This is Historic Times » Bush

No Further Questions

deephurting — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 02:54:41 +0000

I originally wrote this gag for President Bush. In a way, that’s all that really needs to be said about Obama’s approach to the “War on Terror”–his policies have become so similar to those of the Bush Administration that they’re practically interchangeable.

I remembered the joke while trying to develop something on the Anwar Al-Awlaki assassination about two weeks ago, which was the first official targeted killing of a US citizen on charges of aiding and inciting terrorism. Additional air strikes since then have resulted in the death of Al-Awlaki’s son, so I read today.

The idea of targeted assassinations like these makes me uncomfortable. Even if the target’s a really bad person who may deserve it, I feel it’s dangerous to grant the President the same power to chase down individuals that we grant him to wage war for national defense. I also feel that assassinating terrorists before attempting to capture, try, and convict them like the crooks they are is a self-defeating strategy that only serves to inflame new, even harder to defeat terrorists, as these cartoons argued. It’s a bit like fighting bacterial infections–do so too aggressively, and even though it may kill off all the weaker bacteria, you’ll end up with stronger ones that are resistant to antibiotics.

I nearly finished this a few days after the Chris Christie cartoon, but I wasn’t happy with the results at the time, and so chose to spend more time working on it. Unfortunately, this overlapped with a trip I took to Portland, Oregon that ended up lasting much longer than I expected it to. I was staying with my sister, and even though she has a scanner, it’s of such a poor quality that it was useless to me except to sketch out colors before I could rescan the lineart with my own.

Speaking of Portland, I should probably point out part of why I was visiting, for any readers who happen to live there: I was looking for work, because I find the local arts community vibrant, and would like to move there. If anyone reading this can point me in the direction of some good job openings in the area for someone with my talents, or hook me up with some interviews, please let me know. Or, if you can’t help with that, you could put money towards helping me move, instead…

The Hand-Off

deephurting — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:40:33 +0000

I was trying to develop something on Obama’s Jobs Bill when the Solyndra scandal hit the news. For those who haven’t been following the “liberal media,” Solyndra was a solar-panel company, as well as one of the poster children for the economic stimulus program, which recently went bankrupt because of their apparently unsustainable business model–an ABC News clip which I’ve seen several times explains that they were selling them for only half of what they cost to manufacture.

As is to pretty much be expected at this point, the White House attempted to defer the blame by citing the previous Administration’s plans to deliver stimulus to the ill-fated company, while Republican representatives shot back that Bush’s people had determined the venture was too risky, and were planning to ultimately reject the project. I wasn’t sure what to think about this particular situation, but I do know there is already a history of Obama getting blamed for bills incurred by President Bush (such as TARP), and I realize most of the National Debt is the work of decades’ worth of Presidents and Congresses and wasting tons of money on dumb wars.

I developed the above cartoon along that more general track. It took quite a bit of time to finish, both because I had a false-start where I drew one of the figures facing the wrong direction, and because it took a ridiculous amount of time to color, but I’m quite happy with the results. There are a lot of puns at work here, even for me–see if you can identify them all!

Learning from Past Mistakes

deephurting — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 16:30:39 +0000

My 1st Presidency

deephurting — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 09:52:10 +0000

This would’ve been great if I’d finished it a week or so ago. Alas, I’m a little late to the party, and while my cartoon doesn’t really add anything of significance to this particular topic of conversation, I found the image irresistibly funny. Hopefully you will, too.

The events depicted in the photographs include 9/11, Bush being informed of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, that guy who threw his shoes at Bush, and assorted caskets coming back from the war. Also, the half-eaten pretzel refers to the time Bush reportedly choked on one, in case anybody out there forgot about that.

In a way, I can understand Bush’s difficulty in being asked to name the “worst moment” of his disastrous Presidency–after all, how could anybody possibly choose just one?

The next cartoon’s already almost done, so it should be up right away. Stay tuned.

A World Without Teleprompters

deephurting — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:27:15 +0000

Yeup, it’s another “George Bush, Jr. is bad at talking” cartoon. But, it is based on something specific. I came up with it, to begin with, as a response to this piece of garbage by Mike Lester.

If you follow Republican talking points at all, then you know one of the hot things to ridicule Obama about is his use of teleprompters. This is part of a broad strategy of first acting like the media worships Obama over something he’s legitimately good at, then going, “But LOOK! It’s an illusion! He’s a fraud!!”

Never mind that the latter often has no basis in reality. Hey, maybe they’re just trying to warn us not to make the same mistake they did?

The irony here is that our last President, a Republican President, was one of the worst public speakers in history–that was, until Sarah Palin came along. That’s what this cartoon attempts to highlight.

It’s one of the dumbest talking points ever. There’s nothing so unusual about the President using a teleprompter, but if idiots are going to be bringing it up constantly, then perhaps some historical perspective is in order.

Sleep on It

deephurting — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:15:03 +0000

Chain of Command

deephurting — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 06:36:19 +0000

More Actual Quotes

deephurting — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:32:42 +0000

The title of this cartoon references another one I drew over three years ago. I just added it to my archive, so here’s a link to it for those interested.

With luck, I’ll be able to upload more old cartoons soon!

You Rotten Kids!!

deephurting — Thu, 21 May 2009 06:07:30 +0000

I should have finished this days ago, but it took an unusually long time to draw.

I don’t know if anyone can tell, but I used the wrong pen point to letter this cartoon. I typically prefer to letter captions with a B or D, but accidentally used a C (on the non-bolded parts) here.

I’m especially happy with how recognizable Condoleeza Rice came out in this one, even though half her face is obscured by a refrigerator!

We Can Dig It!

deephurting — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:16:27 +0000

This illustration turned out pretty good, but the commentary and gag are kind of average. Hopefully Obama is recognizable from the back like this, even without a label explicitly identifying him.

I’m planning on uploading a lot of old cartoons (from ’07) to this blog in the near future, so if you’re interested in seeing those, you should plan on going through the archive in the next few days.