I asked him why, and he said “Johnny Depp is on the front page.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t like him either, but…”

“No, his face was all over the front page. They did this once before, and it just makes the paper look so trashy.”

I had no idea what he meant, but I wanted to tell him about a trashy editor of a woman’s magazine who had been so rude to me today, so we changed the topic.

Now I just heard John and Ken on KFI talking about the same thing! I ran to get the paper out of the plastic bag, and, um, it does look pretty bad. It’s a fake front page, with a hideous photo of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter in the new release of Alice in Wonderland. (Does Johnny Depp have a big space between his teeth? Euwww. His hair is wild orange like Carrot Top.)

The photo and the ad, all in color,  covers the entire front page, except for a few paragraphs on either side and the top pretend masthead. It really looks like the front page – they call it a cover-wrap.

Unattractive, but this is an industry town. I’m not offended.

Oh My Gah, I just saw that the NY Times reported on this!

The top editor of The Times, Russ Stanton, and several of his deputies vigorously opposed the ad before it was published, but they were overruled by the paper’s business executives, according to people with direct knowledge of the dispute, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

John Conroy, a spokesman for The Times, said, “Stretching the boundaries was what we were going for.” He said Eddy W. Hartenstein, the publisher and chief executive, and other executives would not comment.

Mr. Conroy noted that however unorthodox the ad may be for print, it mirrors a common practice online of having an ad cover part or all of a Web site’s home page for a few seconds.

Well, that’s true.

The “Alice in Wonderland” ad, which also wraps around the paper, introduces a new wrinkle, lending the name and work of The Times to an advertiser.

Oh, fun, the LA Times is spinning this as a creative success story!

Timed to coincide with the release of the highly-anticipated “Alice in Wonderland,” starring Johnny Depp, The Times is the only major newspaper in the country to carry the innovative ad unit, conceived to launch the film in the most creative and unexpected manner to Southern California’s key movie-going audiences and creative community.

No, I’m not going to make a dumb joke about the Times going down the rabbit hole. Unh unh.

More cartoons:

1. Sarah Palin drops in on Oprah. But leave Oprah’s Book Club out of this.
2. LA Times forgot Dilbert, but readers didn’t.

Maybe I was wrong. And maybe cartoonists can help. I’ve never read editorial cartoons until about a year ago, so I had no experience to draw upon. But cartoonists leaped right into the fray, even as corpses sailed across the tv. In one sense, I guess it was brave of them(the cartoonists.) Here are some cartoons that worked, and some that didn’t. (Cartoons are after the jump.)

I originally read this story in AP, but it’s disappeared now. From Fox News:

All told, some 132 people have been pulled alive from beneath collapsed buildings by international search and rescue teams, she said.

Experts say the chance of saving trapped people begins diminishing after 72 hours. One mother still missing her children said it’s too soon to give up.

“Maybe there’s a chance they’re still alive,” said Nicole Abraham, 33, wiping away tears as she spoke of hearing the cries of her children — ages 4, 6 and 15 — for the first two days after the quake.

Oh, no worry! The entire report was copied from the AP and pasted on Puff Post as if the reporters were working for them.

Only a small number of funerals have been held since the 7.0-magnitude quake struck, with most people buried anonymously and without ceremony in mass graves on the outskirts of the city. An estimated 200,000 people died, according to Haitian government figures cited by the European Commission. The United Nations said Saturday the government had preliminarily confirmed 111,481 bodies, but that figure does not account for corpses buried by relatives.

The LA Times has word from yet another survivor found 11 days after the quake:

He told of passing out in the rubble, dreaming at times that he could hear his mother crying. The furniture in his room had collapsed around him in such a way that it created a small space for him amid the ruins of the house. He had no food. When he got desperately thirsty, he drank his urine.

Also Friday, an 84-year-old woman was said by relatives to have been pulled from the wreckage of her home, though doctors said her condition was critical.

People, don’t give up looking for survivors!!! Especially now that we have Chile with the same problem. I don’t think it’s the rescuers that give up, however, it’s the government. But miracles happen, they happen every day – (thanks to Denny on Gray’s Anatomy – I miss him so much).

