Cam Cardow / Ottawa Citizen (click to start slideshow)
Surprising news from last night. Kim Jong Il, North Korea's wacky dictator who preferred building nukes over feeding his people, has died heart failure. News reports point to his son, Kim Jong Un, taking control of the isolated nuclear power.
Kim Jong Il has been a target for cartoonists for years. Check out some of the best cartoons over the years about the North Korean leader in our new Life and Death of Kim Jong Il slideshow.
Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to start slideshow)
Every Friday, we collect the best political cartoons of the week and stuff them into one big, glorious slideshow.
So just relax and catch up on a week's worth of news with our Best Cartoons of the Week slideshow.
Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to start slideshow)
Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. Season's Greetings. What are we supposed to say again? Christmas might get more complicated year after year, but luckily you can always count on our cartoonists coming up with the best the yule log has to offer.
So enjoy and share our great Christmas cartoon slideshow.
Jeff Parker / Florida Today (click to start slideshow)
The National Transportation Safety Board is asking states to ban all use of cellphones while driving, even hands-free devices. Though it's insane to think about, some states don't even ban texting while driving, much less anything else!
What do cartoonists think of all these crazy, distracted drivers behind the wheel? Check out our Drivers and Cell Phones cartoon slideshow to find out.
Who drew the best cartoon?
During Saturday night's GOP debate, Mitt Romney offered to bet Rick Perry $10,000 to prove that Perry's allegation that Romney wanted to impose a health insurance mandate nationally was true. Regardless, a candidate who has a problem connecting to voters offering a $10,000 bet is odd, to say the least.
So who drew the best cartoon about Romney's high-stakes wager - Mike Keefe for PoliticalCartoons.com, or Jimmy Margulies for The Record?
Mike Keefe / PoliticalCartoons.com
Jimmy Margulies / The Record
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There have been reports around the Web that charges were dropped against my daughter, Susie. Unfortunately, the reports are untrue. Susie sent me this for the blog:
My arrest while covering Occupy Oakland has taught me a great deal about the dehumanizing power of law enforcement and the presumption of guilt in detention of political protesters, about the power of bureaucracy versus the power of the human spirit.
I didn’t also expect a lesson in media literacy, sinking standards and the flow of information.
Following my arrest on November 3 at Occupy Oakland, where I have been reporting for several outlets since October 10, I have worked very hard to get my charges dropped. This has been a long and complicated process. Ultimately the only thing that got the Oakland Police Department’s attention as a formal letter from the Society of Professional Journalists Freedom of Information committee. A week or so after they sent it, I received a call from the OPD Public Information Officer telling me that she had spoken with the investigator, who would not be pursuing my misdemeanor.
I have yet to receive anything in writing, nor have I received verbal confirmation of my dropped charges from either the Oakland Police Department leadership or the Alameda County District Attorney. I’m still in this gray area waiting stage where I don’t really know what’s happening. Things could certainly be worse and even more vague for me. I remain confident that because the PIO has taken it upon herself to lobby on my behalf, I am likely to eventually be “P2-ed” with my charges dropped — but my arrest record remaining.
Still, because of the lack of clarity, I chose to keep the story mostly quiet, but for one email to Mediabistro’s Fishbowl LA — an email which was selectively quoted, and then became the basis for several more posts in the comics and media press from authors who could not be bothered to email me and ask, Hey Susie, what’s up?
Occupy is a difficult story to cover, in large part because of its decentralized nature. There are very rarely clear answers and clear people to try to get them from. There have been many times I needed comment from someone who wasn’t willing to give me their full name let alone contact information, many times where I wished all I could do was email someone and ask, Hey, what’s up? It’s unfortunate to see that standards in web journalism have sunk so low that no one could bother to do that for me.
So for next time (though I surely hope there won’t be a next time): it’s susie.cagle@gmail.com.
- Susie Cagle
Read Susie’s blog here: http://www.thisiswhatconcernsme.com And read Susie’s illustrated report here:http://www.good.is/post/an-illustrated-history-of-occupy-oakland/
Who drew the best cartoon?
