Top Ten Cartoons of the Week – December 19, 2020

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date December 19, 2020

Here are our most reprinted cartoons of last week (December 27th through December 19th 2020).

Five of the cartoons have Christmas themes, eight of the cartoons are about COVID19. As usual, no drawings of Trump or Biden made the Top Ten. No cartoons about foreign issues were popular. There are three ties which is quite unlikely considering the large number of editors downloading cartoons.

The Top Ten cartoons are what readers see since only 20% of the cartoons get 80% of the reprints.

John Darkow won the week with a Christmas/COVID cartoon, Jeff Koterba had two cartoons in the Top Ten. Great work, gentlemen!

Congratulations to the other cartoonists with the most reprinted cartoons of the week: Gary McCoy, Dave Whamond, Steve Sack, Dave Granlund, Bruce Plante, Dave Fitzsimmons and Pat Bagley.

Our Top Ten is a measure of how many editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the 62 cartoonists in our CagleCartoons.com syndication package. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers (around 700 papers) subscribe to CagleCartoons.com.

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#1

John Darkow wins the week with this Christmas/pandemic cartoon.

#2

Gary McCoy is tied for second place with another Christmas Pandemic cartoon.

#2

Dave Whamond shares the tie for second place with another Christmas/COVID combo cartoon.

#4

Steve Sack takes 4th place with yet another Christmas/COVID combo cartoon.

#5

Dave Granlund shares a tie for 5th place with this COVID vaccine cartoon.

#5

Bruce Plante shares the tie for 5th place with this vaccine cartoon.

#7

Jeff Koterba claims 7th place with a “what a bad year 2020 was” New Years cartoon – a theme that editors love.

#8

Dave Fitzsimmons wins 8th place with yet another Christmas/COVID combo cartoon.

#9

Pat Bagley ties for 9th place with an oldie that he strategically reposted to the syndication flow. This is the first time I can recall that a reposted oldie made the Top Ten. A heavy snowstorm hit the northeast, and Washington DC this week.

#9

Jeff Koterba shares 9th place with this vaccine cartoon, which is Jeff’s second cartoon in the Top Ten this week.

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Tags Christmas, coronavirus, COVID-19, COVID19, dove, holiday, mistletoe, New Year's, pandemic, Santa Claus, snow, Social Distancing, Times Square, vaccine, Xmas, Zoom

Blog Syndicate

Peace in Gaza

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date May 16, 2018

The “peaceful” protests in Gaza have been quite dramatic, with both sides blaming each other for the violence. I thought it would be interesting to draw the peaceful protesters as doves of peace. Those are olive branches in their mouths.

My personal view is that there is no solution to the Israel/Palestinian issue. Someday soon we may look back on these ugly times as the good old days. If I could play God and impose my own peace plan, it would be to force everyone to give up their religion.

When I started this I thought I would draw all of the doves with no pants, Donald Duck style, with bird legs and feet. The problem is that birds have knees that go backwards and it was difficult to put them into the action poses without suffering some strange compromises, so I went with a different compromise: human knees, feet, pants and shoes, and birdie hands on the ends of their wings.

Cartoons about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict often invite angry email. I’ve drawn militant doves before –here’s one that got me lots of angry email …

The angry mail for this one came from Israel supporters who thought the cartoon was anti-semitic because they thought the helmet on the Israeli soldier looked like a German Nazi helmet; they also objected to the Star of David on the helmet, arguing that it signified Jews rather than the complete Israeli flag with stripes, signifying Israel.

Cartoons about the conflict don’t please anybody and are among the least reprinted cartoons –but cartoonists don’t get to choose the news.

Tags Best Political Cartoons, Burn, dove, drone, fence, fire, Gaza, gaza deaths, Israel, Israeli, kite, middle east, Nakba, Naqba, olive branch, Palestine, palestinian, peace, protest, riot, tear gas, tires

Blog Syndicate

Updated Oldies! Trump! Marijuana! Peace!

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date September 17, 2016

The problem with being a cartoonist who runs a little newspaper syndicate is that I have to actually run the little newspaper syndicate. I envy cartoonists who can work in their little cubicles, drawing cartoons all the time – as my life is sucked away with bookkeeping and administrative duties. Argh! On the other hand, by having a little business I’m safe from being laid off by a newspaper again. I’ve traded having a boss for having dozens of cartoonists and freelancers depending on me to keep the business going. Again, argh!

So, I haven’t been drawing as many new cartoons as I would like during this busy political season. This week, while I was finishing up my belated business taxes, I dredged up a couple of oldies that seem fresh now. The first is a Muhammad cartoon-cartoon, updated to be a Trump cartoon that reflects the comments I get in my email box, from those “deplorables in a basket.” Here is what the cartoon originally looked like, at the right.

The second oldie this week is a repost of a California Marijuana oldie that I drew some years ago when California legalized medical marijuana. In November California votes on a referendum to legalize recreational marijuana, and the cartoon is suddenly fresh. What is old is new again.
marijuana750

In addition to the oldies, I drew a 10th birthday card for my friends at Cartooning for Peace. The big hands on star French cartoonist, Plantu’s dove logo, make me smile. That’s the Cartooning for Peace logo on the right, and my birthday card below. Happy birthday, Cartooning for Peace!

Tags birthday, california, Cartooning for Peace, donald trump, dove, marijuana, prophet muhammad

Blog

Hong Kong, War and Apple!

Post author By Daryl Cagle
Post date October 15, 2014

Sorry to neglect the blog! I’ve been away on two cartoonist convention trips and I need to catch up! Here’s the new one today on Hong Kong.

Most people will see this in newspapers in black and white – and I think it is better in black and white.

I drew this as a riff on an oldie. I have lots of problems with Chinese hackers attacking my web sites, and I drew this self-portrait some time ago. I don’t think it got reprinted much, because it was a personal cartoon – better as a Hong Kong cartoon.

Here are a couple of recent cartoons that I forgot to post in the blog. Here’s Obama transforming into George W. Bush. I’m a little late on this one; I should have drawn it a couple of years ago. It probably wouldn’t have been reprinted much two years ago. Now that’s we’re back in Iraq, more and more, the transformation is clear.

The media’s march to war also matches the old march to war in Iraq under George W. Bush. People don’t seem to get that every party that is fighting over there is a bad guy, and bad guys fighting other bad guys is something we should leave alone. We have our priorities out of place, which is the point of the carton below.

The new smart watch from Apple looks pretty cool, but the emphasis on counting steps and the anal focus on health apps seems unpleasant. Here’s my take on it.

While I was away at the cartoonists convention in France for two weeks, I re-posted an oldie. This “evergreen” dove-bomber cartoon is appropriate all too often.