My latest local, altie Nashville Scene cartoon is about Nashville’s statue of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who fought defending Nashville from the Union Army, who was the founder of the Ku Kux Klan and the first “Grand Wizard of the KKK.” The hideous, privately owned, 25 foot tall, fiberglass statue is a local embarrassment as it can be clearly viewed from the freeway, surrounded by Confederate Battle Flags.
The statue is funny on a number of levels: the general has blue jewels for eyeballs; he has a golden pony without knees or eyeballs; and the image of Nathan Bedford Forrest looks nothing like what the general actually looked like. The statue’s sculptor was once the attorney for James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr.
My new “Grexit” cartoon is pretty similar to other recent Grexit cartoons, showing Greece blowing off the European Union at the same time that they are begging for big loans from the EU. Gotta love that Greek chutzpah.
I think the best cartoon along these lines comes from Jos Collignon of the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant. We’ll be adding Jos to Cagle.com soon and I’m a big fan of his work. In editorial cartooning, whoever uses the fewest words wins!
This was a crazy, viral, pirate weekend for cartoonist Bob Englehart of the Hartford Courant. We syndicate Bob’s cartoons.
We found out about the crazy-popular pirated cartoon when we started getting media inquiries about the viral image with about 200,000 shares on Facebook. CBS’s Face the Nation and ABC’s Good Morning America wanted permission to run the cartoon. We told everyone “no.” CNN wouldn’t take “no” for an answer; after we refused their request, they went to our automated Politicalcartoons.com site and purchased the original cartoon, then showed it on Sunday morning along with the pirate version.
Read my posts from Facebook about the crazy viral weekend, and see the two versions of the cartoon below (the pirate version is at the bottom of the page.)
Bob’s original cartoon.
My first Facebook post on this:
Shame on you, SPLC.
I’m usually a fan of the Southern Poverty Law Center, but they are lawyers and they should know better than to steal and alter copyrighted works.
This cartoon is stolen from cartoonist Bob Englehart of the Hartford Courant, who we represent at CagleCartoons.com andPoliticalcartoons.com. Bob’s signature and attribution have been crudely removed from the third panel, and the last two panels with the rainbow flag were added by SPLC or another copyright pirate.
Interestingly, the “CAGLECARTOONS.COM” URL at the bottom left was also added and didn’t exist in the original cartoon, which can be seen here:http://tinyurl.com/obfjh7y – where the SPLC could have purchased permission to post the cartoon for $20.00.
If they had asked nicely, we probably would have allowed the SPLC to run the cartoon for free, without alteration. Or they could have posted this John Darkow cartoon with the same message as the altered/pirated Englehart image: http://tinyurl.com/qxqz35g
I’ve reported the copyright infringement to Facebook. The cartoon should be removed from the SPLC page and over 180,000 Facebook sites that have shared the altered/pirated cartoon.
Now, I’m back to my drawing board where I’m working on my own cartoons celebrating the Marriage Equality ruling and the renewed opposition to the Confederate Battle Flag.
Your hearts are usually in the right place, SPLC – but artists’ work should be respected.
My second Facebook post:
The SPLC posted the statement below on their Facebook page, along with the original Bob Englehart cartoon. Bob and the Hartford Courant are graciously not asking that over 190,000 shares be removed.
That said, perhaps I am nit-picking, but I find the SPLC’s description of “the problem” to be troubling. The SPLC writes,”The problem? Well, we got the credit wrong. And the cartoon was modified from its original form.” They did more than get the credit wrong, they took a cartoon they found on Twitter and posted it without attribution or permission, making no effort to figure out who the artist was.
This is the attitude I see everywhere on the Web, where little respect is given to artists. I see lots of accolades posted on the SPLC page for making their correction, but I think the correction falls short. Perhaps I’m not as gracious and Bob, Bob’s editors at the Hartford Courant, and all the commenters on the SPLC page.
