Cartoonists With Attitude

Steph McMillan, back from the AAEC convention:

One funny thing I heard was Mike Lester's response to people who ask him why he never draws positive cartoons: "Those are called greeting cards."

There's a wonderful class being given by Derrick Jensen focused on his book Endgame, and run through the Derrick Jensen discussion group.

There are many ways to approach each weekly assignment, and he offers choices of what to write about. For the first assignment I answered the question: "What are some of the fundamental lies of this culture?" with a drawing:

I'm back from a trip to San Antonio, for a convention of the AAEC (Association of American Editorial Cartoonists).

One funny thing I heard was Mike Lester's response to people who ask him why he never draws positive cartoons: "Those are called greeting cards."

Another hilarious moment was when Ted Rall presented Clay Bennett (who wins every cartoon award imaginable) with a huge trophy with a cheerleader on top, called something like the Clay Bennett Award of Incredible Distinguished Excellence for Winning Awards as Clay Bennett. (There was some other, funnier, adjective instead of "incredible" but I forgot what it was).

I moderated a panel discussion with Joel Pett (Pulitzer Prize-winner from the Lexington Herald-Reader) and Mike Thompson (of the Detroit Free Press). They both gave great, interesting (and of course funny as hell) presentations. Here's an article from Editor & Publisher about the panel:

AAEC Speakers Take Dead Aim at Obit Cartoons

By Dave Astor

Published: June 26, 2008 11:51 PM ET

SAN ANTONIO Some readers live for them. Some contain ideas that have been done to death. They're obituary cartoons, and the bad and the good ones -- including recent tributes to George Carlin and Tim Russert -- were autopsied during a Thursday session at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) convention.

One panelist, Mike Thompson of the Detroit Free Press and Copley News Service, offered a "12-step recovery program" to avoid weak obit cartoons.

He said don't draw Pearly Gates scenes "unless there's a twist," don't draw a tear coming out of something (like the cartoonists who drew a crying NBC peacock for Russert), don't place just-deceased celebrities in heaven just because they're celebrities, and don't do a celebrity obit cartoon unless the person merits one (that leaves out Anna Nicole Smith, he noted by way of example).

Thompson also said it's OK to put politics into an obit cartoon, and that you can be negative about people who passed away. "You can't offend them; they're dead," he observed wryly.

But often the most cliched obit cartoon is wildly popular among readers, noted another panelist, Joel Pett of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader and New York Times Syndicate-marketed CartoonArts International.

Much of the time, said Pett, he gets mail saying things like "we hate you" and "you don't deserve to live." Then he does a sentimental obit cartoon, and for a day the comments are "we love you" and "you're a genius" -- as was the case when Pett drew an image of Barbaro the horse in the sky.

"You can't get enough beating of a dead horse in Kentucky," was his deadpan explanation.

Panel moderator and "Minimum Security" cartoonist Stephanie McMillan cited a cliched George Carlin obit cartoon she saw that showed the comedian -- famous for his seven words that couldn't be said -- at the Pearly Gates with Saint Peter stating: "You can't say those words here, either."

Thompson, who gave an elaborate computer-generated presentation, spoofed the overuse of Saint Peter by showing a sketch of Saint Peter entering heaven -- but there was no one there to greet him at the Pearly Gates.

The Free Press cartoonist also displayed a sketch of John Denver at the gates of hell, wondering why he ended up there. The reason? He had sung "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" while alive.

Obit cartoons praised for their originality during the session included one by Jim Borgman (Cincinnati Enquirer/Universal Press Syndicate) showing the ashes of a dead Nazi scattered into the sea as fish swam away in disgust, and another by Matt Davies (The Journal News, White Plains, N.Y./Tribune Media Services) marking the first anniversary of 9/11 with a tribute to a neighbor he knew who had died in the World Trade Center.

Also praised was a cartoon by Steve Sack (Minneapolis Star Tribune/Creators Syndicate) picturing Enron's corrupt Ken Lay swiping death's wallet as death took him on the boat trip to hell, a drawing by Bruce Plante of the Tulsa (Okla.) World showing Don Knotts locking himself into heaven (as he'd lock himself in jail in "The Andy Griffith Show"), and a cartoon by John Cole of The Scranton (Pa.) Times-Tribune showing seamstress/civil-rights icon Rosa Parks sewing black and white pieces of cloth together (Many other cartoonists did a cliched scene of Parks riding a bus to heaven.)

And one more cartoon praised was a drawing by Ben Sargent (Austin American-Statesman/Universal) showing the grave of Creators columnist Molly Ivins with the word "Farewell" on it. Sargent, playing on the name of one of the columnist's books, had someone near the grave say: "Molly Ivins can't say that, can she?"

