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Flynn Gets the Boot!

President Trump asked for the resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn who then “quit”.

Somehow I think I’ll be drawing lots of cartoons about Trump, with a Russian theme.

Watch me draw this one in real time, in the video below. Note that I had no idea what I was doing when I started and I quit and started over a couple of time. I understand why more cartoonists don’t do live-streaming. Perhaps we should see how the cartoon sausage is made.

In the next video I color the cartoon in Photoshop …

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Welcome Jos Collignon!

We just added a new cartoonist to our CagleCartoons.com newspaper syndication package – Jos Collignon from Holland. We think Jos is great! See more of his cartoons below, and on his Cagle.com archive here.

Welcome, Jos! This newspaper-reading-Trump-voters will see your cartoons now –give ’em hell!

 

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THREE Trump Sword Fights!

I did three cartoons at once! Here’s Trump fighting the Statue of Justice.

Trump has so many mismatched fights going on that I could have done a dozen of these.  Justice is all white because she is carved from marble, with a small golden sword and scales, like a couple of the statues I’ve seen. Unlike her better known sister, the Statue of Liberty, Justice comes in many forms.

The next one is Trump versus the State of Washington regarding the recent challenge to the seven nation immigration ban (or, “ban on Muslims” as some might say).

The next one is Trump versus my home state of California, where Trump threatens to defund sanctuary cities. There is legislation in Sacramento to make the whole state a “sanctuary state.”

Watch me draw this one, or rather three, in the video below …

and watch me color all three in Photoshop in the next video …

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USA vs Mexico

Sorry to be away from doing the videos for so long! Yesterday I streamed my process drawing this one and you can see the whole thing in real time in the YouTube videos below. Here’s the angry face-off between the Trump-USA and Mexican eagles.

The Mexican eagle really should face the other way, but I flipped the bird.

The video below shows me drawing this one, from scratch, on paper, with a pencil.

In the next video I’m coloring the cartoon in Photoshop …

Yes! The beard is gone for the foreseeable future! (I know that is shocking – it’s still me … really.)

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Mexico Flips Us the Bird

I drew this Mexican flag, “flipping the bird” cartoon eleven years ago when the Mexican government was distributing brochures they created to give advice to Mexicans who were hiking across dangerous, unprotected border areas (they should bring a hat and lots of water to drink).

Today the Mexican public is heaping accolades on their unpopular president, Enrique Peña Nieto; maybe this is just what Peña Nieto needs.

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Trump as King Henry VIII

Here’s my King Trump …

King Henry the Eighth by Hans Holbein the Younger.

This is Donald Trump as King Henry VIII, from the famous portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, shown in the image at the right. That Henry was quite the dresser. Notice that Trump, and Henry VIII have tiny hands and a little purse. I may do a series with more famous king portraits as Trump.

One thing that I have to keep in mind as a newspaper cartoonist, is how the color cartoons look when printed in the papers – the cartoons darken up, with heavy details filling in and cyan (or blue) coming in heavy; this is why I lighten and warm up the colors, which is especially apparent in Trump’s brown, furry vest. I also feel I need to make the flesh tones lighter and I’m always getting mail about how I should make Trump look more “orange.” I added a little white feather on Trump’s cap, which wasn’t in the painting – surely this was an oversight by Holbein the Younger as the feather seems to be necessary!

This isn’t the first time for me with Holbein the Younger and Henry VIII. Ten years ago I did a similar take on George W. Bush as Henry VIII in the 2006 cartoon below. I see that I took even more liberties with the king’s outfit in this earlier, cartoonier version.

There are always a lot of cartoons depicting presidents, and presidential candidates as kings (or queens). During the Obama years the few conservative cartoonists enjoyed drawing Obama as a king as their vision of Obama was vain, self-absorbed and autocratic.

At the beginning of the last campaign there were lots of cartoons with Hillary and presumed GOP frontrunner Jeb Bush as dynastic royalty, including this one I did below …

We saw lots of “Trump Card” cartoons, but Trump was always the Joker in those cartoons, not the King.

 

 

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Cagle’s 2016 Year in Review

Here’s my year in review! The year started off with Donald Trump knocking off his opponents one by one, in a big Republican field.


Trump attacked his fiercest rival, Ted Cruz, for being born in Canada, arguing that he was not “native born” and constitutionally ineligible to be president.

Trump had a famous, short-lived feud with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, which led him to boycott a presidential debate that was sponsored by Fox News. Trump’s absence seemed to amount to a victory for him.

Bernie Sanders started out strong and threatened to steal the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton.

The Democratic establishment couldn’t grasp why young women voters rejected Hillary and flocked to Bernie.

Bernie hung on until the end – Hillary just couldn’t put him away.

Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia died, and the Republicans would not allow a vote for Obama’s nominee for nine months, in the hope that a Republican would win the election.

The terrible Zika virus spread north from South America.


Ted Cruz and John Kasich tried teaming up for a last ditch effort to derail Trump. It didn’t work.

