Most cartoonists take the weekend off – but a bunch of Cagle Cartoonist went to work on Saturday night to draw memorial John McCain cartoons.
Here are my favorites that came in first …
By Ed Wexler
by Sean Delonas
By Taylor Jones
Most cartoonists take the weekend off – but a bunch of Cagle Cartoonist went to work on Saturday night to draw memorial John McCain cartoons.
Here are my favorites that came in first …
By Ed Wexler
by Sean Delonas
By Taylor Jones
This cartoon about the Republican Senate fail on Trumpcare is based on an oldie from Rembrandt titled,”The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.”
This is actually a double-oldie as I drew this one years ago when Obama beat Mitt Romney, much to the horror of Republicans who then had an “autopsy” to figure out how they could have possibly lost. Their autopsy informed them that they should cultivate Hispanic voters – an idea that seems like a quaint, old-fashioned notion for today’s Trumpy Republicans. I thought it was also a good fit for the current Trumpcare debate in the Senate, so I dusted it off with some new wording.
The original is below. I think Rembrandt would have made a good editorial cartoonist.
Here’s my cartoon about Republican deliberations as they craft an Obamacare replacement bill, in secret.
This is a cartoon that I drew many years ago, when the Republicans were fighting about some subject that I don’t remember now (I added the Obamacare title yesterday and reposted the cartoon). It seem the Republicans are united when we have a president who is a Democrat, but a Republican president seems to get them fighting with each other again.
American donkey and elephant characters, as representations of our political parties, is a mainstay of American editorial cartoonists, making our cartoons difficult for foreign readers to understand. Since Trump is often at odds with other Republicans, cartoonists have been drawing fewer elephants recently. There was a time when we could count on Republicans to oppose deficit spending and a static list of issues that don’t register high on the Trump agenda, so the elephant character is hard to define now, and even harder to associate with Trump. But when Republicans fight with each other, I don’t have to worry much about definitions.
Here’s Commander-in-Chief Hillary! Back in 2008 there was a lot of chatter about whether Hillary was up to the job of commanding the troops. Hillary told a story about how she was “dodging bullets” as she flew into Bosnia – a story that would have shamed even Brian Williams.
We also heard a lot about how Hillary thought America would rather she got an emergency call at 3:00 in the morning, instead of Barack Obama. I drew a cartoon similar to this one in 2008, with Hillary’s medals, and I realized that in only seven years, many of the medals have changed, but Hillary is basically the same. Here’s a new, updated version of my military, Hillary golden oldie. Come see our big collection of Bill ‘n Hillary cartoons.
The two big news stories this week were the Boston Marathon bombing and the sinking of the gun bill by Republicans in the Senate. Of-course, the gun bill got lost in the media focus on the Boston Bombing (we have a great collection of cartoons on the Boston Bombing here).
The problem with dominant news stories is that every cartoonist is drawing the same thing at the same time – why? Editors all want the same thing at the same time. Usually I like to steer a little different path then the cartoonist pack, because of supply and demand. There were just too many similar cartoons about the Boston Marathon Bombing this week, with bloody tennis shoes, bowed heads on statues, damaged Boston logos, symbolic metaphors breaking ribbons at finish lines – just what editors wanted, but too much of it for them to use. I tried to take a bit of a different tack with memorial candles, and I wanted to avoid drawing something bloody, still, I’m sure my cartoon didn’t get reprinted much because of oversupply. Here is the rough pencil sketch.
…and here is the black and white line art, that most people will see in the newspaper.
… and here is the color …
If I use colors in cartoons that are too dark, I get complaints from editors, so the color was a compromise. I’m not sure I’m happy with it. Oh well, it is a cartoon I was obligated to draw and the marketplace didn’t need – the story of my career.
The next cartoon was about the Republicans sinking the gun bill in the Senate. Republicans love their guns a bit too much – and that’s all that this cartoon says. Here is the rough sketch.
I found a photo of an assault rifle on Google and printed it out for my rough sketch. For a moment, I thought about Photoshopping the actual photo into the cartoon – it would be a jarring contrast to have the drawing of an elephant with what looks like a real, nasty, assault rifle photo – then I thought about how Bill Day tried that and was pilloried by this colleagues, and my good judgement got the better of me. Gotta watch out for those gun photos, they can get you labeled as a “plagiarist” and make you the wallflower at AAEC cartoonist parties.
Here is the black and white art …
and the color …
Ah! Love in the springtime!