Possible future obit cartoons? Among those shown was a sketch by Mike Keefe (Denver Post/Cagle Cartoons) of Dick Cheney telling death "F--- you" and one of a Corel Painter software package shedding a tear for Corel user Nick Anderson (Houston Chronicle/Washington Post Writers Group). Anderson is also president of the AAEC.

Dave Astor (dastor@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.

I knew that whole optimism over Obama thing couldn't last. What's with this falling all over himself to be as centrist as possible these days? Supporting FISA? Speaking out for the death penalty? WHAT?! Why Barack, why? Yes, I know I'm unfashionably late to the Obama disillusionment party, but I've been a bit too busy being interviewed by BBC Radio 4 (seriously!) and other such excitement to update you all on my political grumpiness.

Latest comic - click here!

A dead celebrity or public figure is pretty much a free meal ticket for the standard editorial cartoonist, because all you have to do is draw them approaching the gates of Heaven with St. Peter saying a line attributed to said dead person. Here, I'll give you a freebie: when Bob Barker dies, there will be twenty-seven cartoons of St. Peter saying "come on up!" See? It's that simple.

The George Carlin ones, though, angered me further than the usual ones. It's simply insulting, and to be honest embarrassing, for any cartoonist to think that they're "respecting" or "honoring" by depicting the existence of Heaven and God the man who said this:

When in comes to bullshit...bigtime, major league bullshit...you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims...religion. ... Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of 10 things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these 10 things he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time...but he loves you.

Yeah. That's the guy who wants a tribute in the form of a caricature of him with a halo and wings.

Look, this isn't some long-winded rant against religion. This is a long-winded rant against disrespecting anyone's personal religious beliefs. And Carlin's were pretty clear-cut. This wasn't some hidden concept, folks: In almost any of Carlin's 60-minute routines in the last decade, about five to ten minutes of them were devoted to his mockery of religious faith. You don't have to like it, you don't have to respect it, but you sure as hell have to Google it if you're going to pretend you're devestated by the loss of a person you apparently never paid any attention to before he wrote your cartoon for you that day.

Angrily packing and driving a very long distance now. Have a great week, folks.

Remember, you can own a paper copy of “Hereville” of your very own!

This is my personal favorite of the title page sketches I’ve done so far… there are two more sketches below the fold.

(more…)

More of Nader's insightful comments:

"Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We'll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards."

I also wish Obama would focus harder on poverty. But Ralph Nader playing the race card is probably the most ineffective way on Earth to get him to go about this.

Taking a break from his busy campaign schedule, Nader is now telling a black man he is "talking white" and is afraid to sound like Jesse Jackson (note to all black politicians: you need to sound like Jesse Jackson in order to win). As a black man, you are required to go visit ghettos constantly. Ralph Nader spends a lot of time in them talking to poor people, so just follow his example. Oh, and don't forget to make asbestos litigation the centerpiece of your national campaign. OK, you're all set for victory!

Wednesday: Screw the Whales!

Cartoon for June 30

I hope Obama wins. It's more fun to criticize a Democrat for his hypocrisy and worthlessness than a Republican for being true to his well-heeled donors.

Oher than the new comic for Monday, there will likely be little to no posting until the end of next week. This often happens when you pack your computer and move to a different building 700 miles away.

I decided last night that, silly as it sounds, the thing I am going to miss most of all in Washington (aside from my friends, obviously) is the Rock Creek Parkway. If you've never lived in D.C., imagine if New York's West Side Highway was actually built at ground level, went straight through Central Park while keeping all the forest area around it, and occasionally went under gagantuan stone bridges built a hundred years earlier in the usual gothic-American style of most D.C. monuments with birds flying by and ivy slowly creeping up it to reclaim the bridge back as a natural part of the earth. I swear to God every time I drove to Trader Joe's I felt like passing those giant statues in the first Lord of the Rings Movie.

I guess in a way it's a reminder of what I really truly love most of all about D.C. in general- it's just so damn beautiful. I'm going to miss walking along the Mall at night. Walking past the White House in winter. The unique weirdness of traffic stopping because of motorcades. Free museums. All the stuff I didn't even have time to see- I'm going to miss that too.

Goodnight, Washington. Until we meet again.

So I was at the so-to-be ex-apartment on Friday packing stuff when the doorbell rings and there's a UPS package for me. I open it up, not having been expecting anything, and it turns out my family bought me a GPS computer for my move to Atlanta without telling me.

So, yeah. My family sent my a new robot buddy in the mail. My family's awesome.