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Lemmings!

Lemmings jumping en-masse off of a cliff are one of the great chichés that editorial cartoonists rely upon – like the Iwo Jima memorial, clown cars, the Statue of Liberty, movie posters, peeing dogs – it is no surprise to see a new lemming/cliff cartoon and it is fun to see the familiar metaphor with a new twist.  I end up doing a new lemming cartoon once every two or three years.

My lemming cartoon yesterday was about the ongoing tumult in Egypt, and protesting Egyptians running their country off of a cliff.

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Back in 2009, during the Obamacare debate, I drew the Democrat/lemmings jumping off of a political cliff. Of-course, their cliff was on the left.

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Back in 2007 at the onset of the mortgage collapse, I drew house/lemmings jumping off of a cliff …

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Way back in 2003 unemployment was on our minds (things never change much) and I drew this graduation lemmings cartoon.

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The lemming metaphor is popular around the world too.  Here is how my graduation cartoon was plagiarized by a cartoonist at a top newspaper in Saudi Arabia.

SaudiPlagiarizedcartoon Lemmings! cartoons

It amuses me to see how the positions of all of the characters in the Saudi cartoon match my own drawing.

Here are some lemmings by some of my favorite cartoonists.  This one is by Mike Keefe from back in 2007 …

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Here’s Colombian cartoonist “Matador” (Killer) with the Eurozone countries as lemmings.

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Joe Heller did the lemmings as a Martin Luther King Day cartoon …

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This lemming/shoppers cartoon by Andy Singer made me laugh …

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This mortgage crisis cartoon that I drew back in 2007 is a twist on the lemmings …

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I did a search on the word “cliff” in our cartoon database and came up with 440 results.  Yipes!  There are cliffs everywhere!

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Best Political Cartoons of the Week

Every Friday, we collect the best political cartoons of the week and stuff them into one big, glorious slideshow.

So just relax and catch up on a week’s worth of news with our Best Cartoons of the Week slideshow.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to launch slideshow)

 

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GOP Vote on ObamaCare Again

GOP Vote on ObamaCare Again © Daryl Cagle,MSNBC.com,Elephant, GOP, Capitol, Washington DC, toilet, Obamacare, healthcare, medicine

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GOP Vote on Obamacare… Again

The House Republicans have scheduled a meaningless vote on Wednesday to vent their anger at Obamacare, yet again. I thought I would draw a giant GOP elephant pooping in a pop-top Capitol toilet. It seemed appropriate.

I worried a bit about how to draw the Capitol as a pop-top toilet, particularly when the Capitol dome would need to be the toilet and the elephant would obscure much of the building. My solution was to pay little regard to the rules of perspective and just go with it – if people don’t get that the Capitol dome is hinged to the back of the toilet tank, well, it’s close enough.

I’ve gotten away from posting my sketches here and I’ve had a couple of requests to do it again, so here’s the rough pencil sketch.

Here is the finished line art. This is how most people will see the drawing in the newspapers that still typically print the editorial pages in black and white.

And here it is in color. Newspaper editors don’t like cartoons with potty themes; I’m not sure how much this one will be reprinted.

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Evolving Opinions of Chief Justice Roberts

It’s funny what one ruling will do to a man’s reputation. For Chief Justice John Roberts (view all our cartoons about Roberts here), siding with the more liberal members of the Supreme Court on Obamacare suddently turned the conservative judge into the devil as far as many Republicans are concerned…

Meanwhile, Democrats suddenly forgot about their previous criticisms over Roberts and a conservative court run amok, and began praising the Chief Justice as a modern day Earl Warren…

I was reminded of this dichotomy looking back at some old cartoons from my archive. Here’s one I drew about Roberts donating his time to help a gay rights case…

On the flip side, here’s a cartoon I drew about his vague views on abortion, compared to his wife’s public commitment to the antiabortion movement…

Categories
Blog

Best Political Cartoons of the Week

Every Friday, we collect the best political cartoons of the week and stuff them into one big, glorious slideshow.

So just relax and catch up on a week’s worth of news with our Best Cartoons of the Week slideshow.

Categories
Blog

A Cartoon That I'm Happy Not to Draw

I’m a pessimist, and I drew this sketch, anticipating that the conservative justices on the Supreme Court would strike down Obamacare this morning -of-course, I’m a lazy pessimist, so I didn’t actually draw the finished cartoon in advance, just a sketch so I could knock it out faster this morning. Some other cartoonists actually drew two cartoons in advance, anticipating different outcomes.