I saw a lot of cartoons use this idea of the name of the country with a lot of cracks in it – get it? – the earthquake. I thought the first one was very clever – I never would have thought of it. After a few of them..But remember, most readers see just the one, in their own paper, and think their cartoonist is very clever, and don’t know that a dozen other cartoonists are doing the same concept. You can learn from the Internet, not just imitate, so let’s hope the identical ideas are just coincidence.

I thought this one by Gary Markstein from gocomics.com was better than the other similar ones I saw.

Jeff Parker from cagle.com has an easy, clear style, which I always like, but I picked this one because I was impressed with how quiet and yet effective the idea was, and it’s how most of us get through the day – thinking about something horrific, and then finally acting on it. (I picked this out yesterday, but to my great surprise, Jeff and Steve Kelley (both editorial cartoonists, and Steve is one of my favorite op-ed cartoonists – I have one of his books!) just started a new comic strip today, which isn’t political at all! More on that later.)

I am not into scratchy black and white drawing styles from the 19th century, sorry – and they look their worst online. But I thought John Deering from gocomics.com did this difficult idea well – that both the buried Haitians and the UN were having problems with no seeming help.

Mike Luckovich from cagle.com did a nice visual here. Maybe this is a cliche, or a classic concept, the hourglass, but it’s new to me, and I thought the imagery of the bodies falling to their death was powerful. Sad.

Signe Wilkinson at gocomics. com is one of my top 3 political cartoonists! Great style, color, ideas, and she hardly ever misses, which may be the most amazing part of all!

Small World by Tom Briscoe from gocomics.com is 2nd only to Ted Rall in popularity in Gocomics. I just noticed that recently, after a year in there myself. I’ve only seen Small World once or twice, but why the subscribers…? This just seems weak to me.

I’m a sucker for a good graphic! The hands outstretched is a popular motif, as you can see even from my little collection here, but the bold colors and stylistic font and careful placement of elements make this my favorite. Thanks, Deng Coy Miel from cagle.com !

Thanks to all the cartoonists, and especially to Gocomics.com and politicalcartoons.com that offer some of the best cartoonists in the world, 24-7.

More cartoons:

1. 9/11 Cartoon in 2009.
2. Veteran’s Day cartoon for War Dogs, too.

For instance, one thing that I’m extremely passionate about is privacy. For others, as well as myself. And couthness. Uncouth is not cool. This includes making fun of others’ sex lives, or asking them about it directly. So rude! (However, a little bit of gossip is okay among friends, in hushed tones.)

I saw Andrew Young and his wife on 20/20, talking about this book he had written about the years he worked with John Edwards, The Politician: An Insider’s Account of John Edwards’s Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down. Oh, and about a dirty sex tape he found of Edwards. Nice. Young has written a tell-all as he rolls out all the dirty secrets of John Edwards and his mistress. Only this is a revenge- book, and as the Youngs described how pious they are, the whole thing stank, so I did this cartoon shortly after the show. I think I’m the only cartoonist on Slate or cagle.com who did one on this topic. I don’t know why! I know it’s not hard news, but it’s still important, and very sad, when a politician gets outed by his former best friend.

So I wasn’t interested to see Andrew Young and his wife interviewed by Oprah tonight, and only paid attention when I realized she was giving him a good slapdown! She kept asking why Young went along with the lie about being the baby-daddy, and why Cheri agreed to let the woman stay in their house,  and why at this point they still believed Edwards would be a good President. This is an example of why Oprah is really good  as an interviewer (other than with her pride and joy, Obama) – she does ask the tough questions.

Why did the Youngs do it?  THE MONEY. Well, hopes for it. And the position in the White House they’d have, should he become President.

Cheri is really beautiful; her face is narrow, like a fox, and she is toned, over every inch of her body, and it doesn’t really matter if it was Pilates or not, does it. (Oprah has the best lighting bar none for her guests so it’s nice to look at all the pretty people.) But Cheri complained at least twice,  that the worst part was when they were sent off with the pregnant mistress to live in California, supported by millionaires and billionaires. She said this twice, so I’ll repeat it, too. Millionaires and billionaires were running their lives, isn’t that awful!? Cheri, where is your PR person when you need her?

