November 2007 Archives

Here's a visual theme I've been working on for a while:

As you can see, while I was sketching I had an idea for a line of "Don't Taze Me, Bro" T-Shirts. A quick google search revealed someone has already executed that idea. Here is how I used the cliff theme this week as it applies to the peace talks in Annapolis, MD.

Note that I removed the chairs from the table. They were really distracting my eye and it was getting hard to put everything on such a little piece of land. I figured if they actually got there they wouldn't need the chairs anyway.

I've been working on a series of etchings. An etching is a metal plate that has, through a series of steps, been drawn on to, eaten with acid, inked and printed through a printing press. This cliff idea is one of the plates I've been working on the last few months. I'm excited to show it here for the first time.

Note the really dark line on the right hand side and the sort of lighter lines on the bottom and top edges.....this is where I did not properly wipe off the ink from the edge of the plate. On a good clean print you would not see that.

I've used this image in a cartoon before. Earlier this year I used it to describe the fracture between the Black and Latino communities here in Los Angeles. It could run in the newspaper today, tomorrow or next year and would still be relevant.

I'll be giving a speech this week at the Burbank Public Library! For those of you in and around Burbank Thursday evening please stop by, I'm going to do some drawing, show some cartoons, discuss this blog and other aspects of cartooning in today's newspaper industry. It'll be lots of fun, I promise, so make it out if you can!

A friend of mine was on his way to my place for Thanksgiving on Thursday when he stopped by the local 7-11 to get some wine for dinner. He couldn't buy any though because a woman had accidentally driven her Honda Accord through the front door.

Fortunately, no one was hurt but the woman driving was a bit shaken. I ran down to the 7-11 shortly after putting in the turkey, so I had nothing better to do than go look at the mess and shoot some photos. I went back and emailed them to the photo desk and the picture above ran in the Daily News' Friday edition. Now I'm an officially a published news photographer! How's that for multi-tasking!?!

The firemen and police officers on the scene were very professional....I get the feeling they see this a lot.

Don't worry, I'm not going to give up cartooning for a career in photojournalism just yet. Like any situation there's always a bit of humor....the sign placement is wonderful.

Check out Bush Leaguers: Cartoonists Take On The White House, a collection of cartoons from the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

From the forward:
"The AAEC, in honor of it's 50th anniversary and in conjunction with the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, presents this rare collection of political cartoons about George W. Bush and his most trusted advisors. It contains the complete exhibit, "Bush Leaguers: Cartoonists Take On The White House", which was on display at the American University Museum in Washington, D.C. in honor of the AAEC's 50th anniversary. Over 80 cartoonists from newspapers across the country, including several Pulitzer Prize winners, have contributed their best cartoons depicting George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and more.

The above cartoon was my contribution to the exhibit and appears in the book.

The Los Angeles Police Department had a plan to draw maps of where Muslims were living in LA. After seeing today's cartoon it looks like they've dropped the idea.

Of course, this isn't the first time we've seen profiling from the department.

Do you think Madison would have called it "torture" or "enhanced interrogation techniques.?"

This has to be one of the most bizarre ideas I've had in a while. I'm not sure I even know what it means.

I really enjoy putting color into my cartoons. It's fun and adds a new dimension to the work. However, sometimes there's nothing like a good ol' black and white drawing to bring a message home. This cartoon could use some color on the skulls and piles of bones, perhaps a little green to indicate a road sign, but I still think it holds up.

Here's the prelimarly drawing. When coming up with an idea or doing a sketch the most important thing is to just get the idea out, putting it down on paper. Changes to the design and written elements happen along the way.

My sincere apologies to all who came to the blog on Friday and tried to post a comment. It seems all of the Daily News blogs experienced an "upgrade," which in modern computer speak means "everything is screwed up and could maybe work one day soon, just not today." I myself would have posted a new cartoon but was locked out of the system. Three cheers for Technological Progress!

Here are some pages from one of my sketchbooks selected at random. I have at least three going at the same time, all in different sizes. This is the place to work out ideas, random thoughts, doodle and otherwise goof off. I mostly use pencils, felt tip pens, and on occasion wax crayons. One day I had an apple sitting on my desk and felt compelled to draw it.

I did this drawing with the old Chia Pet commercials in mind. Remember those? Ch-Ch-Chia!
Seems that our invasion of Iraq has become a sort of Terror Pet, growing deadly across the Middle East all the time.

I drew this cartoon last week and it was rejected by my editor who said "that's just so far away."
Well, here we are less than a week later and General Pervez Musharraf, dictator of Pakistan, loyal friend and ally in the "war on terror," has suspended the constitution, fired the chief justice of the supreme court and declared emergency rule. So much for the idea we're spreading freedom and democracy around the world.

Here is a rejected cartoon that is several years old. I did this drawing when General Musharraf was on one of his speaking tours to the US, preaching to the choir of neoconservatives. I decided to look up all of the dictators and tyrants our government has supported over the years and fit them into one cartoon. This cartoon appeared in David Wallis' book "Killed Cartoons: Casualties From the War on Freedom of Expression." The drawing proudly hangs in my office.

Ahhh....an age old question. We had a story last week about such a debate in one local community. Is it art or is it graffiti?

Here are two rejected sketches from this week. Many of my ideas get cut for one reason or another. Somehow trick or treaters at Dick Cheney's house was too harsh.....and I'm not sure what was wrong with this one.