Trump won the Republican party nomination for president – a concept that many Republicans found difficult to accept.

Trump’s fashion model wife, Melania, gave a speech at the GOP convention that seemed to match a speech by Michelle Obama.

Trump attacked a Muslim “Gold Star Family” that spoke against him at the Democratic Convention.

The media was obsessed with Trump, giving him lots of costly air time – but after he won the GOP nomination, the media turned on Trump and Trump’s support surprised all of the pundits.

Many Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to support their new nominee.

The Party of Lincoln was horrified.

“Pay to Play” allegations about the Clinton Foundation stung Hillary.

In other news, Civil War freedom fighter Harriet Tubman was selected to grace the $20.00 bill, kicking slave plantation owner Andrew Jackson off.

Great Britain voted for “Brexit” – an exit from the European Union.

Highly publicized, and unjustifiable police shootings led to attacks on police and nationwide demonstrations.

Greedy drug companies raised priced and screwed customers.

The Summer Olympics were dominated by news of the success of the American swim team, and then by news of the American swimmers vandalizing a bathroom and lying about it.

The Trump vs. Clinton campaign was possible the ugliest presidential contest ever.

Trump made a surprise visit to meet the president of Mexico – to the horror of Mexicans.

Trump seemed to be fond of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as the Russians hacked the Democratic party boosting Trumps campaign by releasing embarrassing emails through their proxy, Wikileaks.

The race was tight, focusing on swing-states.

Hate groups endorsed Trump – and I heard from many of them by e-mail.

Trump accused Hillary of being too sick to be president.

The presidential debates drew the biggest audiences ever.

“Access Hollywood” recordings of Trump bragging about sexual assaults dominated the headlines.

Trump claimed that the election was “rigged” against him, suggesting that he wouldn’t “accept” the election results if Hillary were to win.

Days before the election, FBI Director James Comey reopened the e-mail investigation of Hillary, an event that Hillary’s supporters believe cost her the election.

Trump won!

Half the nation was shocked.

The election was a Democrat apocalypse.

Trump’s transition was just as crazy as his campaign, with untraditional cabinet picks of generals and billionaires who seem to defy his promise to “drain the swamp.”

 

 

 

 

 

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Puppies for Putin

Kids dream of getting a puppy for Christmas and Putin is certainly no different. This year, Putin’s dreams come true with puppy Trump and puppy Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson.

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Trump’s Cabinet Picks

Trump’s cabinet picks are heavy with generals and billionaires. Saturday Night Live’s depiction of Breaking Bad’s Walter White as the choice to head the Drug Enforcement Agency made me laugh and let to this cartoon.

It is said that some artists drawings all look like themselves, or all look like their wives – for me, everything I draw harkens back to my Muppet days – and all my chickens look like Camilla. (Camilla is the chicken girlfriend of Gonzo.) I can’t get her out of my head; Camilla haunts me.

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Betsy Devos and the Department of Education

Donald Trump’s choice to head the Department of Education is Betsy DeVos, who I drew in the cartoon below.

I may draw caricatures of the other Trump cabinet picks. DeVos is an enthusiastic champion of facing down teachers unions and tearing down public schools in favor of privately run charter schools that suck resources away from the needier kids in public schools – sound like standard Republican stuff? Just remember my Common Core cartoon from a few years back …

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Romney Kisses Trump Butt

Last week’s news was filled with Mitt Romney meeting and having dinner with Donald Trump, after their history of badmouthing each other during the campaign. Romney certainly wants the Secretary of State job, and we may find out if he get the position next week. Trump’s former campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway said today that the job search is expanding, after warning of a popular revolt among Republicans if Romney is the choice.

To be evenhanded (a word seldom applied to editorial cartoonists) I should point out that it isn’t unusual for me to draw butt kissing. Here’s Obama kissing the butt of the King of Saudi Arabia.

There’s a lot of butt-kissing to go around these days.

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Trump and the Swamp

Donald Trump promised to “drain the swamp” in Washington, implying that he would be bringing new faces into the administration that were not “politics as usual.” So far, Trump’s picks look like standard politicians Republican fare, straight from the swamp.

Swamp
I love the look of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Swamp Thing? Not so much.

There have also been reports about Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, nixing choices that are close to New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, who put Kushner’s father in jail back when Christie was a prosecutor.

I was thinking of the typical swamp cabinet candidate and I thought of the “Swamp Thing” – but when I looked, I realized that what I really had in mind was the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” which has a classic 1950’s B-movie look. The Swamp Thing just didn’t make the cut. That’s the Creature from the Black Lagoon in the photo at the right. And my cartoon is below.

I think the cartoonists will find their Trump-sea-legs soon. If not, we’re in for four (or eight) years of lousy Trump-Monster cartoons – that is, Trump as the monster, which has grown tiresome. One bright spot is Jared Kushner and Trump’s kids, who look like they will be cartoon characters on my palette in coming years. They are wonderful characters!