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Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo

Here is my last week of cartoons.  Today I’m headed out for the editorial cartooning convention in St. Just, France, with my brilliant cartoonist buddies, Steve Sack, Bob Englehart and Pat Bagley.

Here’s my most recent cartoon, with the GOP all tied up in a knot.  They seem to be pretty dysfunctional right now, gumming up the government for everybody.  (I was just drawing the heels of his shoes with the old fashioned nails and gripper on the back, I wasn’t think of his heels having happy faces.  I guess I have to think of everything.)

600 GOPknot300dpiCMYK9 Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo cartoons

 

I did a second GOP knot cartoon this week, which makes the point more about the split in the Republican party.

600 ElephantKnot300dpiCMYK Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo cartoons

 

I’m trying to do more texture in my cartoons.  I’ve been asked why I do the yellow backgrounds so often in my cartoons.  I like the yellow because it is intense and light so that it doesn’t draw away from the line art.

I drew a THIRD Republican knot cartoon this week.  This is my knotty Republican week.  Here is the GOP hanging himself on the medical Caduseus (Obamacare).

1790B GOPCadeuseus300dpiCMY Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo cartoons

Enough of knots. When Ted Cruz was doing his useless filibuster, reading from Dr. Seuss, and the other cartoonists were all making Dr. Seuss metaphors, I was rather more annoyed with Cruz, so I drew him as a monkey throwing his poop.

600 CruzMonkey300dpiCMYK Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo cartoons

I know that there won’t be many newspapers that will print this (if any will at all).  I guess that is one of the perks of being my own editor – I can draw whatever I want even if nobody wants to see it.  This cartoon is actually a homage to the great, British cartoonist Steve Bell, who drew a famous image of George W. Bush in a similar pose.  I’m a big Steve Bell fan.

The last one for the week is this Republican suicide bomber cartoon.  I’m leaving for the convention in France at a difficult time, with all the wonderful, crazy politics going on now.  I won’t be drawing new cartoons for a week or so, but when I come back I expect to have some pent up angst, ready for the drawing board.

600 GovtBomb300dpiCMYK Epic Dysfunction in Congress, Obamacare and Ted Cruz as a Monkey Throwing his Poo cartoons

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Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More!

Here are my new cartoons!  The big news the past couple of weeks has been the run up to war, and the run down from the rup up to war with Syria. Obama pitched the idea as hard as he could to a war-weary nation.

136862 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

137026 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

Putin saw an opportunity to jump in with a plan to get Syria to give up their chemical weapons, putting a damper on Obama’s bombing plans.

137234 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

I see that I have fallen behind on posting these.  I’ll try to do better … so, there was a lot of Putin this week.  Putin is fun, he’s easy to draw and he’s a funny character with his shirtless macho swagger that reminds me of Miley Cyrus’ twerking.

137408 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

A lot of pundits were talking about how Putin and Russia had “put America into a box.” which reminded me of Marcel Marceau.

137468 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

Putin looks pretty French in this cartoon, huh?  Here’s Putin and Assad as the “Alien” from the “Alien” movies.

137307 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

I notice whenever the cartoons are about foreign news, our traffic goes down.  We need more Miley Cyrus.  Here’s my most recent cartoon, about the budget showdown in Congress, that hasn’t been getting as much news as it would if other things weren’t always happening.

137579 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

This one is a little surreal, a little disturbing, and a little stinky.  The last one is an oldie that I drew fifteen years ago when I was a local cartoonist in Hawaii, and there was a controversy about how gifted kids were treated in schools – as conscripted labor because they “didn’t need to study with the others.” This is something I recall with my gifted daughter, Susie, who was often put to work tutoring other students, by her lazy public school teachers.
137066 600 Putin, Obama, Talking Butts and More! cartoons

That’s it for this week.  Now I’m back to life in Nashville.  For a guy who doesn’t go to church, doesn’t like football, doesn’t care about music and shouldn’t eat too much bacon – remind me, why am I in Nashville again?

 

 

 

 

 

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That Darn “No Child Left Behind” Testing Stuff

Congress is busy working on leaving “No Child Left Behind” behind. Teachers hate that “teaching to the test” stuff, so I drew this today.
134905 600 That Darn No Child Left Behind Testing Stuff cartoons

The Bush era law mandated that all school kids should be reading and doing math at their grade level by now – well, that won’t happen – the solution?  Throw out the law requiring such crazy stuff.  But keep all the crazy testing.  hmm.  I draw something like this every couple of years when this topic gets hot, as it does bi-annually.  Here’s a nice one on standardized testing and employment that I drew back in 2007.

36891 600 That Darn No Child Left Behind Testing Stuff cartoons

Things don’t change much.  President Bush just loved the standardized testing.  I drew this when “No Child Left Behind” passed …

36736 600 That Darn No Child Left Behind Testing Stuff cartoons

Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, love standardized testing just as much as George W. Bush.

82378 600 That Darn No Child Left Behind Testing Stuff cartoons

We’ll surely get rid of “No Child Left Behind” but we won’t be rid of standardized testing.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  I suppose I’ll draw this again in a couple of years.