I understand revenge, but Young wouldn’t have had to go this far had he learned how to say NO when Edwards asked him to pretend he was the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby. Assertiveness training, Andrew! And Cheri agreed to have Edwards mistress, now pregnant, live with the whole family until she delivered! How weird is that!

Then they found a sex tape of Edwards and supposedly his mistress. (there seems to be a lot of emphasis that she is pregnant in the tape – like what, pregnant women don’t have sex? More weirdness!) Anyway, maybe holding onto this tape like a talisman gave him courage to write the book.

The LA Times said:

Got a chief aide? Don’t abandon him for your mistress. That’s the chief lesson that powerful, philandering men can take from The Politician: by Andrew Young. For all its finger-pointing and salacious details, this online bestseller is really about a bromance gone bad.

…Is the book transfixing? Not exactly — it’s more of a whinge. Young is harshly critical of everyone around him but doesn’t take responsibility for his own decisions. He went along with saying Hunter’s child was his, but he could have said no; he never wrestles with moral issues…

…This does not engender sympathy, and every effort that Young makes to portray Elizabeth Edwards unkindly reflects back on him.

Cartoon caption: John Edwards? Meh. But I sure wish I could be a scurvy, salacious, backstabbing “aide,” and write a tattletale bestseller. The Politician, by Andrew Young.

I read the word meh on the TV boards. I’ve never used it in real life.

That week my cartoon came out the whole east coast was covered in snow! Very dramatic and pretty. So I had fun painting snow for the first time in a while, and even putting some frost on the edges of the bookstore window. This took me a while to color. Coloring cartoons takes me about 3 times as long as drawing them, but I go that extra mile to keep my readers and editors happy.

Or do you prefer the 19th century cartoon look? There’s some of those  cartoon guys around, too. Black and white all the way.

More cartoons:

1. Men like to talk about sex.
2. Sarah Palin drops in on Oprah. But leave Oprah’s Book Club out of this.

And then, it’s been building all week that Tiger Woods had his big announcement coming up. So… like any good cartoonist, I decided on a mashup of sports and an icon of a major religion. I had NO idea that Tiger would mention religion in his speech today…the religion of the Dalai Lama…and that my cartoon would be almost prophetic!!

From CNN:

“People probably don’t realize it,” he said, “but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years.”

“I like Buddhism because it’s a whole way of being and living,” Tiger Woods told Sports Illustrated. “It’s based on discipline and respect and personal responsibility.”

Fox News Channel host Brit Hume stirred controversy by publicly advising the golf pro to become a Christian.

Thanks for that little nugget, Brit.

From the LA Times:

As expected, Woods did not reveal when he would return to playing golf, saying he will return to therapy Saturday “for guidance on the issues he is facing.”

Wearing a dark blazer and a blue shirt, Woods often had tears in his eyes during his statement, telling a group of reporters he was responsible for the scandal that has engulfed his family.

UPDATED: 8:47 a.m.: Woods also appeared angry when he asked the media to respect the privacy of his family.

The LA Times cares about your feelings.

(another version of this cartoon after the jump)

In LA for his trip to the US the Dalai Lama was joined by Sheryl Crow.

I do recognize the name of Sheryl Crow.  Apparently, she and the Dalai are “just good friends.” I don’t have a cartoon of Sheryl, but will an artistic image of Sheryl Crow using for commissioning a Genuine Oil Painting of Sheryl Crow in highest professional quality, completely 100% hand-painted by high-skilled oil portrait artist. Art style: art-nouveau do?

I knew the Lama would say something short and sweet for this cartoon, and I am one of the very few (seemingly) who believe Tiger Woods was hung up by his toes for his very personal issues. I hate hate hate what happened to him. I wouldn’t read anything about it. Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes were stupid, and I never laughed. I DON’T CARE WHAT PEOPLE DO IN THE BEDROOM. And who am I to judge his marriage dealie? Maybe they had an open marriage.

And…yes, I was cutting up a banana that was just this edge of bad while the ideas swirled in my head.  I laughed hysterically. And it’s not just what you think, although it is that, too! I mean, bananas go bad faster than any other fruit, and then they’re useless, and they smell bad. Bad bananas.

