Another syndicate cartoon

I've done quite a few cartoons on this subject, but this one just about sums it up. We cannot continue to just "buy off" Kim's good behavior. He only seems to cooperate when the natives are getting restless (see: poor/starving North Koreans). His publicity stunt with the South this week is just another in a long line of empty concessions where he gains everything, and really loses nothing. Every time we feed him, he wants more (and will not go away).

Here's the rough:

And the finished cartoon. I made several figurative corrections to Uncle Sam in the final version. Enjoy.

Local cartoon #1

Seems the School Board wants to limit the number of school bus stops in the county. These reductions are based on physical measurements from the schools to each individual stop. The only problem is, some are measuring from the front gate of the school, while others are measuring from the front doors. You know we're all in trouble when the School Board spends the balance of their meeting discussing the intricacies of measurement techniques, measuring devices, formulas, and equations.

Here's the rough:

And here's the finished cartoon. Not much changed. I did add a rolling device, and a sextant in case they want to measure "by sea."

I had fun drawing this. The more mechanical objects I can squeeze into a cartoon, the better. I also had fun coming up with a name for this device. "Wizajama" just seemed to have the right ring to it.

More syndicate stuff

Here's one for my syndicate that I really enjoyed doing. I think I might have found a new wrinkle working with layers and new custom brushes and screens.

The rough was flipped for obvious reasons (we read left to right):. I also had to adjust his hair, and decided to re-write and edit the type. Notice my note to myself to change it to Khrushchev's famous "bury you" tirade. This idea came from hearing someone on the Sunday morning talk shows refer to the situation between the U.S. and Iran as another Cold War. Which is kinda what it is.

The majority of the detail work you see here was done with brushes in photoshop. I may also start doing my sketches directly in Photoshop as I acclimate myself to working on the Wacom tablet. I will say that it is coming a lot easier now that I've developed some skills. Here's the finished cartoon.

Note: Drawing Ahmadinejad is almost as fun as saying his name three times fast.

First syndicated cartoon of the week

For some reason I'm getting ideas for my syndicated cartoons at the beginning of the week this week. This is actually pretty rare, as I usually save all of my piss and vinegar for Thursday and Friday.

Enjoy.

Here's the rough:

And here's the finished cartoon. I've been thinking lately about how when Clinton was finishing up his second term, everyone was wondering what his legacy would be. People must be wondering the same about Bush, but there can be only one conclusion. I enjoyed working on the color in this one. I'm experimenting a little more with layering color now. You can do a lot of things in Photoshop that you just can't do with a brush and paint. Hell, undo alone makes it the best thing since canned beer!

Hand Gesture

Dont' worry. It's not dirty. I just wanted to try out animating a hand since I just finished the hand construction section of the Preston Blair book.

Here it is. It's pretty simple, but I'm really getting the hang of this now. It's amazing what you can do with a mirror and a Wacom tablet. Notice the secondary action of the hand recoiling before it stretches out. Enjoy, and happy weekend.

Go Gators!

-Ed

Who are these guys?

Preston Blair
Well, they're the animators we all grew up with. Creators of such classics as Red Hot Riding Hood, Droopy, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, and many, many others.


Here's Wikipedeia's Blair page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Blair

And here's some background on Tex Avery:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tex_Avery


Tex Avery
I tend to prefer Avery's brand of animation a bit more than Blair's. He took more chances and wasn't afraid to "go there" for the gag. Plus with a middle name like "Bean" how can you not be funny?

Hand Construction with Preston Blair

It seems like such an innocuous thing, but proper construction of the hand can go a long way in conveying emotion and expression in an animated character. Here are a couple of pages from this exercise. I enjoyed doing these.

That whacky Mahmoud

In the spirit of fairness, here's my Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cartoon from December 2006, entitled "Iran's Holocaust." I'm glad I didn't just settle for a "he's nutty, crazy, coo coo" theme.

Last cartoon of the week

This is the kind of stuff that really pisses me off. Of course the story of Bush crony Ray Hunt will probably be way under reported (not to mention under cartooned), but what gets my blood boiling is the thought that our troops are being killed in Iraq while these Texas oil men plan to drill for oil and profit amongst the bloodshed.

This story ran in Newsweek last week, and I saw nary a peep out of cartoonists. There are only a couple of us who are even interested in the Caspian region and other areas of NW Asia. Shame on us for not going after Bush on this. We all know Ahmadinejad is whacked. How many cartoons can we do on that speech? Sorry, I like to save my spit for the end of the week...

Here's the background story (yes, you should read it):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20920354/site/newsweek/

And here's my rough:

And here's the finished drawing. I added more detail in the oil derricks, and learned that in the states they call these "Texas Grasshoppers."

Syndicate cartoon # 1

My first national issue cartoon of the week. The cool thing about this one is, since one of my local papers is in a military town, it's gonna run in that supplement as well.

On the subject of Ken Burn's "The War," if you're not watching it, you're really missing out. What a great synopsis of events. Ken Burns is like our nation's video historian. This should be required viewing for every kid from elementary through high school.

This idea came to me rather quickly, and it was one of those deals where I can't really put my finger on why I got the idea, other than I've been watching that show and thinking of how the horrors of WWII echo in what's going on now.

Here's the rough:

And here's the finished cartoon:

Side-by-side Comparison

As promised: