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Blog Newsletter Syndicate Top 10

ELECTION CHOICES: TOP TEN CARTOONS OF THE WEEK

We’re about a month away from the first votes in the Republican primary being cast in Iowa, and it’s safe to say the country isn’t very excited about the likely choices for president.

Joe Biden, the incumbent, will likely face Donald Trump in a rematch of the 2020 election, which Biden won by more than 7 million votes. Our two most popular cartoons this week were about the lack of enthusiasm at the top of both presidential tickets. It’s going to be a long year.

Here are our top ten most reprinted cartoons of the week:

#1. Chris Weyant

Don’t miss our new TRUMP CHRISTMAS SPECIAL podcast on YouTube!

#2. Rick McKee

#3. John Darkow

#4. Doug Plante

#5. Dick Wright

#6. Jeff Koterba

#7. John Darkow

#8. Chris Weyant

#9. Adam Zyglis

#10. Dave Granlund

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Categories
Blog Syndicate

Israelis Defend Famed Cartoonist Who Was Fired for Anti-Semitic Cartoon

The editorial cartoonist community is global, but it’s a tight knit group.

When one of us is fired for drawing something that is unfairly or mistakenly deemed racist or anti-Semitic, we unite in our outrage – and we rally to the defense of our colleagues.

That’s what happened with the firing of the great Steve Bell, formerly of the British newspaper The Guardian.

On Oct. 16 Bell was summarily “cashiered,” as the Brits say, after more than 40 years with the Guardian, for submitting a cartoon of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that someone said contained what some could see as an anti-Semitic trope.

The fatal cartoon – which was never published by the Guardian but which Bell later posted on X (formerly Twitter) – showed Netanyahu preparing to operate on his own stomach while wearing boxing gloves.

On his stomach was an outline of the Gaza Strip.  The caption read “Residents of Gaza, get out now,” which referred to Netanyahu’s harsh evacuation order for Gaza residents.

Bell said his editor thought the cartoon could be seen as playing on the “pound of flesh” line spoken by Shylock, the stereotyped Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, explained with the cryptic words, ‘Jewish bloke; pound of flesh; anti-Semitic trope.’”

That was a stretch, to say the least.

It’s not unusual for cartoonists to have their drawings spiked or edited, but it is unusual for a cartoonist to get so unceremoniously and simultaneous fired and charged with drawing a possibly anti-Semitic cartoon.

When I interviewed Bell for my Caglecast podcast, he said he thought he was let go because he was going against the Guardian’s editorial line.

“My cartoon had nothing to do with the Merchant of Venice,” Bell said, “so it’s pointless discussing that because it’s not there.

“I haven’t been anti-Semitic. I’ve actually just gone against what the Guardian sees as their editorial line. The trouble is, I don’t really understand or know what their editorial line is.”

Bell was a freelancer under contract, not an employee of the Guardian, since 1981 (an arrangement that is common for editorial cartoonists). He’s had a few controversial cartoons over the years that his editors decided not to run for various reasons. That’s par for the course for any newspaper cartoonist.

But only a handful of his cartoons were stopped:

“There’s taste indecency, there’s bad language, there’s all that kind of stuff – but very rarely has it been for political reasons. This is an instance of political censorship, I think.”

Another problem, he said, echoing many of his fellow cartoonists around the world, is that newspapers are run by writers – “word people.”

They are timid people generally uncomfortable with cartoons and infamous for being over-cautious, too literal-minded and prone to seeing deeper meanings and “-isms” in cartoons that are not actually there.

“They tend to misunderstand images almost on purpose,” Bell said. “And this, I think, is a case of that.”

As he said, “It’s not merely a matter of sensitivity, it’s hypersensitivity. They’re apologizing before they’ve actually said anything. That’s the problem.”

Now that he’s been sacked for allegedly being anti-Semitic, Bell says he’s now “in a strange pickle.”

“The hint, the imputation, that my work is anti-Semitic is very damaging, and I’m not likely to find work anywhere else, especially since I’m so closely identified with one paper, i.e., The Guardian.”