So the Dalai Lama is the type that won’t judge bananas. Or Tiger. Nor will Slate, and they usually get all my cartoons first.

But newspapers are not like Slate, not yet, so I had to clean it up a little, below

Good thing, because LA Daily News is buying it for Sunday, so you can get your copy there.

There may be more comments on the cartoon here.

Cartoon caption: SECRET MEETING – DALAI LAMA AND TIGER WOODS. There are no bad bananas. Alternate ending: Silence is Golden.

More cartoons:

1. Do I have to do a cartoon on GOLF now?
2. I like pigs, but not to eat.

I’m about to find out. I’ve lived here over 15 years, so I have some answers, but what about the heart of it, where all the decisions are made? This month I started my cartoon for a new journalism group that’s covering the state of California, named appropriately enough, CalWatchdog. (Still waiting for a dog in the logo.) It’s connected with – get this – a think tank, called Pacific Research Institute!

I’ve done cartoons in all kinds of venues, but I have to admit, never a think tank. I’m so excited to be a part of it, and especially to have my name associated with something that sounds so…smart. This is Arnold’s last year, so I’m prepared to have as much fun as you can have with a German, and to explore issues all over California. (JUST KIDDING, German-ophiles!) So keep an eye on it, as I’ll be uploading cartoons about California there before they go on Slate or appear anywhere else.

Cartoon caption: You get three wishes, but balancing the State budget is out of my league.

I was originally going to do this idea for the bank bailouts, saying she doesn’t believe in them, but don’t tell my editor at CalWatchdog this! In fact…why not do another fairy tale for Slate!? Certainly that fairy gibberish by that cartoonist on Gocomics  – Pibgorn which I just had to look up – is super popular, and Gocomics is constantly pimping it.

Hmm, just noticed that it isn’t a cartoon, it’s a graphic novel, with some story and a photoshopped illustration for each day. It gets several hundred comments. By Brooke McEldowney,  (a Man)  who also does a normal comic strip   – forget the name now, as I don’t read it.

Even with all those comments and hits, it’s still not one of the top 10 comics on Gocomics, however…Well, who can figure out cartoon lovers, eh?

The cartoon above is also on the front page of Slate today, and more comments about it might be found here.

Check in tomorrow for some cartoons I liked, and some I didn’t like, about Haiti.

More cartoons:

1. Mickey Mouse as human sacrifice for California budget?
2. Something about gays, a Time Magazine un-cartoon of the week.

Before Haiti, it was all about the Jay Leno – Conan O’Brien scuffle. (With Carson Daly thrown in the mix somehow, but I’ve never watched him… and some other talk show host I never watch.) I didn’t know if this was a real news story – I mean, networks move stuff around all the time, because they’re as bad at guessing as the rest of us, and does anyone really care about late night talk shows?

Well there’s sure been a lot of buzz about it, so, yeah.

And the letter that Conan wrote was kind of fun and sly! For some reason the Times has parsed it, as if we couldn’t understand the original FU letter, which was perfectly direct, well-mannered, and open.

In a scathing letter addressed to the “People of Earth,” O’Brien ripped into NBC for undercutting his brief reign at “The Tonight Show” with a move that he said would “seriously destroy” what he called “the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting.”

“I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me,” O’Brien said. “I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future.”

Today the Times announced that Conan O’Brien is definitely being kicked out, fired, or paid off so King Leno can do his thing. What a surprise. Like we couldn’t see that coming.

NBC said early Thursday that it has reached a deal with “The Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien for his exit from the show, allowing Jay Leno to return to the late-night program he hosted for 17 years.

Poor Coco. No, that’s not my pet name for Conan, but apparently his fans think Conan is too ethnic or something, so they call him that on Twitter.

Even though I never ever watched Conan O-Brien more than once or twice, I still feel resentful towards Jay Leno now. What is wrong with me?

Cartoon Caption: Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Late night, 12:35 PM, Midnight, etc.

“Just tell me. Who will sing me to sleep each night?”

I read an article that no one likes changes of  late night shows. You’re in your nightgown or pjs, things are winding down, you don’t want to think about work the next day, you either are or you aren’t looking forward to sex before bedtime, and it’s best that TV just give you a routine, and put you to bed.