The Court surprised me and upheld Obamacare, so I’m delighted not to be finishing the drawing!

RELATED: Our cartoons about the Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamacare

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My Health Care Cartoons

With all the emphasis today on “Obamacare” and the Supreme Court, I thought I’d share a handful of my cartoons and recap how we got to this point.

Obama’s health care reform started off with a much-maligned “public option” that was heavily opposed by Republicans and businesses…

Obama tried his best to get Republicans to work with him, but their response was predictable…


Eventually, through legislative wrangling, Obama was able to pass his compromised health care law…


Unfortunately, Democrats have lost the PR battle, and now face losing important parts of their signature achievement…

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Cartoonists Prepare for 'Obamacare' Ruling

On Thursday, the Supreme Court will rule one way or another on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care reform legislation.

Rarely are political cartoonists given a heads-up like this prior to a big news event. Normally, we draw two types of cartoons – breaking news, like the death of Osama bin Laden or the BP oil spill, or cartoons on evergreen topics, like money in politics, global warming and the right versus left divide.

On the rare opportunities political cartoonists have a leg-up on a news event (like on an election night), it’s common to draw two cartoons prior to the outcome, in order to make the print deadline for the next day’s newspaper.  In the digital world, this becomes even more important, as a thought-provoking cartoon drawn ahead of time can hit the zeitgeist quicker and spread like wildfire. It reminds me of big sporting events, where both teams have championship  t-shirts printed, but only one gets to wear them after the game. The losers’ gear is packed up and sent overseas to be given away as charity.

David Fitzsimmons, the staff cartoonist at the Arizona Daily Star (whose cartoons I syndicate through Cagle Cartoons), has filed his two cartoons about the health care ruling. Here’s his cartoon if the court rules that the plan is unconstitutional:

And here’s Fitzsimmons cartoon if the court rules in favor of the law:

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Cartoons: Obamacare on Trial

Why listen to lawyers and pundits talk about the Constitutionality of Obama’s Health Care Reform Law when you can just listen to cartoonists! Our group of ink slingers have weighed in on Obamacare, and you can check out their opinions in our new Obamacare Revisited cartoon collection.

Chris Weyant / The Hill (click to view our Obamacare on Trial cartoons)
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Revisiting ObamaCare

Today, the Supreme Court begins three days of oral arguments to decide, once and for all, if President Obama’s health care reform law is constitutional.

Since its passage in 2010 on strict party lines, all Republicans have talked about is repealing ObamaCare. Every GOP Presidential candidate has made it a central plank of their campaign (they’re a little more vague about what they’d replace it with).

Obviously, cartoonists have been weighing in on health care reform for years. Here are some relevant cartoons I plucked from our archives…

Chris Weyant / The Hill (click to view more cartoons by Weyant)
Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)
Jimmy Margulies / The Record (click to view more cartoons by Margulies)
John Cole / Scranton Times-Tribune (click to view more cartoons by Cole)
Pat Bagley / Salt Lake Tribune (click to view more cartoons by Bagley)
Jeff Parker / Florida Today (click to view more cartoons by Parker)
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Mitt Romney's "Garments"

Editorial cartoonists have a tradition of drawing politicians in their underwear.  President Clinton is often drawn with his pants around his ankles and boxer shorts with a pattern of little hearts.  The same treatment is due for serial adulterer politicians like Newt Gingrich, Arnold Schwarzenegger and too many members of congress to list. Even Batman and Superman wear their underwear on top of their tights.  As an editorial cartoonist, I cherish my right to draw anyone I want in their underwear.

Mitt Romney is a little different. He doesn’t seem to be an adulterer, and is certainly no superhero. As a devout Mormon, Romney is supposed to wear religious “garments” as his underwear, and I assume he does although he refuses to answer questions about his underwear. If Romney would talk about his underwear, I would be less motivated to draw him in his underwear; Romney’s “garment” silence interests me.  Here are a couple of sample of cartoons with Romney wearing his Mormon “garments.” I have gotten a bit of flack from readers about drawing the mysterious underwear on Romney, but not as much as I expected, and I’ll keep drawing him this way at least until he talks about his underwear. Poor Bill Clinton will continue to be drawn in his underwear whether he talks about it or not.