When I interviewed Bell, the Israeli cartoonists Michael Kichka and Uri Fink were also on the call.

Both are big fans of Bell and his work, and Fink is president of Israel’s National Cartoonist Association, which has 40 members.

Kichka said they and their Israeli colleagues have drawn “much more extreme and terrible cartoons on Netanyahu” than the one Bell supposedly was sacked for. “None of us was fired, and none of us was accused of anti-Semitism, OK?”

The Israeli cartoonists held a unanimous vote, asking their cartoonist president, Uri Fink, to write a letter defending Bell and his cartoon. Kichka said, “So there’s not one single Jewish Israeli cartoonist who thinks there’s one ounce of anti-Semitism in your cartoon.”

Ironically, it sounds like if my friend Steve Bell needs to find some remote cartooning work, he should be able to find it amongst his fans in Israel.

––

Cartoon ©Steve Bell, reprinted here with permission.  Daryl Cagle is the publisher of Cagle.com and owner of CagleCartoons.com, a syndicate that distributes editorial cartoons and columns to over 500 subscribing newspapers. See Daryl’s blog at DarylCagle.com and watch his video podcast “Caglecast” about editorial cartoons at Caglecast.com

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Blog Newsletter Syndicate Videos

Jeff Koterba Explains his Cartoon at our Exhibition

Jeff Koterba's "Big Lie Bat Cave" cartoon in the Donkeys and Elephants exhibition at the Salon in St Just le Martel, France. Donald Trump, elephants, bats, cave, election, denial, big lie,Republicans, Donald Trump
Jeff Koterba’s “Big Lie Bat Cave” cartoon in the Donkeys and Elephants exhibition at the Salon in St Just le Martel, France

We had two lovely exhibitions at the “International Center“, Press Cartoons museum in St Just le Martel, France this year. One of the shows was about Donkeys and Elephants.

Some people talk about cartooning being an international language, but it isn’t, a great example of cartoons that don’t cross borders are American donkey and elephant cartoons, which make no sense to foreign audiences. Our exhibit in France was curated by cartoons historian Olivier Auvray, who invited six cartoonists in our group to show their best donkey/elephant cartoons, which were presented with explanations –even with the explanations, the cartoons seemed seemed pretty difficult for the French fans to comprehend.

Here’s a video that Olivier took, of our cartoonist, Jeff Koterba, explaining his GOP Elephant Batcave cartoon to some French fans at the exhibition.

See CagleCartoonist Ed Wexler explaining his cartoon at our exhibition in France.


Our weekly Top Ten is now a newspaper column!  Subscribing editors can find it at CagleCartoons.com with download links to grab the cartoons in high resolution.

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Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week – May 4, 2020

Here are the top ten most popular cartoons of the pandemic, from February 1st through May 4th, 2020. These are the cartoons that our newspaper subscribers chose to print from nearly 2,000 pandemic cartoons delivered from our syndication service, CagleCartoons.com. About half of America’s daily, paid-circulation newspapers subscribe to CagleCartoons.com, so these are likely the cartoons that most newspaper readers have seen in the past three months, appearing in hundreds of newspapers.

Regular readers of our blog and newsletter see our collection of the top ten cartoons every week, and have probably already seen all of these in our weekly collections, but this list puts them in perspective. (Subscribe to our free email newsletter so you never miss our weekly “Top Ten Most Popular Cartoons”.)

What really stands out is the stellar performance of freelance cartoonist, Rick McKee, who has the number one most popular pandemic cartoon and who crushes the coronavirus field with a whopping three cartoons dominating the pandemic top ten. Rick was recently laid off from The Augusta Chronicle newspaper in Georgia (what a mistake that was). The number two cartoon belongs to Steve Sack of The Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The rest in the top ten will be familiar to all of our fans.


Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you!  Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.

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#1

The most popular cartoon of the pandemic is this one, from Rick McKee.

