Industry news for the professional cartoonist
Bruce MacKinnon’s cartoon would be funny if the guy in it were some obscure goofball prattling away about his own personal, paranoid fantasies in the corner of a neighborhood tavern at three in the afternoon. It’s not nearly so funny when the goofball is a former President of the United States with a significant following…
Aislin lays out the threat Tik Tok poses: As a Chinese-owned company, there’s a strong suspicion that the Chinese government could tap into user accounts. It’s a pretty wide reach, according to Statista, though I note their chart of the top audiences doesn’t include Aislin’s native Canada. (8.3 million, out of a total population of…
We’ll give dissident cartoonist Badiucao the lead off on this discussion of the Chinese balloon, in part because he’s earned it, and in part because his use of Winnie the Pooh and a formidable American eagle presaged the outcome of this foolishness. (h/t to Cathy Wilcox) We can forgive him the Disney red shirt, while,…
I don’t know how things are working in Ireland, but the couple in this Graeme Keyes cartoon would have to die quickly if they were Americans. The soaring prices of housing have, indeed, barred many people from homeownership, though much of it is the massive chunk of change required for a down payment. But I’d…
Mike Luckovich becomes one of the first cartoonists to add Mike Pence to the list of administration officials who have purloined classified documents. I use the word “purloined” because it has something of a vague definition. It still means to steal, but is more along the lines of “pilfer” and thus can fall more in…
Michael de Adder poses a question for which there is no answer because the question itself makes no sense, but he’s saved credibility by having put the proposal in the mouth of the elephant. There is a current argument over the Biden administration’s refusal to compromise on whether to raise the debt ceiling, but we…
The Barn (Creators) gets today’s Excellent Timing Award for a piece done, no doubt, weeks in advance but that happened to hit just as a substantial portion of the country fell into a Frosty Bombalooza or whatever they’re calling it these days. We used to call them “cold snaps” but perhaps we were being too…
Jeff Koterba shows that less is more with a simple response to Brittney Griner’s release. The ball/ball-and-chain transposition is solid without being excessively clever and he doesn’t presume the result of the throw. More important, he doesn’t argue over whether half a loaf is, indeed, better than none, but celebrates an American homecoming. Granted, it’s…
One of my first memes, from back when a man with a hammer declared “Mission Accomplished” before several thousand American kids, and several hundred thousand Iraqis, died to prove him wrong. This morning, we are beleaguered with cartoons featuring bloody hammers, and I’d have had a tough time sorting through them if more of them…
We’ll start the day with a little crossover from the funny pages, because Snuffy Smith (KFS) sets the tone for a discussion of spin, lies and foolish belief, and I like Snuffy’s contention that it’s an issue of good judgement. There is genuine dishonesty, of course, but there is also genuine stupidity and genuine self-deception,…
Dr. MacLeod comments on the latest round of executions and self-immolation from Gannett, and I promise not to go into yet another rant about how Wall Street owners don’t care about the product, only about the profits, not because it isn’t central to the problem but because I’ve said it so often that it has…
The Harvey Awards, which honors exemplary comic book work, will be adding members to its Hall of Fame at New York Comic Con in October. The new inductees are Neil Gaiman, whose best-selling series The Sandman was recently adapted for Netflix, the underground cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, and Roy Thomas, a prolific writer and editor for…
As is often said here, the “bland restatement” technique of cartoons like This Modern World is often a problem, since the absurd things the characters say are not far off from things actually being said. That’s true of this piece, but the hyperbole of Trump being in possession of an actual nuclear weapon, rather than…
The Comics Journal released its obituary of Paul Coker, Jr. today. Comics historian and Cartoon Art Museum curator Andrew Farago does a great job by Coker. This has perhaps the best accounting of Paul’s early career at Hallmark Cards. One of his first clients, the Kansas City-based Hallmark, hired him as a staff designer in…
JD Crowe of the Alabama Media Group took First Place in the 2022 Editorial Cartooning category of The Green Eyeshade Awards handed out by the Southern Chapter of the SPJ. The award is based on: Outstanding visual commentary on news or issues. Judging emphasis will be on originality and effectiveness of message….