Sheep on a Farm

"The sheep are revolting."

New Toon: Following Us Home

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I don't think I have to spend much time explaining the how silly the "if we leave, the terrorists will follow us home" argument is.

Obama scribbles, makes more than most cartoonists in a year

I was thinking Edwards was coming out as the best Presidential candidate. Not because of his policies but because he wins the who would you like to drink a beer with test (it's the only criteria I use). But Obama's recent caricatures of his Democratic colleagues (auctioned for charity) has me rethinking how I evaluate potential Presidents. Can any of these people draw funny pictures on bar napkins while having said beer? Can they come down to that uniquely human--uniquely American-- level?

Obama can. Elect him President.

So now we know he can draw somewhat and has a background at an Islamic militant pre-school. What other secrets is he hiding?

New Illustration: Kucinich v. Cheney

I illustrated this week's cover story for the Cleveland Free Times on Dennis Kucinich's attempt to impeach Cheney. Not going to happen, but as the sub-head of the article says, "Who's More Crazy? Dennis Kucinich, For Taking On The Most Powerful Men In Washington? Or His Fellow Democrats, For Not Supporting Him?"

Originally I was given only one instruction, "Draw Kucinich punishing Cheney" and was told to "go wild." They run my comics on their letters page so I assumed they knew what they were asking for, granting me free reign on that kind of topic. These type of assignments happen only once in a blue moon; some cover stories have a very specific idea of what they want, some let your artistic juices work a bit, but none really provide the kind of potential that comes with the line "Draw Kucinich punishing Cheney."

I decided to pull out all the stops and go for the gold.

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Making what was a disappointing, but sound editorial decision, they rejected that sketch and asked for something a bit more palatable to the passerby.

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Kingdom Cumming

In my recent comic Abstinence Facts I tried to lampoon Abstinence-Only proponents' belligerently made up statistics characterizing condoms as unsafe by saying, "Russian roulette is safer than pre-marital coitus with contraceptives."

But in Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg I learned that's not an exaggeration of their position at all. I was reading the book this last week and on a section dealing with Sex-Ed and Crisis Pregnancy Centers I came across this:

During her talk at Reclaiming America for Christ, Stenzel announced, "There is no way statistically that you can have sex with someone who is not a virgin and not get a disease." Choosing the Best, one of the most widely used abstinence-only curriculum, compares sex with a condom to Russian roulette and says, "there is a greater risk of a condom failure then the bullet being in the chamber."

These people make satire difficult.

This comic was mainly made of jokes that for reasons of taste or space couldn't fit into my next comic for the ACLU, which is on Abstinence Only Education. That should be up by next Monday.

Boring comics...now in motion!

I missed this but apparently The New Yorker has been making short animated versions of "classic" cartoons . I have to question the need to laboriously convert cartoons that take two seconds to read into cartoons that take ten seconds to watch. I mean, why not convert all their "classic" essays into dowloadable audio read by James Earl Jones? C'mon New Yorker, lose that Old Media obsession with words printed on paper.

Spam of the Day

Subject Line: "Monster Schlong Action Alert"

New Toon: The GOP Presidential Lineup

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A little ode to Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, with comparable modern day villains. I wish it was my job to make up Dick Tracy enemies all day.

War Is Boring #13

Read it here.

Guantanamo Bay Gift Shop

Check out this new one page comic I have in the Boston Phoenix.

New Toon: Abstinence Facts

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Forgot to post this on Thursday.

More on Falwell

Cagle posted about the early Falwell cartoons and the Tinky Winky "Yahtzee," which is his term for the common gag that comes out from Editorial Cartoonists the day after a celebrities death or major event. I'm included in the roundup, but proud to be (or baffled that I am) the only one who depicted him in Hell.

And I tried posting the YouTube video yesterday, but couldn't get it to work. This segment on AC360 with Christopher Hitchens was the most honest assessment of Falwell's life I heard. I just finished reading his new book, god is not Great, and it was delightfully vicious take down of religion. Meanwhile, Falwell's pious hucksters counterparts Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were out--inserting themselves in the day's news as usual--noting that while they disagreed with Falwell he had a "heart of gold" and was "a good friend."

War Is Boring News

War Is Boring, the strip David Axe and I create, has started running in the Columbia City Paper on a bi-weekly basis. Each strip will be accompanied by a column by David. Here is the first.

War Is Boring: Who cares about East Timor?

By DAVID AXE

Dili, East Timor – It’s five days before the April 9 presidential election here in the capital city of what is, according the United Nations, the poorest country in the world.

The campaigning has gotten a little out of hand. Gangs of angry young men in the employ of rival, corrupt political parties clash in the streets, hurling rocks, burning motorcycles, smashing heads against brick walls. When the U.N. police and Australian troops arrive, the gangs scatter – only to find each other several blocks away and pick up where they left off.

keep reading.

Too Soon Comics Presents...

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purch my merch

Copies of all of my comic strip collections are now down to the single digits.

So go order the Sluts of Guantanamo Bay and A Pamphlet for Torture Enthusiasts now! Both 40 page collections are filled with strips that are no longer available on my website. If I have a proper collection of my work published, some of the better strips will make their way there, but it's safe to say that most of these comics will never see print again. I never plan on republishing these books.

The War On Baristas collects strips I did for the Stranger last year and is also getting very low. You can order both of my Idiot Box collections along with a signed copy of Attitude 3 three (along with two other comics I published back in the day) for only $19.

That Zany Pulitzer

Go read Scott Stantis' column on the Pulitzer's decision to allow animated cartoons into consideration. All three Editorial Cartoon finalists had animations in their portfolio this year, seeming to send a message to us ink and paper "dinosaurs."