 

#2

The second most popular cartoon is from Steve Sack of The Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

 

#3 is a tie

In third place there is a tie between Rick McKee and Steve Sack.

 

#5

The fifth place cartoon comes from Gannett freelancer, Dave Granlund.

 

#6

The sixth place cartoon is the third cartoon in the top ten that comes from Rick McKee.

 

#7

The seventh place cartoon is the number one cartoon from last week, by John Cole of The Times-Tribune in Scranton Pennsylvania.

#8

The eighth place cartoon comes from the Canadian cartoon maestro, Dave Whamond, who is the only non-American in the top ten.

 

#9

The ninth place cartoon comes from Adam Zyglis, the cartoonist for the Buffalo News in New York.

#10

The tenth place cartoon comes Dave Fitzsimmons of The Arizona Daily Star.


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Don’t miss our most popular cartoons of the week collections:

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 21st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 14th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 7th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 31st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 24th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 17th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 10th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 3rd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 26th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 19th, 2020
T
op Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 12th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 5th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 29th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 22nd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 15th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 8th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 1st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 25th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 18th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 11th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 4th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 20th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 13th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 6th, 2020

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 30th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 23rd, 2020

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 16th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 8th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Pandemic (as of May 4th)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 2nd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through 4/26/20, (all coronavirus)

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through 4/18/20, (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, through 4/11/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 4/4/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 3/29/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 3/21/20 (all coronavirus)

 

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate

How to Get Out of a Parking Ticket

My cartoonist buddy, Randy Enos explains how a cartoonist gets out of a parking ticket.

… a confused cop who is scratching his head and looking up and down and sideways trying to see any evidence of signage.

Email Randy Enos
Visit Randy’s archive –Daryl


Cartoonists possess a secret weapon whether they know it or not which will be shown in this little short story.

My wife and I and another couple went out to dinner one night. I was driving. We went to a city next door to us called Norwalk Ct.. There’s a nice little district there which has artists’ studios and interesting restaurants. I parked very close to the seafood restaurant we had selected. I carefully looked around for any “no parking” signs and saw none. It looked like a safe place to park… no restrictions in evidence. No signs at all.

After we finished eating and came back out to the car, there was a big, expensive parking ticket affixed to my windshield. I couldn’t believe it. We all looked around again and saw no signs at all in the vicinity of my car. Just then, a policeman walked past. I rushed over to him and asked about the ticket. He seemed puzzled too. He looked around and confessed that he couldn’t figure out why I would get a ticket there. He advised me to go over to the police station which was close by and pick up a  form which I could fill out contesting the ticket.

So, off we went to the police dept. where I picked up said form and then we all went home.

I meticulously filled out the form showing where I was parked, how long I was parked there and the absence of any signs. I turned the form over to see if there was anything I needed to fill out on the other side and… there, I discovered an 81/2″ x 11″” blank expanse of white paper. BLANK WHITE PAPER!! I’ve never been able to resist a nice big, blank piece of paper since I was a little kid. My fingers itched. It was awful hard to resist that beautiful, plain white space. I succumbed!

… I drew myself leaping backward aghast and in utter horror at it …

I decided to illustrate my plight. I drew an elaborate cartoon of my car at the curb with a big parking ticket stuck on the windshield. I drew myself leaping backward aghast and in utter horror at it, slapping my hand to my head, sweat drops popping forth. Our male fellow diner is in the background gesticulating wildly at a confused cop who is scratching his head and looking up and down and sideways trying to see any evidence of signage. Meanwhile,  our female fellow diner is trying to revive my wife who has fainted in the middle of the street. I put appropriate arrows and labels where needed and turned the sheet back over to put “OVER” down in the lower right corner so they would know to turn it over. I mailed it to the police dept. in the envelope supplied to me and awaited the answer.

… our female fellow diner is trying to revive my wife who has fainted in the middle of the street.

In a few days, I got a letter from the police stating that they were dismissing my ticket. No explanation as to why.

