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The Vatican just announced a brand new, modern set of seven deadly sins to supplant the old seven sins which have grown pretty tired through the years. The old seven deadly sins: lust, wrath, gluttony, sloth, greed, pride, and envy were proclaimed by a sixth century pope and were made famous by Dante in his “Divine Comedy” and by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman in the movie “Seven,” which was a pretty darn scary movie.

The new sins are:

1. Genetic engineering

2. Drug abuse

3. The disparity between the very rich and the very poor

4. Pollution

5. Abortion

6. Pedophilia

7. Causing social injustice

The church describes the new sins as social in nature and “a corollary of the unstoppable process of globalization.” Societies have experience regulating social issues, like pollution, and that experience gives us a great leg up on regulating the other sins.

California’s Governor Schwarzenegger likes to fly his jet home, from Sacramento to Los Angeles, each night after work, so he can spend time with his family. Schwarzenegger creates a lot of pollution in his daily commute, but the governor buys carbon-offset credits from businesses that are more environmentally friendly than they need to be, selling their eco-surplus back to the governor. Al Gore does the same thing, reducing his big carbon footprint from his private flights and his big houses by buying carbon-offset credits. It’s cool. Offsets work. It’s the free-market solution and the system works for other sins too.

“The disparity between the very rich and the very poor” is another great sin for offset credits. Very poor people could sell their “poor-people-offset credits” to very rich people who need to relieve their guilt about being rich and reduce the size of their very rich footprint. “Poor-people-offset credits” would create a free market of guilt-reduction exchanged for income redistribution that would work every bit as well as the carbon-offset credits work to reduce the guilt of polluters.

In fact, the system applies to all of the deadly sins. This afternoon I watched New York Governor Eliot Spitzer squirm, under the glare of his dowdy wife, at a one-minute press conference about his being caught as the customer of a high-priced hooker. I’ve never used the services of a prostitute myself, and I think I deserve some credit for that ­ credits that I should be able to sell to Governor Spitzer at a time when he really needs the “hooker-offsets.”

In fact, I personally fare much better with this new set of seven deadly sins than I did with the first set. As an editorial cartoonist, I create very little pollution ­ I even use those curly light bulbs. Given the number of pencils I use, I probably haven’t killed any more than one tree in my whole career. Two at the most. Not counting the paper.

I don’t cause social injustice (not much anyway); I’m not a pedophile; I don’t have abortions; I don’t abuse drugs or do any genetic engineering. I score so well on the new sins test that I should be awarded plenty of offsets that I could sell back to the Vatican to offset their pedophile priest problem.

I’ll be rich! (But not “very rich,” because that would be a sin.)

I thought I’d take some time out to highlight Etta Hulme, a cartoonist who should get more attention here. Click on the image at the right to watch an interview with Emma. She’s the most widely read woman cartoonist in America, with hundreds of newspapers running her syndicated cartoons. Etta is a charming, talented, grandmotherly character and her cartoons are just as warm and charming – in sharp contrast to the harsh, younger cartoonists.

Thanks to Dr. Elaine K. Miller, a college professor who specializes in the study of editorial cartoons and who produced the documentary on Etta that the clip is taken from. I hope to see it on TV! E-mail Dr. Miller. See Etta’s cartoon archive. See the Etta interview clip.

Visit Etta Hulme’s cartoons.

Our readers never miss an opportunity to let me know when my productivity drops off. I had the flu last week and I haven’t been writing and drawing as much as I should. A few days ago, as I was recovering from my viral stupor, the editorial cartoonist community was agitated into an online kafuffle by an anonymous critic on the web. I was surprised by the overblown reaction from my peers, who posted to chat boards, e-mailed me and e-mailed each other in a thin-skinned conniption fit.

The anonymous guy ranted mostly about cartoons that he thought were lousy, but he saved some of his venom for me. He doesn’t like my web site which he thinks looks like “vomitus.” He was also bothered by the ads on my site, complaining that I’m greedy, cheap and fat. The guy showed particular interest in my “fat ass.”

All in all, the anonymous “Bad Cartoonist” sounds like most of my daily e-mail. My cartooning colleagues need to understand that the internet is built upon a foundation of rude, anonymous jerks and get back to their job of being graphically rude on the editorial pages.

Cuban Cartoon Debate

A couple of weeks ago I posted Cuban cartoonist Ares‘ take on the change in Cuba as Fidel Castro turned the presidency over to his brother, Raul Castro (left). Cuban ex-patriot cartoonists Alen Lauzan, from Argentina, and Osmani Simanca from Brazil, drew a cartoon rebuttal to Ares’ cartoon (right) and I thought it was fun, so I post it here. Click on the cartoon to see an enlarged version, and you’ll see that they “flopped” Ares’ signature.

Cartoonists don’t often carry on cartoon arguments with each other ­ when they do, I point it out!

Check out our Fidel Quits cartoons.

As a cartoon character, Hillary is definitely the best choice for president and her dive in the polls has some editorial cartoonists sweating. She’s barely holding on after her win tonight in Ohio, I haven’t heard the results in Texas, and I’m one of the cartoonists who’s sweating.

As an editorial cartoonist I don’t make up my own characters; the world provides me with characters. Great characters. Better characters than I could ever make up. I sit around at my desk all day, watching Fox News and MSNBC. I get angry and I think of cartoons. It’s the good life.