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Women in Combat, Obama’s 2nd Term and Hillary

Here are my most recent cartoons and the sketches that, for some reason, you like to see.  The first one is on Obama’s apparent transformation into a more liberal Obama in his second term.  First the pencil sketch.

2ndTermSketch Women in Combat, Obamas 2nd Term and Hillary cartoonsThen I trace the sketch for line art on vellum.  This is what most people see in the newspapers that still print in black and white.

Line2ndTermTransformation Women in Combat, Obamas 2nd Term and Hillary cartoons… and here it is in color.

600Wide2ndTermTransform Women in Combat, Obamas 2nd Term and Hillary cartoonsObama also seems to be getting more of a spine.  Here is the previous cartoon, on Hillary’s testimony in congress.

126033 600 Women in Combat, Obamas 2nd Term and Hillary cartoons

126086 600 Women in Combat, Obamas 2nd Term and Hillary cartoonsThat’s really Hillary’s testimony in the small type in her speech balloon, and that’s what she was really thinking in the thought balloon. Hillary is fun to draw, and the glasses are great.

At the right is my most recent cartoon about Defense Secretary Panetta’s announcement that all areas of the military, that had previously been closed to women, will now be open to qualified women – a change that is long overdue.

We have a great collection of cartoons on Women in Combat – come look!

 

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Cartoons

Hillary Clintons Testimony

Hillary Clintons Testimony © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,Hillary Clinton,Secretary of State,testimony,congress,Benghazi,Libya,Senate,best-of-hillary-clinton,benghazi coverup, benghazi inquiry, best of hillary clinton, hillary 2016

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Cliffs, Fighting Elephants and Picasso

Here is my latest cartoon, about the Republican infighting while Obama just sits back and waits for a deal.

BattlingGOP 600wideCOLOR Cliffs, Fighting Elephants and Picasso cartoons

 

This Fiscal Cliff mess came about because of the failure of the “Super-Committee.” I remembered a drawing a did of the Super-Committee some time ago, with a nice fight scene between super donkeys and elephants …

98752 600 Cliffs, Fighting Elephants and Picasso cartoons

I liked that Super-Committee cartoon. Super political stuff is always great for cartoonists, especially when super-politicians fail. It occurred to me that I could use the fight scene again, if the donkeys were elephants, so I printed it out lightly and sketched in some rough changes, adding Obama and making the donkeys into elephants in the same, fighting positions …

Sketch600wide Cliffs, Fighting Elephants and Picasso cartoons

… and then I drew over it for finished line on vellum.  This black and white line drawing is what most people see in the newspaper …

BattlingGOPlineart600wide Cliffs, Fighting Elephants and Picasso cartoons
… and then I colored it in layers on Photoshop. The line drawing is always better than the color, but readers and editors never seem to think so.

The previous cartoon was also about GOP angst, this time in the form of Picasso’s Guernica (below).

guernica600wideforweb Cliffs, Fighting Elephants and Picasso cartoons

Oh the GOP suffering; oh the humanity!  I did pretty much the same thing with this one. I printed out the Guernica painting and traced a nice line drawing on vellum.

124469 600 Cliffs, Fighting Elephants and Picasso cartoonsI wanted it to look like it came from my hand, which is why I did all the cross hatching and un-Picasso like line quality.  Then I added the gray tone …

124470 600 Cliffs, Fighting Elephants and Picasso cartoons

Oh!  Those poor Republicans! My most recent one was the New Years Fiscal Cliff cartoon below. This one probably works better on the Web because you have to scroll down to get to the gag.

124677 600 Cliffs, Fighting Elephants and Picasso cartoons

My wife thought this one was too cruel to babies. She told me I shouldn’t draw it. My Australian cartoonist buddy, Peter Broelman did a similar one today, without being cruel to the baby – and his will get reprinted more because it isn’t in a vertical format.  My wife likes Peter’s better too.  Oh well.

124642 600 Cliffs, Fighting Elephants and Picasso cartoons

 

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GOP uernica Gray

GOP uernica Gray © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,GOP,republican,elephant,Pablo Picasso,painting,Spanish Civil War,fiscal cliff,congress

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GOP uernica

GOP uernica © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,GOP,republican,elephant,Pablo Picasso,painting,Spanish Civil War,fiscal cliff,congress

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Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown

BSDetorie2 Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoonsBSDetorie Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

Cartoons by Rick Detorie who draws the comic strip, "One Big Happy."

California congressman Brad Sherman is in a tough election battle with another incumbent Democrat, Howard Berman, this year in a contest that has drawn national attention to two candidates with hot tempers. Cartoonists have known and despised Sherman for many years, since he was the Chairman of California’s “Board of Equalization” (BOE) which writes regulations governing state taxes. Sherman doesn’t like cartoonists much either, for good reason.

BSBurgard Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

Cartoon by movie industry cartoonist, Tim Burgard.