Mors(!)

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As August was saying, Reagan is the deity of the conservative movement. Drawing him in Heaven has even been controversial as Brian and Ted have found out (albeit slightly different versions of Heaven).

So I was amused when a reader took the time to make me this. That's my picture from the Cagle website. Apparently my name is now "Mors."

War Is Boring #12

Read it here.

New Toon: The Gates Of Hell

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I laughed out loud when seventy year old authoritarian Presidential Candidate John McCain claimed he would follow Bin Laden "to the gates of Hell" during the GOP debate. What a chase that would be; old Bin Laden with his hiking stick and dialysis machine and John McCain lumbering after him. Hopefully when they got to the gates we could boot them both in and close the place up.

I was originally going to have Reagan summoned from Hell by the candidate that said his name the most during the debate but opted for this instead.

I knew McCain came from a military family but had no idea how far is went back. From reason's cover story on him.

To say John McCain comes from a military family is a little like pointing out that Prince Charles is a scion of the upper class. Born in 1936, McCain is the Navy captain son of a four-star admiral who was the son of another four-star admiral, all named John Sidney McCain. And that just scratches the surface.

John McCain and his ancestors have served in every major U.S. war from the Revolution to Vietnam, and the line won’t stop there: 20-year-old John Sidney McCain IV (you can call him Jack) is learning the family trade at the Naval Academy, and 18-year-old Jimmy is in the Marines, waiting to deploy to Iraq. McCain’s father headed up the military’s Pacific command from 1968 to 1972, convincing President Nixon to illegally attack Cambodia and famously ordering the bombing of Hanoi even though he knew his son was still imprisoned there. He also led the controversial 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic, which he defended by saying, “People may not love you for being strong when you have to be, but they respect you for it and learn to behave themselves when you are.”

(...)

McCain’s grandfather commanded all naval air power during World War II and started a three-generation tradition of schmoozing in Washington by heading the Bureau of Naval Aeronautics, where he ordered up weapons systems. McCain’s major-general granduncle was the father of the modern military draft. And his paternal great-grandmother’s side of the family, he says, has an even stronger military tradition, including a militia captain on George Washington’s Revolutionary War staff, an Army captain in the War of 1812, even royalist brawlers in England’s mid-17th-century Civil War.

A Sad Nation of Morons

This YouTube video is worth watching. It's put together by conspiracy mongering 9/11 types, but has a redeeming factor to it. Most of the video has a so-called truther quizzing college kids as to what year 9/11 happened. Most of those shown give wrong answers or simply don't know! Even assuming they showed a very skewed sample of those polled, the fact that you could find this many people in an afternoon at an American College who don't know what year 9/11 happened is astonishing.

Factor in the people who are aware of what year the attacks took place, subtract the group that thinks the incompetent Bush Administration masterminded it, take away the contingent that thinks it gave us cart blanche to invade half the world and your left with a terrifyingly small number of rational adults.

War Is Boring

I haven't posted a lot lately as I've been busily working on various freelance and comic related projects. Check the one pager I posted yesterday. A few more of those should be coming out over the next month.

A major project I set out to do earlier this year was illustrating a graphic novel, the sequel to David Axe's War Fix. I illustrated the first 7 pages of the story but it was rejected by the Publisher. Or more specifically, I was rejected due to the Publisher's dislike of my artwork. Page 3 of that sample is pictured below. Judge for yourself.

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Someone else is on that book now, but David and I continue to work together on his site War Is Boring. The latest strip we've done (#11) can be read here. I illustrated a more in depth version of this strip explaining the riot and situation in East Timor that will appear in next month's issue of VICE magazine as a three page comic. I'll keep you posted when and if that is made available online.

And you can now read the War Is Boring comic strip every other week in the Columbia City Paper in South Carolina.

Other projects are in the wings as well, so I'm going to get back to work!

To Catch A Pothead

Check out a new one page comic I have in the Boston Phoenix on Dateline's latest show.

New Toon: Memoir Madness

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I'm glad George Tenet decided to grace us with a book about being at the "Center of the Storm." People have been excoriating this bastard all week. See columns by Scheer, Rall, and Huffington.

Alec Baldwin is coming out with a book on divorce litigation. I didn't make that up. Also, the Rutgers Women's Basketball coach signed a multi-million dollar book deal. There were too many disgusting cash-ins to even mention. I heard Anna Nicole's half-sister or something has some book out already.What else, what else? Oh, just after the ink dried on this comic I found out a Virginia Tech Professor signed a deal. I'm sure books by Imus, the Duke Lacrosse Players, Madonna's new kid, and Terri Schiavo will hit the shelves soon.

New Illustrations

I did two illustrations for the Seattle Weekly's music section recently, both on artists I like. The first is the rapper Aesop Rock. Nike hired him to do a 44 minute mix for joggers to listen to while doing a run. I bought it on iTunes to listen to while I worked. It's a'ight.

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The second is Spencer Krug of Sunset Rubdown and Wolf Parade. Article.

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Good News, Bad News

Good News: Fellow Attitude 3 alumni Boy on a Stick and Slither has made a deal with United Media to appear on their website three times a week in a smaller daily strip format. If it does well, they probably pick it up for syndication to newspapers. Check it out.

Bad News: Alt weekly cartoonist Ward Sutton is hanging up his brush to pursue other endeavors. you can read his last strip for the Village Voice here. Looking through his book Sutton Impact, it's funny to see his drawings of Bush evolve from a straight forward cartoon version to the thin nose, zig-zag eyebrows, and gigantic ears (even by Bush caricature standards).