Here is my latest cartoon, about the Republican infighting while Obama just sits back and waits for a deal.
This Fiscal Cliff mess came about because of the failure of the “Super-Committee.” I remembered a drawing a did of the Super-Committee some time ago, with a nice fight scene between super donkeys and elephants …
I liked that Super-Committee cartoon. Super political stuff is always great for cartoonists, especially when super-politicians fail. It occurred to me that I could use the fight scene again, if the donkeys were elephants, so I printed it out lightly and sketched in some rough changes, adding Obama and making the donkeys into elephants in the same, fighting positions …
… and then I drew over it for finished line on vellum. This black and white line drawing is what most people see in the newspaper …
… and then I colored it in layers on Photoshop. The line drawing is always better than the color, but readers and editors never seem to think so.
The previous cartoon was also about GOP angst, this time in the form of Picasso’s Guernica (below).
Oh the GOP suffering; oh the humanity! I did pretty much the same thing with this one. I printed out the Guernica painting and traced a nice line drawing on vellum.
I wanted it to look like it came from my hand, which is why I did all the cross hatching and un-Picasso like line quality. Then I added the gray tone …
Oh! Those poor Republicans! My most recent one was the New Years Fiscal Cliff cartoon below. This one probably works better on the Web because you have to scroll down to get to the gag.
My wife thought this one was too cruel to babies. She told me I shouldn’t draw it. My Australian cartoonist buddy, Peter Broelman did a similar one today, without being cruel to the baby – and his will get reprinted more because it isn’t in a vertical format. My wife likes Peter’s better too. Oh well.
Few issues currently create as much debate as allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the United States military. Even with the Senate’s repeal of the controversial Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, many in congress, the military and the country remain on opposite sides of the argument.
When cartoonists weigh in on such a controversial subject, as Mike Keefe of the Denver Post did with the cartoon to the right (view more of Keefe’s cartoons here), you can expect some readers to respond in kind.
Allowing gays to serve openly in the military has become an important issue to Keefe. Here is what he has to say on the subject:
“The question of whether gays should be permitted to serve in the military is basically a question of civil rights. I know of no study that says sexual orientation affects job performance in any legitimate area of employment including military service. Twenty-two of the twenty-six countries that contribute military forces to NATO permit gays to serve. Denying gays the opportunity to serve their country is denying them a basic right of citizenship.”
Keefe has weighed in with multiple cartoons about gays in the military. Here are some of his best. What’s your opinion?
People seem to like it when I show my sloppy drawing process, so here it is again with my last three cartoons.
The most recent cartoon has Obama in the pocket of greedy bankers. Â I draw with a hard pencil fairly quickly on 11″x17″ paper. Â I like a hard pencil because it encourages me not to render and get bogged down in details. Â I first thought I would have Obama shaking his fist, and that didn’t work – in fact, my first Obama attempt didn’t look good at all and I drew over it with a sharpie marker (which is quicker than erasing).
Next I did the finished line art, in pencil on a piece of vellum over the rough sketch. Â The black and white line art is how most people see the cartoon in the newspaper. Â One thing I notice with student cartoonists that that they shy away from using a lot of black. Â Heavy blacks stand out on the page and are lots of fun – don’t be afraid of black.
Then I color the image in with Photoshop, with the black lines as a layer over the color layer. Â This is for the few newspapers that print color on their op-ed pages and for the web. Â I try to keep my colors bright and simple – when I do anything with textures or colors that aren’t clean and bright, I get complaints from editors who say the cartoons look muddy when they are printed. Â Newspapers have lousy printing and the cartoons have to work for the worst of them.
I drew the cartoon below when Scott Brown won the senate seat in Massachusetts – an unpleasant day for Obama and the Democrats. Â The first decision I had to make was whether to draw Obama or a Dem donkey under the Massachusetts rain cloud – either would be fine, but since Obama’s agenda was taking a hit, and I like to bash Obama, I went with the president. Â Here’s the rough sketch. Â I printed out a map of Massachusetts that I found on the web and taped it to the paper.
Then I traced it with pencil on vellum, scanned at high contrast so it looks like I drew it in ink. Â This is what most people see in the newspaper.
And here is the color version from our site.
This last one, from last week, is bashing the media in Haiti. Â I wasn’t happy with the vultures in my rough sketch, and I drew over them in purple Sharpie Marker, quick and dirty. Â Nobody is supposed to see this.
Then I trace it nicely on vellum and scan as line for the newspapers.
And I color it in Photoshop …