good cartoonist, and he deserves some respect for his artwork.
This image, a parody of India's national seal, was the cartoon described most often in the media here.
Trivedi also deserves some admiration for the way he handled himself through this media storm. He refused to accept bail for days, keeping the story alive and in the headlines. He’s been appearing all over the media since his release, giving interviews and making intolerant authorities here look silly. I think he’ll have a strong impact on moving India to a more free press.
There is a general rule that editorial cartoons are a barometer of freedom in any country – if cartoonists can draw the president of their country then the country has a free press. We don’t see Chinese cartoonists drawing their president; Fidel Castro is never drawn by cartoonists in Cuba. Our cartoonists in Singapore tell me that they are free to draw anything, as long as it isn’t about Singapore.
In India there is a mixed message on the cartoonist barometer. The press savages the Prime Minister, who is regularly lampooned in cartoons, but drawings of the President of India, who has a less substantive, ceremonial role, are barred. Cartoonists are forbidden by law from offending religious sensibilities – and Trivedi did well to limit his cartoons to symbols of the state, so that religious issues never came into the argument. Cartoonists in India are forbidden from drawing symbols of the state, without first getting permission from the state – that may change soon, because of Trivedi, and it is an important change. It is the role of editorial cartoonists to criticize government, and symbols of government (flags, seals, currency, government buildings like India’s Parliament building) are the prime tools in every editorial cartoonist’s tool chest.
This offending Trivedi cartoon shows "Corruption" about to rape "Mother India." Trivedi's "seditious" cartoons all used symbols of state in commentary about government corruption.
If I couldn’t draw symbols of governments, and I was barred from offending religious sensibilities, there wouldn’t be much of substance left for me to draw.
Trivedi has done an excellent job of making his point against government corruption in India and against the absurd restrictions against cartoonists in India. He’s an excellent artist too, and at the young age of 24 he’s now India’s star cartoonist. All in all, a great result for a talented, media savvy, young activist.
We have quite a large stable of cartoonists amassed on Cagle.com, and in addition to skewering their favorite politicians daily, a lot of them are also sports fans. So it’s only natural that going into the first week of the new NFL season, a lot of them have weighed in on their favorite team’s chances.
Adam Zyglis, the cartoonist for the Buffalo News, thinks expectiations are high for the Bills this season:
The Bills are playing the New York Jets today, and boy, those Bills fans just hate Tim Tebow:
Rob Tornoe, who draws sports cartoons for the Philadelphia Inquirer, weighs in on the replacement referees in charge of today’s Eagles opener:
Their quarterback, the infamous Michael Vick, is injury-prone, but one of his sponsers guarenteed he would be hurt as long as he was wearing their protective flak jacket. I’m sure that will end well:
Joe Heller, cartoonist for the Green Bay Press-Gazette, draws about the overwhelmingly-high expectations of Packers’ fans this season:
Meanwhile, New Englander Dave Granlund thinks as long as Tom Brady remains :
Less than a year after their offices 
