Last updated on January 3, 2023
It’s Sunday, so it must be time for the Los Angeles Times Choice Awards! For editorial cartoons, that is!
I had to wade through a lot of elephants saying no to Obama (for Supreme Court nominees), and a lot of Tea Party ridiculers, and of course Sarah Palin haters, before I found these gems. (I think Glenn McCoy and I may be the only cartoonists who even attempt to shed light on the liberal wussy left.)
I’ll start off today with a cartoonist who is firmly conservative, however: Lisa Benson from Gocomics.com.
Lisa is very local – lives somewhat to the North of LA, and is the cartoonist for a California paper. She usually attacks Obama, rather than political issues in general, as is true in this cartoon. For instance, one (like me) might target the evil bombing countries, but she prefers to blame the President! I picked this cartoon because the Nuclear Summit was in the news this week, and Obama’s facial expression and casual whistle as he walks away made me smile!
I guess I’m not always the best critic, because at first I thought she was saying Obama did a good job! But since the bomb is National Security, I guess not. Still, good cartoon (even though I don’t agree with the point of view) and she draws a credible Obama. Some other cartoonists might want to practice him, since he’ll be around for a while. :)
I picked almost all captionless cartoons this week. I prefer words, in general – no Wordless Wednesday for me! Also, I’m not a fan of black scratchy pen scrawls in online cartoons. Perhaps it looks better in the paper, which usually pays the bigger cartoonists like Mike Luckovich, so I see why they don’t want to change their style. But nowadays, most people will see it online.
However, I couldn’t resist this one of the Pope sweeping the pedophile scandals under the rug! (Why, they look like little children’s heads, disembodied from the horrible rapes from the offending priests… I have a dark soul.) And the Pope is obviously drawn with Uncle Fester of The Addams Family in mind! (from cartoonist Charles Addams, great New Yorker cartoonist.) 
Wordless, and it works, Mike Luckovich of Gocomics.com!
I’m making notes on a couple of the Catholic Church scandal cartoons I’ve come across, as the passivity and negligence and lack of responsibility unfold. (My own cartoon on the priest rapes (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.) is here.) As of a year or so ago, the population of Los Angleles makes the former minorities (mostly Hispanic) now a majority. So, yeah, Catholicism would be the main religion here. How do they go to church and not ask questions now?!
Here’s a lighthearted cartoon from David Fitzsimmons of Political Cartoons, about the Supreme Court nominee process.
Unlike most of the other cartoons I found, David has made the process into a game of basketball for Obama, and the elephants are part of the game, not the evil enemy. There are some famous basketball games in LA that go on for years! I think it’s mostly people in the industry and scriptwriters. “We’re not just rich cliques, we’re homeboys!”
It’s all a game, people.
I’m a fan of Fitzsimmons for the limited palettes he often uses – that is, limiting the colors in his cartoons to 2 or 3 colors. In this case, it’s a little bit more than 3, but still in the same palette area. The swirls on the wall don’t really make sense, but that’s what makes them fun!
I can only choose 3 cartoons for the Times, but this is a hearty Honorable Mention I wanted to include this week.
Steve Greenberg is another local cartoonist of Political Cartoons, who lives just outside of Los Angeles, and a friend as well. (He came to my booksigning, didn’t he?!)
I don’t agree with the concept – we all get pollution, rich and poor – but the soft neutral coloring here, even though the cartoon is about toxic chemicals, won my heart! The LA Times deserves the pretty, even though they ignore it in their artwork. And pollution of any kind is something we in California, and in SoCal particularly, can NEVER EVER forget.
Thanks again to all the talented clever cartoonists I was able to include this week, and good luck for next weeks’ picks for the LA Times Opinion section!
Remember, if you want me to consider your work, the guidelines are here. And if one of your cartoons is chosen and you want me to link to your blog or site, just let me know.
My own cartoons this week:
Comments on Lysistrata here. (Sorry, no link now. )
Dwarves in a coal mine cartoon. (Sorry, no link now. )
Comments on pot brownies here. (No)
Medical Marijuana requires munchies.
Captions for blind Google: The rich get richer, and the poor get their byproducts. Basketball game for the Supreme Court. National Security and nuclear warhead with Obama. The Pope sweeps messy pedophile priests under the rug.
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