What is that baby doing, exactly? I shudder to think. I redrew Jay Leno in a later version of this, but I do think Conan came off very well.

I wasn’t thinking of the bands and singers they have on late night programs, as I meant this metaphorically, but as so often happens, that works, too!

More cartoons:

1. Who’s your rac-ist?
2. David Letterman, starring in The Invention of Confessing

I like his drawing style, and he’s certainly a professional, in many more publications, and for many more years than me! He’s one of the biggies, as far as editorial cartoonists go, and also has his own blog. (Very attractive – love the orange background, with the chocolate brown header! But alas, it’s Blogger. As you know, I seldom follow Blogger sites, because Google has that self-serving ME ME ME bar at the top, and also commenting is so difficult there. Why make it difficult for your commenters, Blogger blogs!?)

I disagree with his politics, however (Okay, almost always disagree) and I was certainly offended by these 2 cartoons. They’re both about gay rights. I think it’s quite possible to write about homosexuality without talking about actual sex, don’t you? I’m pretty sure gays have the same modicum and decorum and sensitivity as straight adults.

He linked to this on Facebook last month:

Did Obama help gay rights? Maybe he didn’t do anything really big, but he wasn’t like Bush, who tried to stop it.  And at least President Obama wasn’t as rude and disrespectful as Rob is here, having the office of the President give someone the finger.

The next one is worse, because it’s salacious – oh, hell, it’s ob-scene. I don’t know what No on One is, but Rob does a lot of cartoons for New Jersey, so maybe it was there.

I agree with the original idea, that schools who wouldn’t let their kids watch the President’s speech are moronic. Or, no, I guess the measure is not to hire gays as teachers?? Love the flat colors in this drawing. But…How can you ask people to vote the right way when your own cartoon is so offensive?! Well, Rob is the cartoonist for politicker.com and a bunch of east coast papers, so he probably knows better than me what newspaper editors like…But I don’t think my editors would like this. And I doubt many voters would like this, either, on either side of the issue.

And personally, I’m very glad I didn’t do these cartoons. YMMV. Am I too uptight? I guess you could say they’re just not my cup of tea. :)

Cartoon captions for Google: Mr. President, critics claim you didn’t lift a finger to help promote marriage equality. As you can see, they’re wrong.

If you vote No on One, guess who schools will hire to teach your kids…Hey everyone, I’m big gay Al, and today’s lesson is all about lub-rication! Vote Yes on One, paid for by religious wackos trying to scare you!

More cartoons:

1. How Democrats cheer themselves up.
2. Sometimes it sucks to be gay.

I missed the 60 Minutes interview the LA Times is talking about here. (Is that show still on the air?)

Discussing in strikingly personal terms his order to escalate the war in Afghanistan, President Obama said Sunday that sending 30,000 new combat troops was the hardest decision of his presidency so far.

Can you understand now why I get so annoyed with the Times? WTH, “strikingly personal”??? Because he said he felt bad talking to the cadets? Geez, what a revelation.

First go round of this cartoon concept.

It goes on:

Critics have said his plan is confusing and contradictory because although it calls for the new deployment, it also sets a July 2011 date to start withdrawing troops.

I don’t know about contradictory, but I’ve found that the best way to broadcast your intentions, leak your war plans, and help out the enemy is to put the details on Twitter, Mr. President.

(another version of the cartoon is after the jump)

CNN says:

In his speech Tuesday, Obama said his strategy had three objectives:

• Deny al Qaeda a safe haven

• Reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow Afghanistan’s government

• Strengthen Afghanistan’s security forces and government

I hope it works out that way. This is a DayPlanner type strategy, isn’t it.

Does this cartoon make more sense? This is the one up on Slate now, but I think I prefer the first one.

Cartoon caption: RAW MEAT. One way to make military decisions. OR Is this the sign that made Obama order 30,000 more troops?

This seemed like such an obvious cartoon idea to me that I had to rush to draw it right away, for fear some other cartoonist would have the same idea, and beat me to it!! This happens to me a lot. As it turns out, other cartoonists don’t seem to think the way I do. There have been a couple of times when I suspected they copied me – will write about this in the future.