They also said, “Everybody in the station enjoyed your cartoon very much and we have it hanging up on our wall “.

See? … secret weapon.


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Read many more of Randy’s cartooning memories:

Me and the GhostBusters

The Bohemian Bohemian

Take it Off … Take it ALL Off!

I Eat Standing Up

The Funniest Cartoon I’ve Ever Seen

The Beatles had a Few Good Tunes

Andy Warhol Meets King Kong

Jacques and the Cowboy

The Gray Lady (The New York Times)

The BIG Eye

Historic Max’s

The Real Moby Dick

The Norman Conquests

Man’s Achievements in an Ever Expanding Universe

How to Murder Your Wife

I Yam What I Yam

The Smallest Cartoon Characters in the World

Chicken Gutz

Brought to You in Living Black and White

The Hooker and the Rabbit

Art School Days in the Whorehouse

The Card Trick that Caused a Divorce

The Mysterious Mr. Quist

Monty Python Comes to Town

Riding the Rails

The Pyramid of Success

The Day I Chased the Bus

The Other Ol’ Blue Eyes

8th Grade and Harold von Schmidt

Rembrandt of the Skies

The Funniest Man I’ve Ever Known

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part One”

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part Two”

Famous Artists Visit the Famous Artists School

Randy Remembers Tomi Ungerer

Randy’s Overnight Parade

The Bullpen

Famous Artists Schools

Dik Browne: Hot Golfer

Randy and the National Lampoon

Randy’s Only Great Idea

A Brief Visit to Outer Space

Enos, Love and Westport

Randy Remembers the NCS

Categories
News Newsletter Syndicate

Another Anti-Semitic Trope Controversy

There is a new anti-semitic cartoon controversy, this time from The Guardian’s cartoonist Steve Bell. Buzzfeed’s media critic Mark Di Stefano first tweeted the cartoon and email that Bell sent to all of The Guardian’s staff journalists.

Bell’s cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was killed, prompting Bell’s mass email. The cartoon depicts British Labour Party deputy secretary, Tom Watson as an “antisemite finder general” calling Netanyahu an “antisemitic trope.”

The Jewish Chronicle reports:

“Last June, (Bell) emailed all journalists to say he felt “unfairly traduced and censored” after the paper would not run his cartoon of Theresa May meeting Benjamin Netanyahu while Palestinian Razan al-Najjar, who had been shot and killed by an Israeli soldier, burned in the fireplace behind.”

‘He accused Guardian editor Kath Viner of not speaking to him because she “did not really have an argument” for spiking the cartoon.”

“In November 2012, his cartoon that depicted Mr Netanyahu as a puppeteer prompted many complaints to the press regulator.”

In his mass email, Bell Writes:

“I suspect the real cause is it contravenes some mysterious editorial line that has been drawn around the subject of antisemitism and the infernal subject of antisemitic tropes.”

“In some ways this is even more worrying than the specious charges of antisemitism. Does the Guardian no longer tolerate content that runs counter to its editorial line?”

“In November 2012, (Bell’s) cartoon that depicted Mr Netanyahu as a puppeteer prompted many complaints to the press regulator.”

Here is the complete text of the letter that Bell wrote to The Guardian’s “Head of Features” Kira Cochrane, and forwarded as a mass email to all of The Guardian’s staff journalists:

Dear Kira

After our bizarre telephone conversation yesterday, I feared you might not publish today’s strip, but still cannot understand why the attached should be more liable to legal challenge from Tom Watson than either of the previous two strips that you have already published. You said the ‘lawyers were concerned’, but what about? It’s not antisemitic, nor is it libellous, even though it includes a caricature of Binyamin Netanyahu. If Watson chose to object he would make himself look far sillier than he does in the cartoon.

I suspect that the real problem is that it contravenes some mysterious editorial line that has been drawn around the subject of antisemitism and the infernal subject of ‘antisemitic tropes’. In some ways this is even more worrying for me than specious charges of antisemitism. Does the Guardian no longer tolerate content that counters its editorial line?

