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December 19, 2008

The Archetypal American

I just finished an illustration job for a national magazine in France, on stereotypical views the French have about Americans. It was a nice article; the French like us now. The article explains that the stereotypes aren't true.

The French editors put a lot of thought into exactly what the most, stereotypical American would look like, and they gave me a long list of attributes to illustrate. That's the guy, at the right.

As the French see us, Americans are happy and have poor fashion sense. We have too many American flags, everywhere. We are fat and associated with hamburgers. We wear blue jeans, tennis shoes, listen to ipods and eat unhealthy fast food. Also, it was explained to me, the French understand that cowboy hats are a regional thing, but, as they see it, we all wear cowboy hats.

A few more French stereotypes on the list that didn't fit into the cartoon here: Americans don't care about the environment, all drive big cars, are loud, obnoxious tourists, flaunt their wealth, are lazy, have "no culture," are terrible polluters and are not politically aware.

I think it's good that the French don't think we all carry guns. Maybe they just forgot that one.

Cutbacks at Detroit Newspapers

I asked our cartoonist, Larry Wright for acomment on the big announcement that the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press are cutting back home delivery to three days a week. Larry worked as a cartoonist employee for the Detroit News and now freelances cartoons for them.

Well, Daryl, it doesn't sound as bad as it did when it was floating around the internet prior to the announcements yesterday. They will be quitting home delivery on all but the three best advertising days -- thursday, friday and sunday, but apparently it will be possible to obtain print versions through email on other days. Nothing will happen till March, and I'm told as long as they have editorial and oped pages I'll be able continue drawing.

I'm kind of pleased that I was part of the original team that put the Detroit News online in July of 1995. We were one of the first major newspapers to have a free website produced by newspaper people instead of marketing departments. I'm also very pleased that my newspaper career is finished, instead of just beginning. (My first professional job as editorial cartoonist was in 1960.)

--Larry

Cartoony Politics in Canada

I've never paid much attention to Canadian politics and I've never really understood the cartoons that my colleagues north of the border draw.

But lately, the Canadian political cartoons have taken on a frantic tone and I asked two of my Canadian cartoonist buddies, Thomas "Tab" Boldt, of the Sun Media newspaper chain, and Patrick Corrigan, of The Toronto Star, to explain it all to me in a way that even an American cartoonist can understand.

CAGLE: What's happening with the crazy politics in Canada?

CORRIGAN: Well, Daryl, we don't elect our Prime Ministers up here, our Parliament picks them, and sometimes decides to throw Prime Ministers out with a "no confidence vote," also known as "throwing the bums out."

Our Parliament was just about to toss Prime Minister Harper out, so Harper decided to close Parliament down, as any bona fide third-world dictator would do. Click here to read the rest and comment.

Cagle Facebook Fan Page

Thanks to my fan, Hannah VanNoorloos, for putting up a Facebook fan page for me, and for letting me know that such a thing existed. I'm clueless about these things. I uploaded a batch of cartoons to the page including some that I usually show when I give a talk, that show how I go from sketch, to line art to color on cartoons, called "How to Draw Like Daryl." Come take a look and "be a fan."

Duffy Disses Gannett on TV

In the YouTube video below, Brian Duffy, who was recently laid off from the Des Moines Register, talks about about getting the boot on a local television interview. Thanks to Rob Tornoe for the link.

Brian Duffy Laid off From the Des Moines Register

I was sorry to read that Brian Duffy was laid off today. Brian was famous for being one of only two cartoonists in the nation who's cartoon appeared on the front page of the newspaper every day (the other is Corky Trinidad). Our condolences go out to Brian, who is an excellent cartoonist and we apprciate his contributions to our site. See Brian's cartoon archive here.

I'm sorry to write that George Cratcha, the editor of the Funny Times, the newspaper tabloid monthly, has died. George got to know the editorial cartoonists by coming to the AAEC conventions and kept in touch with scores of cartoonists that he published. The Funny Times runs a wide selection of editorial cartoons every month and is on all the editorial cartoonists e-mail lists for pay per use cartoon sales.

George was the manager (he loved to call himself the mangler) of Funny Times for over 14 years. His emails always had his title as mangler too. The owner of Funny Times is Ray Lesser who started the publication over 20 years ago.

George died unexpectedly in September. He was only 53 years old and everyone close to him is still in shock. George leaves behind his two teenage sons, Andrew, 16 and Tyler, 18. A small notice of George's passing ran in the Funny Times, but I guess we all missed it.

Sandee, the new editor at the Funny Times, is doing George's job for now and she tells us that the whole staff is missing him, saying "George was really gregarious and funny and lived life in a big way. He made working at the publication a lot of fun."

More Cartoonist Layoffs

I haven't updated the cartoonist job loss rolls recently. The most recent full time cartoonists to get pink slips are: Erick Devericks, the talented, young cartoonist for the Seattle Times, who has been a long time contributor to our site (see Erik's cartoons here) and Steve Greenberg, my cartoonist buddy who drew for the Ventura Star and is also a contributor to our site (see Steve's cartoons here). Erick and Steve will continue to freelance cartoons and will continue on our site, although they won't be drawing cartoons as frequently. The third notable cartoonist to lose his job is Lee Judge, the long time cartoonist for the Kansas City Star. Our condolences go out to all three.

... there will be more soon.

Bush Declares Disaster

President Bush declared California a federal disaster area today. My column below berates President Carter for failing to do that in 1977. I haven't had much occasion to write this before, but ... thanks, President Bush.

November 15, 2008

Celebrity Fires Consume the Media

A mandatory evacuation remains in effect for my neighborhood in Montecito after the devastating "Tea Fire" this week. My son and I stayed at my house longer than we should have, filling the cars with keepsakes and watering the place down with a garden hose until the howling winds driving the smoke and embers our way become too much for us.