This is all everyday stuff for editorial cartoonists – what makes this case interesting is the stunning 190,000+ shares. In most cases where editorial cartoons are altered without permission, the changed cartoon is made into hate speech, or at least an opinion opposed to the original cartoon, and the altered cartoon is seen by few people. Removing Bob’s signature and attribution shows the intent of the pirate that the creator of the original work not be recognized (recognition of the original creator is a requirement for a “transformative” work to qualify as “fair use.”)
Here, the changed cartoon reflects a point of view that Bob agrees with, and the SPLC is a respectable group. I suppose that makes this easier for Bob and his editors to swallow. I withdrew my own demand that Bob’s cartoon be removed from Facebook at Bob’s editor’s request.
And Bob is, in fact, quite a gracious guy. As is his editor.
–Daryl
SPLC’s Post:
On Friday, we posted a cartoon that seemed to perfectly encapsulate a tremendously emotional week. Five panels depicting the Confederate battle flag going down a flag pole, representing the political conversation following the horrific events in Charleston, South Carolina, and a rainbow (LGBT pride) flag going up in its place, representing the Supreme Court’s decision to make marriage equality the law of the land.
And did it resonate. At this moment, the post has nearly 260,000 Likes and over 190,000 shares.
The problem? Well, we got the credit wrong. And the cartoon was modified from its original form.
On Sunday we learned that the first three panels of the Confederate flag going down was the work of Hartford Courant editorial cartoonist Bob Englehart, who originally posted it on June 22nd (see here:http://sp.lc/OXaHP).
Someone had added the last two panels of the rainbow flag being raised. In doing so, they removed the original caption “Going…going…gone” and, even worse, deleted Mr. Engelhart’s signature, which also included the date and the Hartford Courant copyright.
We screwed up. We found the image on Twitter and credited the editorial cartoon syndicate Cagle Cartoons, which appeared in the doctored cartoon.
Thankfully for us, an editor at the Hartford Courant generously asked that we only correct the record here, which we were eager to do.
In sum: We apologize to Mr. Englehart and his colleagues at the Hartford Courant. Everyone here who liked that post should go over and check out his work. If that cartoon resonated, you’ll be pleased to know Mr. Englehart publishes multiple times a week. http://www.courant.com/opinion/cartoons/
The latest deadline for the nuclear deal with Iran is fast approaching, with both side optimistic that a deal will be made, and both side describing the deal very differently.
Here’s my new cartoon for the Nashville Next altie-weekly newspaper. Tennessee has a number of commissions that are passionately reviewing the Common Core standard that conservatives in this red state just can’t stand.
There’s been a a lot in the news about how Iraqi troops cut and run when they face off with ISIS. The US Army trained Iraqi troops for years, but it doesn’t seem to stick. Now President Obama is re-doubling the training efforts, but I’m guessing that won’t make any difference.
I had in mind that there would be a caption to this cartoon, “Training Iraqi Troops,” and as I looked at it, it seems better without a caption, although it isn’t really clear that it is about training Iraqi troops, still, no caption is better.
It looks like cell phone videos of bad cops is making police all over America shy away from their jobs enough to make the crime rate soar. I’ve had this cartoon in mind for a long time, but for some reason I wasn’t happy with the layout and it took me a long time to draw – too long. I’m still not quite sure about the colors of the thought balloons. Oh well, time to move on, for me and for the police.
Here’s my latest local Nashville cartoon. This really is the policy of the Metropolitan Planning Commission – interesting that a government agency, that is holding public hearings on projects that require public approval, makes itself so unavailable to discussion with the public.
Here’s my latest local Nashville cartoon from the Nashville Scene altie-weekly that is all over town. This cartoon came out on the day that the crazy building project next to my house in West Nashville was scheduled to be reviewed for a zoning exemption by the Metropolitan Planning Commission, the board of developers who generously grant other developers whatever they want in the way of ignoring city planning here in town.