Compared to a comic strip cartoonist, I’ve got it easy. Comic strip artists spend their whole careers developing characters in tiny, daily increments. It takes years and years of strips before readers know just what is in Lucy’s mind when she holds the football for Charlie Brown – that kind of intimate knowledge of character gives cartoons wonderful depth. When our readers know our characters, we can draw cartoons that are rewarding just because we see the character acting as we already know he will. A subtle bit of body language can be a punch line when readers really know the characters, and it is the best kind of humor when the gag was years in the making.

Hillary Clinton is a cartoon character that has taken many years to develop and every editorial cartoonist can claim her as his own. We know Bill Clinton as intimately as we know Charlie Brown. We know Hillary as intimately as we know Lucy. They are an editorial cartoonist’s treasure.

I drew a cartoon with Bill and Hillary that was probably my most reprinted, most popular cartoon ever. They were on a book tour, and I drew Bill and Hillary at a table together, signing books. Bill had his book open with a Playboy style fold-out dropping out of the book, and Hillary whacked Bill on the side of his head her book. There were no words, just facial expressions and body language. My readers loved it! Oh! The mail I got on that one!

As Hillary’s campaign prospects fade I’m seeing my best characters fade away. Obama is easy to draw, but there’s nothing behind the long face ­ no pain we all shared, no national embarrassment, no anger, no crazy, complex, cheating spouse. For all the excitement of his supporters, Obama is dull. He’s a straight man, commenting on the events around him, or riding the crest of a wave, or driving a steamroller over Hillary. There isn’t any facial expression I can put on Obama that will make the readers say, “I know just what he’s thinking!” The guy is a cartoon disaster.

John McCain isn’t much better. The term of art for McCain is “pudding-face.” In fact, McCain is more like tapioca, with a lumpy face that looks like he has his cheeks filled with marbles; that doesn’t help me much. McCain has a reputation for a hot temper, which is fun for a cartoonist, but we haven’t seen enough of his temper to expect it in a cartoon. Al Gore and John Kerry were stiff, dull and just as bad for cartoonists.

When President Bush ran against Sen. Kerry in 2004, there was no doubt that the best choice for the cartooning business was Bush. In the past eight years we’ve had great material for cartoons. We’ve had wars, terrorist attacks and some ugly times in Washington, but there have been some great cartoons during the Bush administration. Tough times make for good cartoons too. In fact, I’ll bet my cartoons would look better if I knocked my head against the wall a few times. I’ll try that when Hillary drops out of the race.

I’ve written here about quite a few cartoonists who have lost their jobs to newspaper cutbacks – but this is the first time I can remember that I’ve written about a cartoonist losing his job because his newspaper shut down. My buddy, star Canadian cartoonist Michael de Adder, finds himself out of a job as his newspaper bites the dust. I put up a special section of Michael’s great work and asked him to give me a few comments below. E-mail Michael at: [email protected] and see his best cartoons here.

It is with a sad heart that the Daily News (Halifax) folded and then was replaced by a free newspaper called the Metro. The Metro does not run editorial cartoons. In fact there is no opinion what-so-ever in Halifax’s free Daily. So when the Daily News folded, so did my job as editorial cartoonist.

It was done quickly and quietly.

On Monday, Feb 10, 2008, we came into work like we do every Monday morning. Chatted, set up our computers for the day’s work, read Monday’s newspaper and a mass email came through telling us there was a meeting at 10:00am. The strange thing was it was 10:15am. Management always gave us at least a few hours notice before scheduling a meeting.

About a minute after the email came through, management came through herding people to the meeting area. Our marketing director told somebody in the middle of a phone interview to hang up the phone and come to the meeting. I had never seen somebody interrupt a phone interview before so it seemed quite urgent.

When we were in place there was a hushed silence as more people came gathered. For a long time there had been rumours that the whole office was moving from its downtown Halifax location to save money. Thinking this was that announcement, I asked, ” Are we moving?” to the senior person beside me loud enough for everybody near us to hear. When I got no reply, I said jokingly, is the Daily News folding? Still I got nothing. My heart sank.

About a minute later Marc-Noel Ouellette, senior vice-president of the Transcontinental’s newspaper group told us as of today the Halifax Daily News has folded. There will be no newspaper the next day. He proceeded to tell us that a new free daily called the metro would take its place. Some people would find employment with the news paper but the vast majority would not.

That was it. It was like a hurricane came in and destroyed our home.

I worked at the Daily News for seven and a half years. It was a good environment to draw editorial cartoons. Editors let me do my work and wanted me to cause a stir each day. They encouraged hard hitting, opinionated work. A rarity at today’s newspapers.

I did land on my feet quickly. I’ve had calls from a number of news sources asking me about my cartoons, mostly local publications outside Halifax. And as much as I feel lucky, I can’t help but mourn the loss of what was one of the best work environments for an editorial cartoonist in North America.

–Michael de Adder

My buddy John Sherffius just e-mailed to tell me he won the Herblock Award for Editorial Cartoons. We’ve put up a special section showing the twelve cartoons that won the prize for John. Want to e-mail your congratulations – or complaints to John? He’s at: [email protected]. And see John’s editorial cartoon archive here.

Castro Resigns

The future of Cuba without Fidel is generating lots of cartoons. On the left, Cuban cartoonist, Ares, who lives in Cuba, has a very different view of the Cuban future than Alen Lauzan, a Cuban who left Cuba for Chilé.

The Ares cartoon on the left is the only drawing of Fidel I’ve ever seen by a Cuban cartoonist in Cuba. Cartoons of Fidel are a taboo in Cuba – although in this case, Ares is making the point that nothing will change; maybe that makes this Fidel drawing go down more smoothly with the communists.

Check out our Fidel Quits cartoons.