The fire was churning on all the hills behind my house in wide, glowing swaths - not like the usual thin line of flame we're used to seeing at the leading edge of a fire. Being in the path of the fire, the wind blew the smoke, soot and embers directly at us making it difficult to see more than a few feet at times, and sometimes clearing to reveal a brightening, eerie, orange glow as the fire drew closer. I was sure the fire was only a couple of houses away when we fled. Firemen were directing traffic and calling on people to evacuate; I didn't see them doing any fire fighting when we left. The fire was moving too fast for fire fighting and all they could do was focus on people.

I found my way past police barricades the next morning to see that my house survived, along with all the houses on my street. I live adjacent to Westmont College, which lost a half dozen buildings, and the next street over from mine, Westmont Road, lost a number of homes. The hills all around are barren and charred. The last report I saw estimated 150 homes lost.

I know how my neighbors feel. I was a college student, living with my mother in the same spot, when the 1977 Sycamore Canyon fire destroyed our home and about 250 others. Both fires started in the exact, same location and burned much the same area.

I also get a sense of deja vu from the media coverage of the fire. Reports from around the world have focused on celebrities who live in town. The news leads with quotes from Oprah Winfrey (her house is fine; she was out of town at the time) and actor Rob Lowe (whose house was undamaged). We see lists of celebrities with recognizable names who live in town. Actor Christopher Lloyd was out of town as his caretaker fled the house, which was "valued last year at $11.3 million." Crazy prices of local mansions are listed. We read about how many acres there are on Oprah's estate. Readers love stories about rich, beautiful, powerful celebrities who are made to suffer. Schadenfreude sells. Supermarket tabloids delight us with one celebrity hardship after another.

American celebrity suffering is even more titillating to audiences around the world. I was in London some years ago when there was a fire in Malibu, and I witnessed firsthand the delight screaming from tabloid headlines. I remember watching the puppet show, "Spitting Image," the number-one show on British TV at the time; the audience roared in laughter as puppet caricatures of celebrities ran this way and that, chased by fire. A screaming, flaming Sylvester Stallone puppet yelled, "Yo! Yo! Yo!"

The media's celebrity obsession has little to do with actual events on the ground. Most of the homes that were lost belong to regular folks. I inherited my house from my mother who spent her career working for the local school district. The homes of 14 teachers at Westmont College were lost. I don't know where the celebrities live.

In 1977 the media's trivial obsessions had a tangible effect. President Jimmy Carter refused to declare a federal disaster area, noting that the people here are wealthy and can take care of themselves. A disaster declaration would have meant that my mother and I could have lived in a FEMA trailer for a year, while our house was being re-built.

A few months later there was a similar fire in Malibu; for some reason, the media didn't focus on celebrities that time and Carter declared a disaster area, even though the average income of the Malibu fire victims was higher than the income of victims of my fire. Media coverage made the difference.

President Carter's smarmy, hypocritical response turned me into a Republican.

Click here to COMMENT.

Visit our collection of cartoons about the California Fires.

My House is Fine

My house is fine! All the vegetation on the hillsides is burned off, and I see burned out homes around, but my whole street is good. There was little wind today and the planes were making lots of daring water drops in blue skies. I'll be out for a bit as the manditory evacuation remains in effect and I'll be back to cartooning soon. My thoughts and prayers are with my neighbors who weren't so lucky.

Fire All Around

My son, Michael and I filled up our cars with art from my walls and evacuated from the "Tea Fire" in Santa Barbara a couple of hours ago. We were gathering stuff for too long, and the fire looked like it was only a couple of houses away when we drove off.

Being in the path of the fire, the wind blew the smoke directly at us; it was pretty thick, so I can't be sure what was happening in the neighborhood. I live next to Westmont College, which I see burning on the TV news right now. The fire is huge; it was churning on all the hills behind my house in wide swaths - not like the usual thin line of fire we're used to seeing. An eerie orange glow reflects off of the smoky sky when the wind clears it enough to see the details.

We drove off quickly when the fire got too close and I didn't fill my van. I have a whole lot of art in the house, that I hate to think about right now. Firemen were directing traffic and calling on people to evacuate; I didn't see them doing any fire fighting. I think the fire was just too big for fire fighting and all they could do was focus on people.

I'll head back up to the house in the morning to see if it is still there. My son did a great job of grabbing stuff and watering things down - thanks, Michael.

Wish us luck.

We Finished our Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2009 Edition book!

We delivered the finished book Quark files to the publisher yesterday. The book will be in bookstores before Christmas and is already available for advance sales on Amazon.com.

The book is really about our selections of cartoons for the year 2008, but we have a year of inflation in the title because of competition from another "best of" book that has adds a year to its title. In fact, our book is the "best of" fiscal year October to October because of our deadlines, which are set to get the book on the shelves before Christmas. This year we delivered the book two weeks later than usual, to get the election results in, and we have excellent chapters on Obama's win, Obama making history, and a nice Lincoln Memorial Yahtzee spread.

Here's an advance look at the cover! (Don't be confused by the different, working cover on Amazon.com - they haven't seenthe new one yet.)

Convroversial Eric Allie Cartoon and Twitter

Sometimes the cartoonists cross the line and we catch hell from editors. I saw it coming with this Eric Allie cartoon, and I asked my Twitter followers what they thought; see their comments below. E-mail your rage directly to Eric. I asked Eric to correct the spelling of "Forth" and I still haven't decided whether to send this out to editors with a warning. I really don't like to kill any cartoons, and every cartoon gets printed somewhere. This one made me laugh.

