Here are my latest cartoons. Today the Pope quit, and I drew this one as a riff on Rene Magritte’s famous “This is not a Pipe” painting (right) that we all studied in art history class. We had a recent discussion on Facebook about our brilliant, Mexican/Cuban cartoonist, Angel Boligan, who drew another Magritte allegory about the Pope, which got me thinking.

We get about two phone calls per day from high school students who ask, “what does the cartoon mean?” We tell them they have to do their own homework and we can’t help them. I thought the phone might be ringing off the hook with this one.

Metaphors with famous paintings are meat and potatoes for editorial cartoonists. Here’s one by Nate Beeler.

Magritte did lots of versions of this painting, some in English. I went with the classic French. I thought I would add this Bagley/Pope/Retirement cartoon here – I think it is the best of the bunch.

And I drew these two about the sequester.

Wedgies are a mainstay for editorial cartoonists. Bagley draws better wedgies too.

The stock market fell when we heard the result of Italy’s crazy election, which I drew as the Wall Street Bull tripping over Italy’s boot. It was only a one day drop, but Italy’s bonds are down the tube, so I think it still works.