It's Christmas time, and no one has benefited from thoughtful gifts more over the years than the one percent. Tax cuts for the rich and access to the halls of power via well-timed contributions have allowed them to prosper greatly over the years. Will this Christmas be any different?
Who drew the best cartoon - R.J. Matson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, or David Fitzsimmons of the Arizona Daily Star?
David Fitzsimmons / Arizona Daily Star
R.J. Matson / St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Joe Heller / Green Bay Press-Gazette (click to start slideshow)
Terrible news out of Virginia Tech where two people, one of them a campus police officer, were shot and killed. According to msnbc, authorities believed the second victim was the man who shot the campus officer.
Cartoonists are a tough lot, as we bash and ridicule everything and anything in sight, but we've got a soft underbelly that's revealed in moments like this. Click here to view our Tragedy at Virginia Tech cartoon slideshow.
Jerry Robinson
I’m saddened to learn that my longtime friend, Jerry Robinson, died in his sleep on Wednesday night. He was 89. Jerry was best known as the cartoonist creator of Batman’s arch-nemesis The Joker.
Jerry started his long career in comics in the late thirties when Batman co-creator Bob Kane hired him. He worked side-by-side with Kane and Bill Finger; he came up with the name “Robin,” and contributed to the creation of Two-Face and Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s butler.
With such a prolific career in comics, most people don’t know he was also a prolific political cartoonist, and drew 6 political cartoons a week as part of two features, Still Life and Life With Robinson, that were internationally syndicated for 32 years. Jerry drew a cool Sunday comics feature called True Classroom Flubs and Fluffs illustrating crazy things that kids really said in school. Jerry is the only cartoonist to serve as president of both the AAEC and NCS. In 2000, Robinson was awarded the NCS’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2004.
Some of Jerry's irreverent wit from Still Life
Jerry was also a stanch defender of artists’ rights; he was an important supporter of Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster in their struggle with DC Comics to win recognition and compensation as the creators of Superman. He played a leading role in defending the rights of oppressed, international editorial cartoonists and did important work to defend the right of editorial cartoonists to use trademarked characters in their cartoons in the landmark “Reddy Kilowatt” case.
I first met Jerry in 1979 when I took his college course in cartooning at the New School in Manhattan; it was a great class and was important in shaping my career as a cartoonist. Jerry emphasized cartoon history and marketing in his class, and he took us all to visit his studio in his Riverside Drive apartment. At that time Jerry was just starting his editorial cartoon syndicate with his own “Life with Robinson” cartoon panel, breaking away from his old syndicate. Jerry’s entrepreneurship with his own cartoons led to the creation of his own syndicate, Cartoonists and Writers Syndicate, now run by his son, Jens.
Jerry was a seasoned world traveler, known to cartoonists around the globe. He was a great guy who made a big difference in my career. I’ll miss him.
Here are some examples of Jerry’s editorial cartoon, Life with Robinson. Check out more here.
Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner (click to start slideshow)
Santa tends to get a bit stressed out this time of year. Just think how you'd feel if every minute of every day, people were bugging you non-stop for you to give them stuff they wanted. An iPad here, a flat-screen TV there. It's all pretty exhausting.
All Santa really wants you to do for Christmas is to laugh at our Life of Santa cartoon slideshow.
Who drew the best cartoon?
Is college football's system broken? It has become an annual tradition to hate the championship participants selected by the BCS. This year, fans are angered that Alabama would be selected over Oklahoma State (and to a lesser extent Stanford) for the National Championship game.
So who drew the best cartoon - Rick McKee of the Augusta Chronicle, or John Cole of the Scranton Times-Tribune?
Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle
John Cole / Scranton Times-Tribune
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Who drew the best cartoon?
This holiday season, no one is feeling the crunch quite as badly as the post office. In an attempt to save $20 billion by 2015, the post office is proposing cuts that would add a day to First Class mail delivery, in addition to exploring options like the elimination of Saturday delivery and closing nearly half of their mail processing centers.
So who drew the best cartoon - Mike Keefe of the Denver Post, or Adam Zyglis of the Buffalo News?
Mike Keefe / Denver Post
Adam Zyglis / Buffalo News
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