Twitter me at dcagle

susan_s_smith @dcagle I vote for killing it less than 10 seconds ago from web in reply to dcagle

Schwinn @dcagle It's a little, well...icky. I get more of a "finally free to say what is true without being called Anti-American" vibe these days. half a minute ago from web in reply to dcagle

broudy @dcagle Heh. A little risqué for Middle America... and the typo! 7 minutes ago from twhirl in reply to dcagle

smartyp @dcagle i would probably redo it without being so direct.. 10 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

PlaceTrade @dcagle It seems like a dare - a true depiction but I would be surprised if they would actually have the guts to print it - let's see... 11 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

ElwoodJBlues @dcagle I don't think national papers would run that. Rolling Stone, Playboy, online outlets, maybe even the New Yorker, but not the NYT. 12 minutes ago from TwitterBerry in reply to dcagle

Tulsatrends @dcagle it looks like trouble but it is also so true...many members of the press really did love Obama...I would love to see it published 12 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

Yardboy @dcagle Kill it - it is not up to your usually high standard of funny. 13 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

LouisianaDan @dcagle the message is a little obscure for a lot of flack...my opinion. 13 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

duncank @dcagle Cartoon's tacky, juvenile, makes its author look the same. Cardinal sin, tho: even if you agree with its premise, it's not funny. 14 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to dcagle

jennfields @dcagle The words are what will get you in trouble, but the pencil says it all. RT http://tinyurl.com/6nrdn7 16 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

newscoma @dcagle My publishers wouldn't let me run it although I made me laugh. 19 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

vedo @dcagle Funny, but not sure it would make it to print. 19 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

carolh1 @dcagle thumbs down to cartoon 19 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

ninella @dcagle I actually love it! they won't be happy but they know it's the truth :D 19 minutes ago from TwitterFox in reply to dcagle

rghanbari @dcagle Not a cartoon I'd want to explain to my kids (who do try and figure out editorial cartoons), although it is funny. 20 minutes ago from twhirl in reply to dcagle

andrew_dunn @dcagle It's funny, but I wouldn't run it in my newspaper. Just a little too explicit for my tastes. 21 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

katnap @dcagle It would certainly test the editors to see how attentive they are! 21 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

BabyGotMac @dcagle kill it. very sophomoric and beneath you. 24 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to dcagle

anthonyrstevens @dcagle Ooh - funny but *very* edgy. 24 minutes ago from iTweet in reply to dcagle

DawnRiversBaker @dcagle Tacky, tacky. It deserves a swift and merciful death. 24 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

LisaHoffmann @dcagle Funny - but thinking many wouldn't print it for fear of subscriber backlash. 26 minutes ago from twhirl in reply to dcagle

britl @dcagle No offense here. I like it! 27 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

arleigh @dcagle holy sharpened pencil, batman! 27 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

mdsteele47 @dcagle It's edgy, which I like, but I'm not feeling it on a funnyness level. 28 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to dcagle

crimsong19 @dcagle Umm ... I don't know. I got a chuckle out of it, but I don't know how others will react. 28 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

BrianMoran @dcagle Kill it. It's distasteful, disrespectful...and honestly, not that funny. 29 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

eljefetwisted @dcagle the problem is that the alternative meaning of 'wood' isn't strong enough, don't understand spelling it "forth" either 29 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

joshuanshear @dcagle my rule is, if i think it would cause an uncomfortable conversation between me and someone else's 8 year old, i wouldn't run it 30 minutes ago from TwitterFox in reply to dcagle

pnegoro @dcagle cartoon is funny and you are right...invites trouble! If you don't want to get in trouble...kill it. 30 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to dcagle

gregflynn @dcagle I need to buy a vowel for that one. Too much inside newsroom, not enough editorial 30 minutes ago from mobile web in reply to dcagle

Fritinancy @dcagle Um... "fourth." (And I'd listen to that inner critic of yours.) 31 minutes ago from twhirl in reply to dcagle

tyronem @dcagle some might see it as crass...prudes and such. 31 minutes ago from TwitterFox in reply to dcagle

RedPenOfDoom @dcagle I think I'd avoid it, especially since "Fourth" is misspelled. 33 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

judywriter @dcagle Hate to admit it, but I'm not sure I get it. 33 minutes ago from TweetDeck in reply to dcagle

Michael_Lehman @dcagle - It's over the top for me... wouldn't print it if I were you 34 minutes ago from web in reply to dcage

aosleather @dcagle Trouble indeed, lol, but so very funny! 35 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

RoyalSapien @dcagle seems awfully risky for something that didn't make me laugh. no offense meant. 35 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

crossstitcher @dcagle it may be trouble, but it is also funny ;) 35 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

ABartelby @dcagle [chuckles] I'd release it because I think it's fabulous. But my sense of humor is so NOT that of your average newspaper reader. 36 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

jaredwsmith @dcagle While it is a hilarious cartoon, I don't think the papers would pick it up much :) 37 minutes ago from web in reply to dcagle

I am still catching up after my trip to the University of Virginia. I should thank the lovely people at the Center for Politics and the Miller Center at UVA for their hospitality. I had a great time giving the speech, the audio-visual equipment was wonderful and the college was quite collegial. I also enjoyed giving a lecture to politics professor Paul Freedman's class. Slowpoke cartoonist Jen Sorensen came in for my talk and it was nice catching up with her. I drew a lot of Obama cartoons in a lot of books.

When I got back I was sorry to read that Dave Astor, the reporter for Editor & Publisher who covers syndicated columnists and cartoonists, was laid off from the magazine in a cost cutting move. When there is too much bad news for newspapers, I guess the answer is to kill the messenger. I wish Dave all the best wherever he goes next. His fine reporting will be missed.

The last report I read on my Australian cartoonist buddy, Bill Leak, is good! The Australian newspaper reports that Bill is in stable condition, he's improving well and he's slated to be taken out of intensive care tomorrow (Sunday). Bill is reported to be talkative and lucid (they must not have any beer in intensive care).

Right now I'm working on the Best Political Cartoons of the Year book and I'm buried under a ton of work with the deadline approaching fast. Arrrgh!

October 20, 2008

Bill Leak in Serious Condition

I was troubled to learn that my good buddy, Bill Leak, was seriously injured in a fall from a balcony. Bill is the cartoonist for the Australian newspaper in Sydney. Read the latest about his fall and recovery here. Bill has had two brain surgeries and is listed in "serious condition."

Bill and I spent a couple of wild weeks together when we were both on a jury for the Aydin Dogan/Hurriyet cartoon contest in Turkey about nine years ago. He is a great guy and star of the Australian cartoonists, having won very major Australian cartooning award multiple times. See Bill's cartoon archive here.