The project next door was indefinitely postponed at this meeting, at the request of the “expeditor” for the developer who noticed more local opposition to the project than he expected. I expect the guy to come back with another request for a zoning expedition to build something still non-conforming but slightly less dense and onerous, so I’m keeping up with the Metropolitan Zoning Commission cartoons for a while. The project’s “expeditor” or lobbyist, is a former city councilman, Roy Dale – Nashville’s version of congressman who quits to make the big bucks as a K street lobbyist – here it is a former councilman lobbying his councilmen buddies and the planning commission.
Nashville can be sleazy, but you gotta love the hot chicken.
This is the first cartoon I’ve drawn for almost two weeks, after my trip to Ukraine. I was a little more ambitious with this one than usual, doing caricatures of the top FIFA officials who have just been indicted by the USA Justice Department – the only law enforcement agency in the world willing to take these crooks down. Sometimes it is good that America doesn’t care about soccer; but we care about crooks.
The top FIFA officials who were indicted for corruption. Top row: Jack Warner, Julio Rocha. Middle row: Rafael Esquivel, Jose Maria Marin, Eugenio Figured, Jeffrey Webb. Bottom: Eduardo Li.
Funny, I was rushing to get through with this, because it was taking me longer than it should have, and now that I posted it and sent it out to newspapers, and I have a minute to sit back and think, I see lots of errors! Look at Rafael Esquivel the second row left – I didn’t draw his left leg!
Last week I was in Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, for the opening of an exhibition of political cartoons. I’ve been speaking at some universities and getting to know the people and the place.
Ukraine has 60% inflation here and seems certain to default on their substantial foreign debt as Russia continues to press a festering conflict in the east. Since the news about Ukraine is so terrible, I had expected to see some desperation here. Kiev is lovely and it seems like a normal, European capital. There’s no desperation evident.
Photos of protestors, murdered by regime snipers in front of my hotel.
My hotel is in the center of town where snipers killed more than one hundred people as the Ukrainians threw out their corrupt president, Victor Yanukovych in 2014. There are scattered memorials showing faces of the slain protestors, along with candles and flowers. One large, burned-out building on the central square is a reminder of the violence.
One large, burned-out building on the central square is a reminder of the violence.
Yanukovych stole billions from Ukraine and fled to Russia. He built a crazy huge mansion for himself, which has been made into a national park and is now a tourist attraction. The grounds are vast, stretching for kilometers, with manicured gardens, a zoo, waterfalls, rivers, and a giant, pirate, party ship. The grounds are lovely, leaving visitors both charmed and cursing at scale of the of the corruption that could build such a fantastic complex. There was a wedding on Yanukovich’s fancy porch when I visited. It is nice to see these crazy digs preserved as a park rather than seeing it all torn down by an angry mob, as with Saddam Hussein’s mansions. Even the animals at Yanukovych’s giant zoo look happy.
Here I am with my Ukrainian cartoonist buddy, Vladimir Kazenevsky, in front of his impressive, cartoon contest trophy case.
I had dinner with my friend, Vladislav Kazanevsky, who has probably won more international cartoon contests than anyone else. That’s a photo of me with Vlad standing in front of his trophy case at this studio. There’s another photo of Vlad with his most recent cartoon of Obama, smiling out of his butt at Ukraine.
The world of international contests is very foreign to American cartoonists, who rarely enter these competitions, making us seem aloof and arrogant to the Ukrainian cartoonists. The international contest cartoons seem strange to American cartoonists, and I apologize for that – we don’t really fit in with the style, which is very foreign.
There aren’t many editorial cartoons in Ukraine, but here’s a nice one I saw on the side of a building. The girl with the Ukraine flag scarf is gazing at the star logo of the European Union.
I’ve enjoyed the college audiences for my lectures here. I show them my cartoons where I have made Ukraine into a peasant woman character, which they tell me is “a little bit offensive” to them, “but only a little bit”. They ask why I picked this woman to represent Ukraine; why is she fat; why is she blonde? She should have black hair, I’m told, and she should not be fat. “We are not fat. Americans are fat,” I’m told, at each lecture.
