Jonesy offers this grim bit of humor and I chuckled and then I didn’t. We’ve had a lot of jokes about Russians falling out of windows, and a former Olympic champion and member of the Duma suffered the same fate last week. The reason I quit laughing is that Russians aren’t idiots and I’m sure […]
I’m pretty well done with talking about the State of the Union Address, and Horsey sums it up fairly well. Commentators have referred to it as more of a campaign speech than anything addressing the state of the union or proposing any major policies, or at least any new ones. It did likely help Trump […]
Sometimes it’s easier to be a gag cartoonist than a political cartoonist, but this is not one of those times. I had, briefly, planned to run humorous pieces today while I waited for the editorialists to catch up, but fortunately they leapt to their drawing boards, because, like Sipress, I don’t find anything very funny […]
I’m tempted to invite you to read Joel Pett’s cartoon, thank you for coming and remind you to tip your waitress, because he manages to pack an awful lot of current events into his piece, with greedy billionaires and without a lot of exaggeration or irony to puzzle the reader. Obviously, they’re not this direct, […]
In the debate over whether Dear Leader is a knave or a fool, Peter Brookes chooses the latter, aping Rembrandt’s painting, though I use the term “aping” advisedly. I like the pun on Homer, but it would be a cheap gag if it weren’t accompanied by the self-satisfied smirk on the face of the other […]
Somehow Captain America looks kind of ridiculous in Andy Bundy’s cover illustration for Realpolitik, though I can’t find that the magazine has any on-line presence. But he adds the slug “Captain America-First” unleashes tariffs against China but also Canada and Mexico, bullying his allies and neighbours while turning away from many of the real threats to global […]
Walt Handelsman sums it up: The demolition crew is here to begin taking apart America. It may be metaphorical, but it’s not theoretical: Trump has already begun spinning and, to use an old phrase from Jonathan Swift’s era, “to say the thing that is not.” To accuse him of lying requires reading his mind. But […]
Garth German makes a good point, though I suspect he’s too late and we can’t reverse the process now. Here’s a relevant quote from Herman Wouk in the Caine Mutiny: The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you are not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you […]
Jeremy Banx’s old couple welcomes in the New Year with the same attitude I did, having seen it several times. I just went to bed at my usual time and the calendar managed to do its thing without my assistance, as it often has. So no cartoons today about people falling asleep before the ball […]
Kevin Necessary offers the first of a planned sequence of cartoons going through the stages of grief, and he seems to speak for a lot of his fellow political cartoonists, as well as a lot of civilians. Kyle Bravo expresses much the same feeling on behalf of those outside the trade, who face different challenges […]
Gary Varvel (Creators) offers a sensible if not groundbreaking reminder that democracy belongs to the voters. Such messages don’t need to plow a whole lot of new ground, but they have value, particularly in a bizarre world in which people are being urged to distrust the system. We’ve seen school budgets get shot down by […]
Austrian cartoonist Leopold Maurer (Cartoon Movement) provides an opening piece for today’s look at tonight’s debate. Note that he doesn’t predict that Trump will go off the rails. Rather, he depicts a perfectly calm, rational debate, but notes the underlying tensions that nearly every observer has also suggested. On the other hand, he shows the […]
When Joe Biden announced his decision to step aside yesterday, I posted on Facebook “Political cartoonists to your drawing boards. I’ll be looking for material in 12 hours.” I needn’t have prodded them, because at 3 a.m. I found far more material available than I could use, and not nearly as many repeats of the […]
David Rowe offers the most appropriate response to last night’s assassination attempt. As is often the case, Australians got first crack at the story because of the time difference, and some did better than others, which is always the case and why I have something to write about each day. Rowe nails it, because “Sigh” […]
As suspected, waiting 24 hours brought in more cartoons about the debate than can possibly be used here, which, by-the-by, is a good indicator of how little cartoonists are really constrained by schedules, deadlines and rules. A more critical factor is evident in Nick Anderson (Tribune)’s piece: The immediate reaction for Democrats was, indeed, a […]