October 15, 2008

Biden on Cagle

CBS News quotes Joe Biden talking about my last cartoon today:

(LANCASTER, OHIO) - Joe Biden says an editorial cartoon he saw in a local newspaper best summarized his feelings about the McCain campaign's negative attacks on Barack Obama.

The cartoon, drawn by Daryl Cagle, appeared in the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette today.

"There's a cartoon, I don't know if you guys saw this," said Biden at a rally at Ohio University, "It's John McCain and Sarah Palin standing on the corner of a building that has on the bottom corner written 'BANK.' And it has a group of people, businessmen dressed in suits standing on the ledge, some of them jumping off into the street. And it has Sarah Palin saying to John McCain, "You know, Barack Obama pals around with terrorists, you know?"

"I think it best captures anything I have seen," declared Biden.

"While the economy is going to hell in a handbasket, while people are losing their jobs, while things are going under, they're running the most scurrilous campaign in modern history trying to tie a decent honorable man raised by his grandparents and his mother who worked his way up -- who fought in a way that few people have to fight to make something of himself."

I'm sorry to report that Chip Bok, a long time cartoonist on our site, is taking a buyout from his newspaper, The Akron Beacon Journal, which is undergoing the severe cutbacks that are common among newspapers now. Chip is a long time contributor to our site; he will continue to draw his cartoons for syndication only and will continue to appear here. Click to see an archive of Chip's work.

Another cartoonist losing his job is Jim Lange of the Oklahoman. Jim's work has appeared in the Oklahoma City newspaper since he joined the paper in 1950. E&P quote's Jim's wife saying, "He liked what he did and didn't really want to retire."

Caglepost, OOPS! Now Back

We had some technical problems with Caglepost.com and had to move the site to new servers. It is great to have more traffic and more interest in editorial cartoons with the election and stock market crash, but the audience was more of a burden than our servers could bear.

The Caglepost.com site was down for a day late Friday and Saturday as we stumbled through an inelegant move to new servers. Caglepost.com and our syndicate sites at Caglecartoons.com and Poltiicalcartoons.com are now all up and running faster than ever, on five servers rather than two. We'll have the newsletter going out regularly later today or tomorrow.

Steve Sack's Haunted House is the most popular thing we've ever had on our site. We first put it up back in 2000 and it crashed our servers as users racked up page views hopping from room to room in the spooky house. Click on the front door to start your quest.

These day's we're used to loud, Flash animations and You Tube on the web; this eight year old, quiet, multipage animated gif adventure seems a bit quaint, but it is still wonderful.

And Steve Sack is a wonderful cartoonist. He draws for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in a painterly, colorful style that is like no other cartoonist. I think of Steve as a "stealth" cartoonist, because his drawing style is sweet, young and charming; but the sweet look is deceptive, Steve is actually one of the harshest cartoonists, skewering his political targets with little mercy. Click here to take a look at Steve's cartoon archive.

The daily editorial cartoonist for MSNBC.com, Daryl Cagle, will discuss with words and artwork the sometimes seemingly irreverent and provocative role of editorial cartoonists in capturing and dissecting issues and events in politics. Mr. Cagle's recently published Big Book of Campaign 2008 Cartoons will be available for sale at the event and he will sign books following his presentation. The event is free and open to the public, but advance registration is required.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Drawing Politics is part of the University of Virginia Center for Politics National Symposium Series of 2008, titled Not Taboo at Our Table! Race, Religion and Gender in American Politics. The Center for Politics launched the National Symposium Series in 1999 to explore current and relevant issues in American politics. For questions, contact Megan Davis at megandavis@virginia.edu or 434-243-3539.

This event is co-sponsored by the University of Virginia Center for Politics and the University of Virginia Miller Center of Public Affairs.

Our big collection of cartoons covering the presidential campaign is out in bookstores a month before election day!

We've got the best of the campaign from start to almost-finish, with Obama, McCain, Sarah Palin, the convention, Hillary Clinton and all those wonderful memories, like 3:00am phone calls, super-delegates and crazy preachers! We even have a chapter on John Edwards' affair!

This book is a must have for every political wonk! And you must have it now, while we're still obsessed with the campaign!

Click here to order The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons, from Amazon.com at a nice discount

I have to thank our editor, Laura Norman, at Que Publishing, division of Pearson, for being so fast getting the book published and shipped to stores. We closed the book after we had a whole lot of cartoons for a chapter on Sarah Pain and her pregnant daughter, and we have the book in stores a month later, which is amazing for book distribution. Still, everyone is better off ordering from Amazon.com, where it is cheaper. You can even search inside the book on Amazon.com, which is pretty cool.

Right now we're busy working on our regular, annual Best Political Cartoons of the Year book, which is due at the printer on the day after election day, and should be in stores the first week of December. These deadlines are why I'm not drawing as many cartoons as I should be right now. Sorry about that.

I'm sorry to write that two of my favorite political cartoonists have retired from our tiny profession. Sandy Huffaker is one my cartoon heroes. When I was in college I was a big fan of his cartoons that were running every week in Time Magazine. Sandy worked as a regular editorial cartoonist for a newspaper when he was young, then spent his career as a cartoon illustrator. Now he spends most of his time at his ranch in Virginia doing paintings. He had been drawing editorial cartoons regularly for our syndicate for the past few years. Sandy called me a couple of months ago to say he was tired of the daily editorial cartooning grind. He is an Obama supporter, he thinks Obama will win and prospect of losing President Bush makes him lose his anger and passion. I encouraged Sandy to draw whenever the inspiration hits him, and last week he sent us this portrait of McCain and baby Palin (right). If any of our readers are Huffaker fans, as I am, and are sorry to see him go, send Sandy an e-mail and tell him he is missed! The other cartoonist we're losing is M.e. Cohen, a freelancer with a wild style from New Jersey. M.e. is retiring from editorial cartooning because of a detached retina. He plans to keep doing illustrations, but the daily, freelance political cartoons were just too much. I'm also hopeful that M.e. will come back; it is tragic to see him leave us. See more cartoons by M.e. here. That is one of his samples below. Click here to send M.e. an e-mail and let him know he is also missed.

