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Pied Piper

When President Trump described illegal immigrants as infesting America, I remembered an old cartoon I drew early in 2015 with Trump as the Pied Piper. Of-course, the Pied Piper legend was about a goofy troubadour who played his “pipe” to rid a town of rats, then, as the result of a payment dispute, he led the children out of town. Trump’s recent executive order that supposedly stopped jailing immigrant children seems to do little or nothing about the kids, who will continue to be imprisoned, one way or another –perhaps on military bases.

I lived in New York in the 1980s, and Trump was a big, local celebrity; he was a thin playboy, before he turned orange, and it took me some time to realize that present day plump-Trump doesn’t look much like the Trump I knew. Trump has filled out his figure and trimmed his formerly giant, bushy eyebrows. I had a svelte 1980s Trump in my memory as I drew this oldie with Trump entrancing the Republican Party.

Now it bothers me to look at this one. Looking at the kids in cages bothers me more.

 

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The GOP and the Refugee Doorway

The Republicans are trying hard to push back against the inflows of refugees and immigrants. Here’s my take. Often when I do cartoons that have muted colors, I get complaints from editors who want brighter colors. Refugees don’t lend themselves well to bright colors.

Often when I do cartoons have have muted colors, I get complaints from editors who want brighter colors. Refugees don’t lend themselves well to bright colors. I’m trying to do more texture in my cartoons now. Here’s a detail.

refugeeDoorDetail

Here’s my rough and dirty sketch. You can see that I fiddled around with the position of the elephant’s trunk before I was happy with it.

Doorsketch

I put a “Thanks to Michael Kounturis” in the lower left. Michael works out of Athens, Greece and he is one of my favorite cartoonists; he recently came back to our CagleCartoons.com newspaper syndicate package after a hiatus. My GOP Doorway cartoon was inspired by Michael’s cartoon below.

I stole a lot from Michael’s cartoon, including the position of the door and the guy pushing back on the door – and the general composition with the doorway poking up, off-center. It is all lovely – so thanks, Michael, and you have my apologies for ripping you off! See more of Michael’s great cartoons here.

 

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Republicans and Refugees

This week the House passed a bill that would stop the US from taking in 10,000 Syrian refugees; President Obama promised to veto the bill if it reached his desk. All of the Republican presidential candidates have been crowing about stopping refugee immigrants in the wake of the terror attacks in Paris, and the cartoonists have been doing some healthy Republican bashing in response, often including the Statue of Liberty with its obvious irony. Here’s mine …

I was impressed by this one, from my buddy Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune, featuring the dead Syrian toddler found on the beach in Greece, with Lady Liberty’s toes …

This Liberty in the position of the dead boy on the beach, by my cartoonist buddy Milt Priggee impressed me even more. (It would have been better without the sentence in the black rectangle.)

This Liberty is from my socialist cartoonist buddy, Rainer Hachfeld, from Germany.

There’s no Statue of Liberty, but this refugees cartoon by Hajo de Reijger of the Netherlands is so elegant in its form that I had to share it here …