(Animation is included in the Academy Awards because it is a movie. It’s not in print anywhere, because it’s a movie. It has pages of dialogue, sound, music, voices, and much movie software because it’s a movie. It’s only in a handful of venues online because it uses up a hella lot of bandwidth, since it’s a movie.)

It looks like the Pulitzer judges can no longer be trusted to judge cartoons. I’m going to look into this further, and if this is the case, I’ll do my own judging for the Pulitzers next year, thanks.

Back to this week’s REAL cartoons that I think are best for the Los Angeles Times!

dan wasserman of gocomics.com on Goldman Sachs

Dan Wasserman of Gocomics has a sly sense of humor! I liked one of his for last week’s roundup, too. Of course, he could have included a woman in the lineup, but that would just be icing on the cake. I am so ticked off at Goldman Sachs I could scream, as my grandmother would say. Humor is just a way of quieting the rage, while still drawing an excellent picture of how Goldman Sachs screwed the public. Again.

Arcadio Esquivel of Caglecartoons.com on priest molestation

Here’s a great wordless cartoon by Arcadio Esquivel, of Mexico, I think, from Cagle Cartoons. Look at how the olive green and muted red bounce off each other! The cell phones look kind of dated…from 5 years ago? I wonder if priests really wear lemon colored tunics in other countries… No matter. Great illustration and comment. Since whites are now a minority in LA, I imagine Catholicism is the biggest religion, though I’m too lazy to look it up. Even so, the LA Times hates skeevy and anything too controversial, even when the whole subject is vulgar and disgusting, so they’ll love this one. :)

signe wilkinson of gocomics.com on high cost of education

Signe Wilkinson of Gocomics.com is one of my top 3 favorite cartoonists. The drawing is spot on, and love the colors. I saw several cartoons by other guys, while researching for this post, that used the Iceland volcanic ash to illustrate ideas like the economy, Goldman Sachs, war, etc. All viable. I think comparing it to the high cost of college is a bit of a stretch, but I’m not a parent, so maybe this is the time of year when tuition bills come due.

Also, I wanted to include this because education topics bore me, in general, but I’m trying to be more well-rounded, since this is for the TIMES.

Last, for Honorable Mention:

pat oliphant of gocomics.com on banana republic, the store

Okay, full disclosure: I can’t stand Oliphant. I think it’s okay to say it here, because he’s so popular nothing I say will make a difference, or hurt him, and I doubt he’s online much, if ever, so there you go.

He’s #3 in popularity in Gomics. And when I started there, for Slate, even one of the editors (not mine) said that Oliphant was his favorite! Uh-oh, I thought. He couldn’t be farther from what I wanted to do if he tried.

However, this particular cartoon caught my casual attention twice during the week, and since I may not like another of his cartoons for months, and the LA Times deserves the best cartoonists – and he did win a Pulitzer – back when it meant something, and didn’t include animation desperation- I want to include it here. I really like the jungle drawing, and the title at the bottom. Now, Banana Republic is one of my favorite stores, so I thought he meant two naked people wanted to go to Banana Republic to get new clothes. (It’s good to be a girl.) Twice I thought this, and wondered if the store was using illegal labor or something, which they are pretty clear about NOT doing.

But examining it more closely today, I think it is something about a banana republic, the political term. I haven’t heard that expression for a while and don’t have time to look it up on Wiki. She’s handing Adam a banana. I can see that. If you squint you can see one of those really annoying PSs he does that I never bother to read- it says they taste like apples.

I have no idea what this cartoon means. But here’s your Pat Oliphant cartoon, LA Times.

My own cartoons this week:

tax revenue cartoon in California

Comments on schools in California. (Sorry, no link now. Uclick threw away 2 years of my cartoons on Slate, Gocomics and Yahoo News when they kicked me out of Gocomics.)

Gizmodo and iphone cartoon

Comments on Gizmodo and stolen iPhone. (Front page of Slate all weekend!) (Sorry, no link now.)

Obama as cheapskate for forest land

Comments on Obama as cheapskate for wild lands (Sorry, no link now.)(which appears in the Sunday LA Daily News (rival of LA Times) today because they have a great editor there! :))

An explanation of why I’m doing this collection each week, and how you can submit your own cartoon, is here.

Captions spelled out for Google: Kaboom. I hate opening the college tuition bill. Child confesses to priest from across the room. Thank you for trading with us! Have a cigar! Congratulations! Cigar? Congratulations! Goldman Sachs. Adam and Eve in the Banana Republic. What you got there, Eve? Beats me – here, try one. Label says “Made in China.” They taste like apples. Nation lagging, recession continues, etc.

What do you think of this collection? Were these the best cartoons you found this week?

More cartoons:

1. Political cartoons for the LA Times for May 10, 2010.
2. Political oil, immigration, Facebook cartoons for the LA Times for May 2, 2010.

But even when I was drawing it, although I like the stock markets, think it’s very nicely capitalistic (although not very nice to most people this year), I had a feeling there was something sinister about the Dow. Sure, he’s smiling, and has those green money eyes. But those teeth can cut, and I tried not to make this a silly pumpkin. It’s a serious pumpkin.

Money at CNN agrees with me: It says Don’t Trust It!

But even economists who agree the economy is in recovery say that growth will be slow and difficult, with continued job losses, tight credit and further declines in home prices. And even some who believe that the current Dow 10,000 level is justified say there’s still a significant risk that the economy will take a step backward.

Several experts point out than many of the relatively strong earnings reports helping to lift the markets in recent days are being driven by cost cuts, rather than strong revenue growth that would be a better indicator of consumers and businesses being willing to spend again. If businesses keep cutting costs to make the numbers that Wall Street wants to see, that can only put more downward pressure on jobs and wages, and result in weaker economic growth or another downturn.

I’m only a cartoonist, so all this economics talk is making my head spin. Certainly everyone I know who was laid off is still laid off.  Still, I’m glad to see a little optimism, anyway.

The caption: Dow Jones as pumpkinhead. I wonder what L. Frank Baum would think. Happy Halloween!

More cartoons:

1. Who doesn’t hate AIG?
2. Giving out vaccines for Halloween.

"Now I'm confused. Is that a black hole, or the maws of AIG?" ©D. Barstow 2009

AIG, the worst insurance company of the year, and they have some tough competition. And there’s a dog in it for you, too.

This was for Slate, and I did it right before the big news broke about AIG asking for even more money, for those f-ing bonuses. On the day I did this, it was just “normal” money they requested.

I thought AIG was an insurance company, but some cartoonists were doing it as a bank…I think it’s an insurance company FOR banks. But this whole idea that the world’s economy will collapse if AIG dies is a bunch of baloney. Too big to fail? I don’t believe it for a minute, and I’m sure I’ll do another cartoon on that idea. And when did insurance companies get such a stranglehold on America, anyway?

Anyone can make comments on GoComics, where you can see this same cartoon, (Sorry, no links now. Uclick threw away 2 years of my cartoons on Slate, Gocomics and Yahoo News when they kicked me out of Gocomics.) with comments, as well as archived cartoons. And you can check out Slate to see all my editorial cartoons as I finish them.

More cartoons:

1. Insurance companies suck. But you already knew that.
2. I’m the first blogger to write fan fiction about Obama.