But for this event, I’m the only cartoonist who decided that word games was the obvious corollary to declaring war! Yes, RAW on the truck in big red letters transposed easily in Obama’s office, as he sat contemplating in the Oval Office, to WAR. And as war often has casualties :(, that leaves…dead meat, or raw meat laying on the battlefield.

What is really really strange about this is that after I had written, drawn and posted it on Slate, someone pointed out that meat spelled backwards was almost team; ie, which made it read (backwards) War Team.

I didn’t even think about this, but this happens a lot with cartoons, or my cartoons. Like alchemists turning lead into gold, you have the idea, add the drawing, and then things happen. If you’re lucky.

More cartoons:

1. Turn in your red meat! Guns are okay, too.
2. Obama won Nobel Peace Prize in spite of himself.

It seems logical that Santa would visit the unemployment office AFTER Christmas, of course, but those pesky editors just aren’t in the mood to buy Santa Claus anything after Christmas Day – I guess they think the cartoon should be half price! This year, with over 10% unemployed (as Obama confirmed  in the oh so casual before Christmas White House Special that Oprah did, that has already aired twice – yeah, it’s over 10%.) seems like unemployment is any time of the year. There’s a good chance many Santas didn’t get to work this year at all, so I hope this makes sense both before and after Christmas.

Yikes, unemployment went up to 12.5% in California, the Los Angeles Times said!

California still has the fourth-highest unemployment rate in the nation, yes, and its unemployment rate is a whopping 4.5 percentage points higher than it was in October 2008. But the job gains are a significant part of a trend that’s seen the pace of job loss slow as the economy pulled itself back together again.

What the hell do they mean?

California actually added 25,700 jobs in October, making this the first month since April of 2008 that the state has gained jobs.

Truly, sometimes I think they just rearrange facts at the Times to have something new to say.

Anyway, I added 3 elves to this particular Santa, so we know he’s the real one, and I’m sure he worked this year. Didn’t I get some Christmas cards, and don’t I have a new monitor coming real soon?! Could not resist having one of the elves holding a new Christmas toy – perhaps an iPhone, or – wait a second- wouldn’t it make more sense if it were a BLACKBERRY?  Ho ho ho.

Cartoon caption: “But it says here you have 350 years experience in overnight delivery…” at the Unemployment Office.

I must say, I had a lot of fun fooling around with a rough bumbling Photoshop brush for the background, and even for Santa’s suit. The colors are exactly what I was hoping for.

More cartoons:

1. Santa is unemployed and may need Prozac.
2. Graduation chuckles for the undereducated crowd.

Anyway, back to Christmas! I’ve been studying what the layout is of the White House, trying to see the furniture properly, which apparently changes with each new King and Queen. The Christmas tree shown on Oprah’s special took days to decorate, with dozens of volunteers. It was beautiful. I guess it stuck in my mind,  and that’s how this Christmas tree popped out.

Did President Obama really do a lot at the Copenhagen Climate talks? Besidess show up, I mean?

CNN talks about the importance of rainforests and REDD:

The U.N.’s REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) program is a collaboration between the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Environmental (UNEP) and Development (UNDP) programs.

The idea is straightforward; If the function of rainforests — capturing carbon, water catchment, weather regulators and biodiversity — is recognized their value will rise.

The WashPost said, with unusual optimism:

That almost happened. The fact that it didn’t may pose a slight glitch, but is unlikely to halt the proliferation of such projects around the world.

Well, I have no idea if those projects will work, so I put my 2 cents in, with my very own Christmas tree ghost. Yes, I know there many not be many conifers or pines in rainforests (although I believe there may be a rainforest in Oregon, in which case there may be some there.), but that doesn’t matter, because this tree cares about all trees. He’s a good tree.

Cartoon Caption: “I’m the ghost of Christmas trees past. Why didn’t you win the rainforests measure, Mr. Softhead?”

Can I tell you how much “Mr. Softhead” makes me laugh? I don’t think I ever heard the word, but I keep a thesaurus right by my thinking cap. :!

More cartoons:

1. Santa was laid off. AGAIN.
2. An early Christmas present for you!