The two artists organizations I'm active in, the National Cartoonists Society and the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, and dozens of other trade organizations, are urging their members to write to their congressmen at this hour, because there is a risk that the House will pass the Senate version of the bill, again without debate and without a vote, by adding it to a larger budget or bailout bill at the end of the current session, in the next few hours.

The Orphan Works bill is being pushed by Google, which plans to catalogue millions of images and doesn't want to deal with the rights of copyright holders. The bill will make it easy for anyone to reprint copyrighted work, without the permission of the copyright holder, and artists will find that it is difficult or impossible to control where their work is reprinted. The bill also imposes new costs and procedures on artists, all to benefit Google.

I'd like to ask everyone who reads my blog, or subscribes to my newsletter, to do the cartoonists a favor by emailing their congressman and asking him or her to oppose the Orphan Works Bill now, by visiting this web site, which helps you to send an automatic email to your congressman. It is quick and easy to send this email, and it would be much appreciated by the desperate cartoonists.

To learn more about the Orphan Works Bill, visit here.

I've never asked my readers for help before. I'd really appreciate your help now.

Many thanks,
Daryl

One of our good foreign customers wrote to me, and to a batch of top international cartoonists asking them what they thought the future of editorial cartooning would be. Here is my response:

I disagree with most of my cartoonist colleagues on this - most cartoonists view the future creatively, arguing that there will be more animation in cartoons and more cartoons created to take advantage of the interactivity of the internet. I disagree, because I also run a syndicate and I see no trend for web customers to be willing to pay for interactive or animated cartoons. This is just cartoonists describing what they hope will happen.

The big change I see happening is the decline of big newspapers, and an increase in small clients, free weekly newspapers and non-traditional clients who would not buy cartoons before, because the process was too difficult or expensive. As the big publishers die off and cut back, we pick up new small web sites, newsletters, weeklies and foreign publications, which wouldn't have found us before, if not for the internet.

The future is not a change in the nature of cartoons, which remain popular in their current, static form, it is a change in distribution of cartoons to more clients, smaller clients, and more obscure clients in more faraway places, as publications become smaller and more numerous, as more people become easier to reach and as more people around the world have interests in the same issues.

You say you update the cartoons "every day" but I see lots of the same cartoons are up now that were there yesterday. What's up with that?

The fact that we update the cartoons everyday doesn't mean that each cartoonist draws a new cartoon every day. Most editorial cartoonists draw between three and five cartoons per week, some draw once a week. Some draw six times a week. Some draw local cartoons some days, that they don't send to us. Some take vacations. On the busiest days of the week we update the site with 100 new cartoons per day ­ there are 175 cartoonist slots on the site.

Why can't you set up your site so that I don't have to look at those same cartoons that I saw yesterday? I want to see only the new cartoons.

Look at our RSS feeds which feature only the newly updated cartoons at the top of each page.

Where are your RSS feeds?

Go to our daily updating cartoons pages and click on the orange button to the left of any cartoonist's name, or scroll to the bottom to click on the RSS feeds for batches of artists. We can't include all of the cartoons in one RSS feed because the pages are too long with 100 new cartoons on busy days.

Why don't you make the cartoons in your RSS feeds full sized? I have to click on each cartoon to be able to read it.

That's so that you have to look at an ad and we don't go broke.

I have a great idea for a cartoon! Want to hear it?

No.

I have lots of great ideas for cartoons, but I can't draw. Can you tell me which editorial cartoonist I should contact to draw my cartoons?

I don't know any editorial cartoonists who work with gag writers.

I would like to have a cartoon logo drawn for my business and I like your style. Could you do that for me? I can't afford to pay any more than $50.

No.

I have to write a paper about an editorial cartoon and I picked yours. Can you tell me what it means? Please tell me right away because my paper is due tomorrow.

Sorry, I get too many requests like this. I have to let the cartoons speak for themselves. Besides, you're supposed to be following the news and the meaning of the cartoon should be obvious to you ­ if it is not, then it wasn't a good cartoon.

Would you like to: Enlarge your penis? Get cheap drugs? Refinance? Help us move millions of dollars from a foreign dignitary's bank account?

No. No. No. No.

May I run your cartoon in my blog?

If you are on Myspace.com, yes, go to any cartoon on caglepost.com's cartoon ticker page, click on the thumbnail image for any cartoon, then click on the Myspace.com link to put the cartoon on Myspace.com. If you are not on Myspace.com, you can post any of our caglecartoons.com cartoons on your blog for a nominal fee, just visit Politicalcartoons.com. We may do a Facebook application in the future.

May I use your cartoon for my class at school?

Yes. In fact, "in-classroom" use is one of the "Fair Use" exceptions to the copyright law. You can use any copyrighted materials you want in the classroom without asking.

May I post your cartoon on my high school class web site? Or in my school newspaper? Or on posters at school?

No, unless you want to pay the nominal fee on politicalcartoons.com ($3 for school use). These school uses are not "in-classroom."

Why don't you let us use your cartoons for free in schools?

We tried that, but we found that letting people download free, high-resolution cartoons on Politicalcartoons.com was a bandwidth hole. Suddenly everybody was saying they wanted cartoons for schools and our bandwidth went through the roof. When we put a $3 fee up for schools the bandwidth bleeding stopped.

I have to write a paper on the career I want to go into and I chose cartooning. Please tell me:
1) How much money do you make?
2) How much education was required for you to get your job?
3) How much time does it take you to draw a cartoon?
4) How did you get into this business?

1) Cartoonists make anything between $0 per year and $50,000,000 per year ­ just like actors, musicians and basketball players. And, like actors, musicians and basketball players, most cartoonists make closer to $0 than $50,000,000.

2) No education is required, only quality of work and some business acumen ­ but that is true of most careers. Education is very important and it is unusual for anyone to be successful without a good education.

3) All my life. Some cartoonists brag about drawing quickly; I think this diminishes the value of their work in the eyes of their editors and readers. Good cartoonists think about their work all the time and spend a lit of time working to improve.

4) I started as a general illustrator, and then worked as a cartoon illustrator, then I worked as a toy inventor, I did a syndicated cartoon, then editorial cartoons. I drew other people's characters in other people's styles, working on projects for others before my career got to the point that I could draw as I wanted.

Why don't you have any conservative cartoonists on your site?

We have a lot, but conservatives, like you conservatives notice the cartoons you disagree with more than the others. It is an optical illusion for you.

When are you going to stop bashing President Bush?

Be patient. It won't be long.

I can't cancel my newsletter subscription! What do I do to make it stop?

Most people who can't cancel are replying to the email with a note asking to cancel ­ we don't get these replies. To cancel you have to click on the unsubscribe link in the newsletter, or go to our newsletter subscriptions page and follow the instructions. Another problem is with people who have the newsletter forwarded from another email address ­ there is no way for us to know that, and clicking on the unsubscribe link won't make any change to a different email address. If you are flummoxed, email us.

I tried to subscribe to your newsletters, but I don't get anything! What's wrong?

You probably have an email account with a company like Earthlink, which does "whitelisting" ­ that is, these providers send an email reply to us, asking us to confirm that we are a real person who wants to send an email. This is a method of preventing spam. We don't respond to the "whitelisting" replies. Your only solution is to try subscribing from another free email service, like Yahoo, Google or Hotmail, which doesn't do "whitelisting."

You might have a spam filter - take a look at your blocked emails and approve us as a sender.

I was getting your newsletters, but they suddenly stopped. What's wrong?

If we get the email bounced back from your email address a couple of times, your subscription is automatically cancelled. You may have had technical problems with your email, or you may have had a full mailbox. You need to go to our newsletter subscription page and resubscribe.

Another problem is spam filters. You might have a new spam filter, or a new setting on your spam filter - take a look at your blocked emails and approve us as a sender.

I was getting your newsletters fine for a while, and now I don't see the images in the newsletter ­ they are all broken image links? What's wrong?

Some email services, like Hotmail, will occasionally ask you to approve images from senders and will block the images in an email from displaying until you approve the images from us, or any other sender. This is to prevent users from accidentally seeing pornography in a spam email. Just approve us for image display in your email program.

I want you to syndicate my cartoons. Will you look at my samples?

No, sorry. We get too many requests from aspiring cartoonists and just don't have the resources to deal with unsolicited submissions. Also, we have had bad experiences with angry amateur cartoonists who won't take "no" for an answer and now we are skittish.

Your site is slow!

No it's not! The problem is on your end, or in between you and our server ­ Microsoft serves the Cagle.MSNBC.com site ­ it is like getting electricity from the utility. We can blast as much bandwidth as all of MSNBC.com. Our cartoons are bandwidth heavy compared to other sites that are mostly text, so our pages will naturally take longer to load.

But, if you're complaining about Polticalcartoons.com or Caglepost.com, we serve those sites outside of MSNBC.com, and yes, sometimes we have too much traffic. We're upgrading from two servers to four and we should be speedy all the time with our new load balancing. We're working on it and we apologize for any hassles.

I get occasional requests from readers to explain the nuts and bolts of how I draw my cartoons, and to show my rough sketches. Here are three examples.

First I do a rough sketch in hard pencil on 11" by 17" paper. I like the extra hard pencils because they encourge me not to spend too much time on the rough - the hard pencil keeps me from rendering, which I tend to want to do. If I don't like how a sketch is going, I'll throw it out and start a new one, rather than trying to repair the sketch. These are pretty fast.

Then I draw the finished line art by tracing over the rough. I use Duralene paper, which is a plastic drafting vellum that has a way of gripping the pencil that I find pleasing. I do my finished line art with either a hard #5 pencil if I'm feeling too loose, or a yellow #2 office pencil if I'm feeling too stiff.

Most newspapers run the black and white artwork. I usually don't like the look of tone in my cartoons, so I'll do cross hatching and blacks to give the lines some substance on the page. This drawing is the same 11" by 17" size.

Here's another rough. It is the same thing, hard pencil on tabloid size paper.

Then I trace it in pencil on drafting vellum, adding cross hatching tones and blacks.

And I'll usually color the cartoon in Photoshop, depending on how much time I have. Only a few newspapers run color on their Op-Ed pages, but color is nice on the web site.

Here's another one. I'm including this one because the rough is a little messier.

This one is about as complex as I like to get in a cartoon. I think cartoons are stronger with only one or two big characters filling the space. Cartoons are better with fewer words too, and this cartoon is a little weak, but it made a point that I haven't seen made in other cartoons so I went with it. Here it is below, in pencil on the drafting vellum, with some hatching for tone to give it some substance on the page, as most readers will see it.

And here it is with some quick Photoshop color.

I usually try to use light, pastel colors, because that is what editors ask for. The light pastels look best in lousy newspaper printing where colors tend to muddy up and darken. Earth tones are always a gamble in newspapers; there is no way of knowing if a brown will lean to red or to blue. Unfortunately, the light, pastel, compromise newspaper colors tend to look a bit unsophiscated on the web - I regret that, but I don't have a good solution for it.

My buddy, Jonathan "Zapiro" Shapiro is having a bit of a cartoon controversy down in South Africa with the Zuma rape cartoon (right). Here are some excerpts from a Los Angeles Times article about the cartoon:

The cartoon shows Zuma preparing to rape the justice system, portrayed as a blindfolded woman pinned down by his political allies in the ANC, the Communist Party, unions and the ANC Youth League.

Published in the Sunday Times of Johannesburg, the cartoon lampoons a campaign by Zuma's supporters to throw out charges of corruption, fraud and racketeering that he faces so he can seek South Africa's presidency. In a country with one of the world's highest rates of rape -- and one deeply divided between supporters and opponents of Zuma, who was acquitted of rape charges in 2006 -- the drawing has been explosive.

The nation's high court is due to rule today on Zuma's bid to have the charges against him dismissed ...

As he has done since the 2006 rape trial, Zapiro drew Zuma as having a shower sprouting from his head -- a reference to the party leader's testimony that to avoid AIDS he showered after having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman. Zuma has thrice sued the cartoonist for libel. Two suits were withdrawn; the third is pending.