Why in today’s paper has the Guardian published a highly partisan and personally insulting (to the leader of the Labour Party) advert on page 20 that uses the Labour Party logo, but is clearly not a Labour Party approved advert? I would have thought that there would be far more reason to expect a legal challenge on that than on my my cartoon. Or is it that you don’t want to offend poor Tom but are quite happy to offend poor Jeremy?

Why on earth did the Guardian publish, then unpublish, a letter in support of Chris Williamson signed by 100 persons identifying themselves as Jewish, including Noam Chomsky? Were they the wrong kind of Jews. The paper’s contortions on this subject do not do it any credit. If there is a reasoned position on this highly contentious issue, then I would dearly love to see it laid out clearly so we all know where we stand. Or are there some subjects that we just can’t touch?

Best wishes
Steve Bell

 

 

Categories
Blog Syndicate

True Sex!

Here’s another new batch of my old TRUE cartoons – this time about SEX!

Categories
Blog Syndicate

TRUE Crazy Stuff!

Here’s a batch of some crazy TRUE stuff from my factual cartoon panel from the 1990’s that never gets old!

Categories
Blog Syndicate

True Health Statistics 3!

Here’s a third batch of TRUE health facts!

 

 

 

See more:

TRUE HEALTH STATISTICS 1!

TRUE HEALTH STATISTICS 2!

TRUE KIDS!

TRUE WOMEN’S BODY IMAGES

TRUE HISTORY

TRUE! MARRIAGE!

TRUE MARRIAGE 2

TRUE BUSINESS

Categories
Blog Syndicate

TRUE! Marriage!

Here’s a batch of cartoons about marriage from my 1995 syndicate comic strip, TRUE!

These are all depicting real, honest-to-goodness facts. I have a lot of these and I’m entering the evergreens into our huge cartoon database at PoliticalCartoons.com. More to come.

 

 

Categories
Blog

A brave woman cartoonist was imprisoned in Iran for posting this cartoon on Facebook

Brave Iranian cartoonist Atena Farghadani was imprisoned in Iran for posting this cartoon on her own Facebook page. Please share the video and the cartoon – everyone should see it.

Read the latest news about Atena on the Cartoonists Rights Network site.

You can e-mail Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations at [email protected]. Here is a suggested letter:

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei,
President Hassan Rouhani
Head of Judiciary Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani

Honored Sirs;

I am writing to protest the outrageous sentence handed down against Iranian artist Atena Farghadani, and to urge her conviction be overturned and Ms. Farghadani freed.

Freedom of expression and association are universal human rights recognized by all civilized nations, including Iran as a signatory to the UN’s International Human Rights Conventions. The arrest and sentencing of Atena Farghadani is a clear violation of those rights, and also of Iran’s own statutes and international agreements. It cannot be allowed to stand.

In the interest of justice and to demonstrate its recognition of universal human rights, Iran must release Atena Farghadani.

Respectfully,

your name
your city/state/country 

Aetna-Image

Categories
Blog

New Cartoon Brings Death Threats from ISIS/ISIL/DAESH

My cartoonist buddy Osama Hajjaj in Jordan drew a cartoon this week that he describes as depicting Arab women’s struggle and suffering under Islamic/Sharia Law. Osama tells me he’s received a torrent of abusive reaction to the cartoon from Muslim readers, but more of a concern are credible death threats from ISIS/ISIL/DAESH members emanating from Jordan and neighboring Syria. Osama writes:

“… but no matter what, those cowards won’t stop me and I still believe that Freedom of thought and expression is a human right. To detain and threaten people for exercising their human rights is the epitome of barbarism. Blasphemy is a crime for those who have weak ideas and corrupt morals.”

Osama sent me links to some news reports about the ISIL/ISIS/DAESH death threats, like this one, but I must admit, my Arabic is a little rusty. Police in Jordan are investigating. Being an editorial cartoonist in the Middle East is a dangerous job. See more of Osama Hajjaj’s work here.