DarylCagle.comThe big summit in Helsinki is tomorrow, where President Trump will kiss Vladimir Putin’s butt, even though we now know the details of the Russian cyber-campaign to boost Trump and bash Hillary in the 2016 election.
Yes, Trump is off target. He needs to move a little to the left. Just to show that I’m an equal opportunity cartoon butt kisser, here is a butt-bonus oldie – President Obama kissing the butt of the king of Saudi Arabia.
There was a “big story” a couple of days ago about president Trump calling and congratulating Russian president Putin on his “election” victory. Trump had been given notes from his staff for the call, with a warning in all caps urging him not to congratulate Putin, probably because Putin’s election was bogus as top opponents weren’t allow to run, and in the wake of Russia’s attempted assassination of a double agent in England. This led to more speculation about why Trump seems to compliment Putin at every opportunity, which quickly turned into banter about who leaked the story.
This story would hang around for a while in normal times, but the news moves so fast these days the story was over about the time I finished drawing my cartoon. Gotta draw faster.
There is a lot of Kryptonite around – and Kryptonite is deadly to Superman who runs into the stuff all the time – but Kryptonite never actually kills Superman, who just suffers a bit once in a while from the Kryptonite, then he moves on.
Hey. Eye’s up here. Stop looking at my butt. Just because of the anal probe into Trump’s Russia conflicts, as well as his personal finances (we learned today) is no reason to stare at Trump’s butt!
Notice that I gave the bear a bit of a five-o’clock shadow?
Trump, Li’l Kim, Xi and Putin are a funny ensemble. One problem with editorial cartooning is that we can only draw characters that readers already know from the news, and if the cartoonist isn’t a sissy, he or she won’t label the characters but really try to draw caricatures. As the world goes down the tubes we have more characters and more opportunities to eschew labels. Life is good.
This cartoon is based on an oldie I drew about nine years ago, featuring Li’l Kim’s daddy, Li’l Kim Jong Il.
Sorry that I haven’t been drawing or posting much lately. I’ve been holed up in my office doing annual bookkeeping and quarterly artists royalties. ARRRGH! I have more to do. I’ll try to poke my head out of the muck more often. In the course of all the accounting madness, I neglected to post the grim reaper cartoon below from about three weeks ago when the story of the moment was the GOP’s ugly healthcare bill.
I thought I was being clever at the time – until I saw that dozens of cartoonists were drawing grim reaper cartoons. Great minds think alike. ARRRGH!
I enjoyed watching the coverage of former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony in congress on Fox News, where the talk was all about Hillary’s emails and Benghazi. I’ve noticed that this is a pattern; when the Trump-bashing gets heavy, conservatives retreat into their “happy place” of Hillary (and to a lesser degree, Obama) bashing.
There isn’t a lot of depth to the Republican responses to each increment of Trumpocalypse news. I see it in my e-mail now, when conservatives complain about the Trump cartoons they often ask why we don’t have an equal number of Hillary-bashing cartoons – even though Hillary is defeated and gone.
Here’s Trump with Michael Flynn as an albatross around his neck.
This is one of those cartoons that will make kids ask, “What does your cartoon MEAN?” The “albatross around the neck” expression is probably meaningless to them, and they won’t know the news about former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn taking big payments from Russia and Turkey, and not reporting them as the law requires. Usually kids don’t “get” cartoons because they don’t follow the news and don’t know the characters.
Flynn is a wonderful cartoon character and I suppose it is nice to see him not entirely disappear. His face is the natural face of an albatross. I drew Flynn a couple of times recently as he was being fired. See them below. We have lots of Flynn cartoons on Cagle.com – come take a look!
It looks like Jeff Sessions is the next in line to be brought down by a fishy relationship with Russia.
All three of these guys are easy to draw, and in that respect, I hate to see them go. Paul Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager, Michael Flynn was the National Sercurity Advisor, and Jeff Sessions is the Attorney General who just recused himself from an investigation which may or may not exist.
What is it with Trump and Russia? I could ask, what is it with cartoonists and those Russian nesting-dolls – is it possible to have any more nesting-doll cartoons? Sadly, I think we’re facing a bleak future of many more nesting-dolls cartoons. I haven’t drawn one yet, but I think everyone else has. Here are a few recent ones. Maybe we’ll see more nesting dolls than Pinocchios … someday … I can only dream.
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 …
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.
I’m not too happy with my Putin and Bernie in this one, but Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is great fun to draw. Her hair is fun. Somehow I’m guessing she’s be around for a while in one way or another.
Here I am drawing this one live (as of 1:00pm Pacific Time Tuesday, this had another hour to finish uploading – come back later if you are early!)
And here I color it in real time …
The legal battle between the FBI and Apple promises to be epic. I come down on Apple’s side; we’ve seen how important technology is in undermining evil despotic regimes around the world. If courts can force tech companies to become foot soldiers in regime efforts to spy on their populations that will be a loss for freedom around the world.
I drew this one as a live stream. Watch me color it in Photoshop in real time in the YouTube video below (scroll past the timer at the beginning).
Click on the YouTube video below and it should start at 2:48:40 where I start drawing the Apple vs Despots cartoon. This was a long afternoon of work, and I drew the previous cartoon before this one. Sorry for the lack of editing, but hey, you see everything. I have nothing to hide.