Quotes from Jonathan:

The central message is that Jacob Zuma is about to violate and rape the justice system with the help of his political allies. Justice is an allegorical figure but she does have a certain amount of humanity in the way I've drawn her, which added to the shock value. It's [Zuma's] own rape trial, for which he was acquitted, that makes it more explosive.

It wasn't my being worried about Zuma's rape trial that made me think twice, three times, four times, five times before doing this drawing. It was women's feelings I was more worried about. I sent the cartoon around to some very trusted female friends. The initial shock at seeing the drawing almost made people draw breath. You gasp when you see it. But within a brief amount of time they considered the drawing and said it's valid both in terms of what it's saying about Zuma's violation of our justice system and our constitutional tenets but also in terms of the very violent and patriarchal society that we have ...

There were plenty of people who were offended by it, but what I found fascinating is that on some of the talk shows where I have taken some flak, the proportion of flak-givers is much higher from men than women. There was one call that came from a gang-rape victim, who said that she was shocked by it and felt very uncomfortable, but then she proceeded to support it.

Here, the editor of the Hattiesburg American explains their newspaper's decision to run my "mean spirited" Palin cartoon (even though the cartoon is just awful) in the face of angry reader reaction.

I'm constantly being asked why there are so few women that are editorial cartoonists. I don't have a good answer for that. One of the few female cartoonists on our site, altie cartoonist Jen Sorensen, wrote an excellent column on the topic for Campus Progress and has graciously allowed us to reprint it here.

Wanted: Female Cartoonist
By Jen Sorensen

Why are there so few female political cartoonists? I've been asked that question many times over the years. It's OK, I don't mind. We're something of a rare breed. Exact statistics are difficult to find-even the national group Association of American Editorial Cartoonists can only estimate the national number of political cartoonists, let alone break them down by gender, ethnicity, or class. But to give you a rough idea, of the association's 185 current regular members, only 15 are women. I'm one of them.

My short (and admittedly Zen-like) explanation is that there are so few female political cartoonists largely because there are so few female political cartoonists. Drawing cartoons and comics has traditionally been a guy thing-a somewhat nerdy guy thing, but a guy thing nonetheless. Without role models who look like you, or friends with similar interests, any activity becomes less inviting. It might not even cross your mind as a possibility.

But when did political cartooning first become the province of dudes? Patriot dude Ben Franklin is widely credited with the first American political cartoon: The famous "Join or Die" drawing of the chopped-up snake representing the 13 original colonies. In the 1870s, a dude named Thomas Nast became the first major editorial page cartoonist, followed by 20th-century dudely doodlers such as Bill Mauldin and Herbert "Herblock" Block. In 1915, Edwina Dumm became the first American non-dude to work full-time as an editorial cartoonist, a remarkable feat considering women didn't win the right to vote until 1920. Given that women were deemed irrational, not expected to hold intellectual jobs, and certainly not supposed to have political opinions, the skewed demographics of the profession don't seem all that mysterious.

A more contemporary problem comes in the form of profitable and supposedly progressive web publications like The Huffington Post that make it a policy not to pay for content. This business model presumes contributors have other sources of income; paying in "exposure" instead. If this setup becomes the industry standard, those without ample resources, especially women and minorities, will simply not be able to afford to survive as political cartoonists.

The challenges faced by female cartoonists parallel those of female op-ed writers. Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus recently suggested that the dearth of female op-ed writers in newspapers is largely due to the imposition of "our own glass ceiling" as opposed to editors' sexism. Women need to show more chutzpah, she argues. We must close the "cockiness gap" between ourselves and the great hordes of brashly bloviating males.

As Katha Pollitt has rightly noted, however, there's an abundance of highly qualified and willing female writers whose numbers are not reflected on the commentary pages of major newspapers. The op-ed pages of the Post feature two women and 23 men, despite the fact that plenty of women write about politics and current events.

Clearly, forces beyond "our own glass ceilings" are at work. In the case of political cartoonists, however, there aren't quite so many women waiting in the wings.

This is not to cut Marcus any slack. Her argument fails to address the often subtle ways in which gender inequality works. If there is a cockiness gap, it might have something to do with ye olde double standard that ambitious women are perceived as you-know-whats. To be fair, Marcus does facetiously refer to "a certain unbecoming arrogance" required of outspoken women, but she paradoxically blames women for not displaying it.

Media coverage of cartoonists works the same way. The Columbia Journalism Review recently interviewed political cartoonists and editors about their opinion of the controversial New Yorker cover; they spoke with nine men and zero women.

So how did I buck the trend? It's hard to say. I do know I recognized the unfairness of gender roles from a very early age, even though nobody slipped a copy of The Feminine Mystique into my playpen. My parents did indulge my tomboyish tendencies, though, buying me reams of comics and copies of MAD Magazine. As teachers, they also valued education and creativity, and were fully supportive of my round-the-clock cartooning habit. There wasn't much else to do where we lived; as far as I was concerned, drawing comics was how I entertained myself.

While in college in the mid-1990s, I was invited to submit to an all-female comic anthology called Action Girl. This was my professional debut. Thanks in part to Action Girl, I was motivated to publish my own comic book after graduating. The result: Slowpoke Comix #1, a collection of short stories that were precursors to my weekly strip. One marked the debut of my character Drooly Julie, a randy femme with a penchant for stubbly metalheads. It was only after the 2000 election that my work took a sharp political turn, as did that of many other cartoonists. As I crossed this threshold, I wasn't thinking much about breaking gender barriers. I was just freaked out by the country's sudden takeover by wackadoos.

Over the years, my work appeared in more and more places, often alternative newsweeklies. These papers tended to be more progressive-minded than mainstream media, and I never got the sense that I was going up against a wall of chauvinism. I do get the sense, however, that some progressive publications don't try as hard as they could to diversify their mastheads. As Women In Media and News founder Jennifer Pozner puts it, one of the biggest obstacles appears to be time: It can take longer and require more effort to look beyond the familiar or entrenched stables of male cartoonists and editorial writers.