Sherman championed a set of confusing, contradictory and punitive tax laws that punished California’s artists for many years. California charges a sales tax on “tangible” property, but charges no tax on services; in Sherman’s days on the BOE, authors weren’t charged tax on the copyrights to their written works, but artists were charged tax on their copyrights, even though neither was tangible.  Newspaper political cartoonists were exempt from the sales tax, but other cartoonists weren’t, except if they wrote the words that appeared in their cartoons themselves, and didn’t have a separate author. The rules were different than the sales tax rules for rights to artwork in all other states, leading to even more confusion, and the regulations were not applied to artwork by big corporations, like Disney; the taxes were randomly imposed only on little, freelance artists.

BSStahler Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

Cartoon by nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist, Jeff Stahler.

Sherman took his cartoon frustrations out on a clown – a cartoonist named Rhoda Grossman, who performed at children’s parties, a service that isn’t taxable, except that Rhoda made the mistake of drawing caricatures of the children as a small part of her performance.  Sherman and the BOE went after the poor clown for sales tax and penalties on her entire gross income as a performer for the preceding seven years, because of the part of her show that included drawing – a devastating, unexpected, huge, tax bill for poor Rhoda the clown.

Rhoda appealed the tax decision to the BOE, chaired by Sherman, who had been a big supporter of the crazy tax laws imposed against artists and who had just won a race for congress. Sherman moved to Washington, DC and didn’t attend the meeting to hear Rhoda’s plea before the board – he was keeping his salary from the tax board until the last possible day before switching to his new salary from congress, and he cast the deciding vote against Rhoda in absentia, crushing the clown.

BSKirkman Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

Cartoon by Rick Kirkman, who draws the comic strip "Baby Blues."

Top cartoonists from all across America joined in a campaign to draw unflattering cartoons of Sherman, protesting his longtime support of California’s crazy, inconsistent art tax laws. The National Cartoonists Society had determined that Sherman was the one person most responsible for the ugly tax burden that California artists suffered under.  Some of the cartoons that were drawn at that time are displayed here, my favorites are the ones below, by Russell Myers, the cartoonist who draws the comic strip “Broom Hilda.”  There were some great ones, inspired by the callous indifference of Sherman, the petty tax bureaucrat.

BSGuisewite Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

Cartoon by Cathy Guisewite, who drew the comic strip, "Cathy."

The cartoonists were disappointed to see Sherman move on to serve more than a decade in congress, but the story actually has a happy ending. Soon after Sherman left the BOE, the tax board voted to reverse their

BSWalker Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

Cartoon by Mort Walker, who draws the comic strip, "Beelte Bailey."

decision on Rhoda’s case. Then the California Supreme Court overturned Sherman’s regulations taxing the transfer of intangible reproduction rights to artwork. (Sherman had also cast the deciding vote against the tax appeal of artist, Heather Preston, who went on to overturn the regulations in the courts.)  California artists were saved from their tax purgatory, no thanks to Sherman.

And we’re left with a legacy of some great, Brad Sherman cartoons!

BSMyers2 Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

BSMyers3 Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

BSMyers5 Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

BSMyers4 Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

BSMyers1 Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

Cartoons by Russel Myers who draws the comic strip, "Broom Hilda."

BSWolverton Brad Sherman, the Ugly Tax Clown cartoons

Cartoon by nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist and Mad Magazine artist, Monte Wolverton.

 

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My Muppet Cartoons

I just drew another Muppet themed editorial cartoon, about Chick-Fil-A, below.  I worked for the Muppets from the 1970’s into the 1990’s; the Jim Henson organization made my career as a cartoonist so whenever the Muppets make the news I feel nostalgic.

Chick-Fil-A Muppets

I drew this one when Congress was cutting funding to PBS.

Sesame Street Muppets Congress Execution

I remember when Stephen Colbert testified before Congress, in character, and Republicans complained that they might as well have Elmo testify before Congress, another good occasion for a Muppet cartoon.

 

Sesame Street Muppets, Stephen Colbert, Congress, Elmo

This one was when the evil Goldman-Sachs traders derisively called their customers “Muppets,” for them, synonymous with “suckers.”

 

Goldman Sachs Muppets

The Children’s Television Workshop folks announced that Cookie Monster would no longer eat unhealthful cookies.

Sesame Street Cookie Monster

I drew this one when I was a local cartoonist in Hawaii, and Hawaii was running up to a vote to legalize gay marriage (which failed).  A conservative Christian group was outraged by the cartoon and organized a noisy protest outside my newspaper, the Midweek, demanding that the cartoonist “come out!” (I wasn’t really inside, I was at home in California, pretending to be a local Hawaii cartoonist.)

Sesame Street, Bert and Ernie, Gay Marriage, Hawaii

Here are some examples of what I drew and designed back in my Muppet years … the good old days.  I still love the Muppets.

Milton Bradley,The Great Muppet Caper Card Game

The Great Muppet Caper Galsses, McDonalds

Muppets,Wocky,Fozzie Bear,Muppet Magazine

 

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Holder and Contempt of Congress

Holder and Contempt of Congress © Daryl Cagle,MSNBC.com,Fast and Furious,the fast and the furious,Eric Holder, Darrell Issa, Congress, Contempt of Congress,Gun Running, elephant,clown,seltzer

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Asses

Asses © Daryl Cagle,MSNBC.com,donkey,elephant,democrat,republican,congress