The students always ask why I don’t draw Ukraine’s colorful leaders in my cartoons, and I have to explain that American readers won’t know who they are without an explanation. I tell them that Americans only pay attention to Ukraine when there is a revolution, when Putin invades, or when an airplane crashes here, and they all nod in agreement.
I like the thick, heroic, Soviet monuments, like this giant, metallic, World War II memorial. That’s me in front of it on the left.
I had an excellent meeting with representatives from Ukraine’s cartoonists organization, who gave me some books and a copy of their Crocodile Magazine, a throwback to the old Soviet gag cartoon Crocodile Magazine. Kazenevski draws some western style editorial cartoons, but Ukrainian cartoonists are otherwise contest cartoonists, looking to collect trophies and awards to list on their CV’s. That’s the way it is for cartoonists in much of the world.
Thanks to my Ukrainian buddies, Tomas and Adam Lukacka, their cousin Matthew and loyal volunteers Alex and Brian for a great exhibition, also thanks to Eufurion and the Swiss Embassy, and the volunteers from Ukraine who are managing the show as it moves around the country.
My buddy, Martin “Shooty” Sutovec, the star editorial cartoonist of Slovakia, was also in the exhibit and traveled to Kiev for the opening along. The president of Slovakia was there too, which was a bit strange. I told the president that Shooty is Slovakia’s national treasure, and the president said, “many people do not think so.” This president is a little bit rude, huh?
Here I am with the “Mother of Ukraine.”
There are some wacky sights to see in Kiev, and at the top of the list is the “Mother of Ukraine,” a colossal statue of a strong, Soviet woman, holding a shield and a fifty foot long sword in the air. Last year I visited a similar, but smaller statue that towers over Tbilisi, when the exhibition toured Georgia. I’m told that every former Soviet republic has a giant mother statue.
This mother is hollow, with a step ladder inside where fit and intrepid souls can climb to the top of her shield and open little portholes on the top of her shield, just big enough to poke a head out of, and take a photo. It was too much of an athletic feat for me to climb that ladder, so I was content to look up her skirt. The huge Mother of Ukraine is surrounded by a park and giant, metallic, heroic statues of Soviet, World War II statues. The national art museum in Kiev is full of thick, strong, Soviet proletarian hero paintings.
My Ukrainian cartoonist buddy, Vladimir, gave me a tour of downtown and explained that the big, handsome buildings were rebuilt by captured German soldier slave labor after the war. When he was in school, Vlad was taught that the Germans destroyed all the buildings in Kiev, but after the revolution he learned that the Soviets actually destroyed all the buildings, to keep the Germans from claiming anything of value as they took the city from retreating Soviet troops. What goes around comes around, I guess.
The Ukrainians certainly don’t like Vladimir Putin. Tourist shops sell Putin toilet paper. There are images of “Putler,” a combination of Putin and Hitler. I heard a crowd chanting about “Putler” at a rather large protest rally at the main square.
I asked the college students, “since you don’t like my Ukrainian peasant lady as a metaphor for Ukraine, what should I draw instead?” They always say, “Ukrainians just look like regular people – draw that.” And I say, “hey, these are cartoons, that doesn’t work for me,” and they nod in begrudging agreement. I think I’ll keep drawing the Ukrainian chick, the next time Ukraine suffers a new indignity – but now that I’ve learned so much more about Ukraine I’ll draw her with black hair.
Here are some samples of my cartoons with my Ukraine peasant metaphor lady, who suffers from Putin. Judging from the tourist souvenir junk, also pictured below, I think I got her right – but no, I’m told, she has to have black hair, and lose some weight.
Judging from the tourist souvenirs, I think I got my Ukraine stereotype character right – but I will bow to popular pressure and draw her with black hair in the future.