Despite these occasional frustrations, the past decade suggests that the situation is improving. If my favorite comic convention, the Small Press Expo in Maryland, is any indication, there are more women than ever on both sides of the exhibitor tables. To invoke the flip side of my Zen koan: The more female cartoonists there are, the more there will be.

Jen Sorensen draws Slowpoke Comics. She recently released Slowpoke: One Nation, Oh My God! It is great! Click here to buy it. C'mon.

We just added three new cartoonists to the site. Actually, they are three old cartoonists who are coming back after some time away.

The first is Brian Duffy of the Des Moines Register. Brian is one of only two cartoonists whose color cartoons appear every day on the front page of a large metropolitcan daily newspaper (the other is Corky Trinidad of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin). Welcome back, Brian! Click to see more of Brian's work.

Next is Jonathan Shapiro, the mega award-winning cartoonist from South Africa who draws under the name "Zapiro." Jonathan was the winner of the Cartoonists Rights Network's courage in Editorial Cartoonists Award for drawing in the face of threats to his safety. Click to see more of Zapiro's work.

And next is Sepideh Amjarooz, a rare woman editorial cartoonist from Iran (where our web site is blocked by the government). Sepideh has a charming style which is very different that what our Western eyes expect. She didn't update her cartoons for a while, and we dropped her slot, then she wrote to say, "put me back up!" and that's what we're doing. Click to see more of Sepideh's work.

September 7, 2008
Boulder Daily Camera Editor Defends My Palin Cartoon

It looks like I'm not the only one getting lots of angry reader response to my Palin cartoon. Here is a column by the Boulder Daily Camera Editorial Page Editor, Erika Stutzman, defending my Palin cartoon

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September 7, 2008
The Fickle Media is Always the Same

The fickle media is always the same - no one has ever noticed that, so I thought I would demonstrate. Here's my latest cartoon, showing the fickle media "changing" from their fixation on Obama to Sarah Palin.

But it wasn't long ago when we started the primary season, and the media went from blanket coverage of the Iowa Caucuses to the New Hampshire Primary.

This was quite a popular cartoon, but it wasn't good for very long. Once the New Hampshire pirmary was over, I needed a new one.

Hey, every state is cute, and nobody notices that the fickle media is always the same. Remember when that nutty pedophile in Thailand confessed to the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey, and the media all chased after him?

Then there was the time that the heat was on Karl Rove over his role in outing Valerie Plame, and Rove was saved from media attention by President Bush announcing a Supreme Court nominee, and then everyone lost interest in Rove. Yes, the same fickle media.

Now, remember way back to the last presidential primaries, when Howard Dean started losing, and John Kerry started winning ...



Then there was the end of the Bill Clinton administration, when Bill stepped out of the White House, Hillary stepped into the Senate.


And, two years before that, here in California, the fickle media dogged Senator Barbara Boxer, as she was running for re-election, avoiding questions about Monica Lewinski.

The fickle media never changes over the years - but they sure are easy to draw.

September 5 , 2008
My Art for the First Debate

The first presidential debate is going to be held at the University of Mississippi, which hired me to do an illustration for the event - here it is on their current "Ole Miss" magazine cover. They will be using it for other stuff associated with the debate too, probably the programs or a poster or something. It would be fun if they would blow it up big as a backdrop (somehow I doubt that they'll do that, but thanks, Ole Miss!)

My book publisher (Que/Pearson Education) liked it too, and it will also be the cover of our upcoming BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Cartoons, which is slated to be in stores in a month. Today, my loyal assistant, Stacey, and I did an urgent, last minute edit to fit more Palin cartoons into the book.

Republicans operatives are screaming that Sarah Palin's family is off limits and the media should lay off; even Barack Obama agrees. What they don't seem to realize is that by saying that, they are only encouraging the cartoonists to draw more. We just put up a Palin's pregnant daughter collection; we'll keep updating it as new cartoons flood in. Here are some of my favorites, by Peter Nicholson, Nate Beeler, Mr. Fish and Pat Bagley.

Borgman Retiring

The editorial cartoonist community is buzzing with the news that Jim Borgman will be retiring from editorial cartooning at the end of the month. Borgman draws the comic strip "Zits" with Jerry Scott; it looks like a lot of work to hold down both jobs, so the decision doesn't seem surprising. Borgman took a buyout from the shrinking Enquirer and will draw a new, local weekly cartoon for the newspaper as a freelancer.

We have comments in the blog now and quite a spirited discussion on my pregnant Bristol Palin cartoon below. It is fascinating to see the outrage from the conservatives over my choice to depict the pregnant teen in a cartoon. I would remind the righties that it was Sarah Palin who chose to put her family in front of the camera and who has been so vocal in her opposition to birth control and sex education in schools; the abstinence-only sex education that she supports doesn't work, and the pregnant teenage daughter she chose to have stand behind her on stage illustrates the point.

SARAH PALIN'S PREGNANT DAUGHTER

I've been getting an interesting response from editors to my cartoon that features Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter. Conservative editors write to me in disgust, saying that I was "over the line" by drawing the girl; liberal editors are writing to me to say "right on!" and "finally! Great cartoon!"

I can't remember getting a response like this from editors before, so I thought I would post the cartoon here for comment. Click here to comment on the cartoon.

Of-course, the cartoon isn't about the daughter, it is about the Palin's opposition to birth control and sex education in schools, and her "abstinence only" stance. Social conservatives like to make the point that "abstinence" as birth control "always works," but realists can see that "abstinence-only" sex education works only as well as it did with Palin's daughter.

Comment on the Palin/sex education cartoon.

NEW CAGLE CARTOONIST!

I'm pleased to announce that we have added a new cartoonist to our newspaper syndication package, David Fitzsimmons of the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. I've been a fan of David's work for a long time on our site. He draws the gag cartoons that editors prefer (David is a stand-up comedian) and his cartoons have a real, toothy bite! Some samples are below. See David's archive on our site here.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE May through August 2008, CAGLE WEB LOG

Artwork © each artist. The Professional Cartoonists Index is ©Daryl Cagle. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.