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The Golden Touch

deephurting — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 04:50:16 +0000

This cartoon combines Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam with Thomas Nast’s classic Boss Tweed caricature with a bag of money for a head. In the place of Adam, I’ve substituted Mitt Romney. I wanted to make a joke about how Romney is the ultimate realization of corporate personhood-a “man” (let’s call him) so out of touch with the rest of humanity, and so immersed in wealth that he has more in common with cold, faceless corporations than he does with other people.

It seemed like an overbroad gag to begin with, but while trying to figure out what to do with the angels in the original painting, I happened upon this list of Romney’s 2008 campaign donors. I felt like including this sort of information in the cartoon would be enough to tie it together and give it some substance beyond the basic joke. What do you think?

Rescue 9-9-9

deephurting — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 01:12:34 +0000

The title of this cartoon references Herman Cain’s rich-friendly tax “plan,” and Rescue 9-1-1, a popular reality show from the ’80s and ’90s which was about actual emergency response telephone calls, and was hosted by William Shatner.

I started developing a cartoon months ago which compared record corporate profits and windfalls for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else to the common cliche of a sinking ship. Even though the overall metaphor wasn’t especially original, it hinged on a gag which was pretty unique, but it didn’t quite seem to describe the present situation accurately, so I set it aside and finally drew this, instead.

Neo Cons

deephurting — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 04:50:02 +0000

It’s become increasingly common for Republican Congresspersons lately to refer to the obscenely wealthy as “job creators” in their quest to deflect the burden for government spending onto the poor and the middle class instead of those who can actually afford it without giving up a meal. Since recent history shows that cutting taxes for the rich didn’t prevent the high unemployment and other economic problems the US is currently experiencing, the relationship they’re trying to draw is pretty unreasonable–if there’s a correlation at all, it seems more likely to me that the tax cuts, as well as other giveaways to corporations (such as various deregulations), probably caused the recession, and continuing that trend is bound not to help.

This cartoon compares this blatant economic trickery to the “shell game” or cup-and-ball routine, both of which being sleight-of-hand used for centuries to con desperate or unsuspecting dupes out of money by presenting them with what appears to be a simple gambling game which is in fact impossible to win. The crowds surrounding a victim in this con are usually composed of shills or “muscle” whose job it is to either make the game appear to be winnable, keep the victim from leaving, or watch out for police (although the cop in this cartoon doesn’t really seem to be all that effective at protecting the public from these crooks, eh?). Another well-known form of the same basic trick is the Three-card Monte.

Man’s Best Friend

deephurting — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 14:00:18 +0000

This cartoon was drawn in response to the Supreme Court throwing out a class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart by a large swath of female employees earlier this week. The lawsuit, which has been pending since 2001, alleges gender discrimination in pay and promotion on the retail giant’s part. Wal-Mart contends that it is blameless for any discrimination that’s occurred at stores it owns because it has corporate policies forbidding such things on the books, and the Supreme Court seems to agree, adding that the case’s 1.5 million plaintiffs do not constitute a “class” because their individual grievances don’t have enough in common.

I didn’t feel I could say, at this point, whether or not I thought Wal-Mart was guilty of said discrimination, but I did feel the Court’s ruling that Wal-Mart’s guilt or innocence shouldn’t even be examined was yet another example of a pro-corporate bias there, so I wanted my cartoon to be about that. The way I see it, while downplaying any specific references to Wal-Mart or what it stands accused of may make the cartoon a little less timely, it has the benefit of making it a little more timeless–this image could be applied to many other recent cases where the Supreme Court left its judgement to the preferences of America’s corporate aristocracy–Citizen’s United springs immediately to mind–but the joke is clever and original enough to keep it from being boring or generic.

I like the idea of gags that play off Lady Justice’s supposed “blindness,” although this is only the second cartoon I’ve finished that uses one, the first being this piece on Saddam Hussein’s execution.

There Will Be Blood

deephurting — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:34:00 +0000

Finally, I’ve got something on the revolution currently underway in Libya.

This cartoon is mostly a response to people lamenting the recent increases in gas prices ostensibly caused by democratic protests against various Middle Eastern dictators, like Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. It irked me that many Americans, including a lot of other cartoonists, seemed to be more concerned about how much it costs to fill up their cars than the freedom and lives of foreigners, so I wanted to do something pointing out how our own spending habits support these brutal regimes.

Pay No Attention to that Man Behind the Curtain

deephurting — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 12:22:00 +0000

“Both the Republicans and the Democrats are puppets of corporations and the wealthy” isn’t exactly a new comment to make during election season (or anytime, really), so I wanted to put a little extra research into this gag before drawing it, which is my excuse for being so late with the darn thing.

Given that one of the effects of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is that any organization can now donate an unlimited amount of cash to a given candidate’s campaign without revealing where the money came from, I thought it would be appropriate to depict the GOP/Dem electoral dichotomy as a traditional Punch & Judy puppet show, since all the puppets in those are usually operated by a single puppeteer, hidden behind a stage. I soon discovered that this metaphor was all the more appropriate for other reasons, such as the fact that the character Punch, who usually has a very long nose, is a brash loudmouth with little respect for the personal space of others, and a habit for wanton violence, whereas his wife Judy tends not to be all that effective at reigning him in–sounds like the Republicans and the Democrats to me!

I put special care towards composition and perspective in this cartoon–if you look closely, you may notice that a lot of elements align in interesting ways. Moreover, my signature and URL were originally on the other side of the artwork, but I felt this unbalanced things, so I ended up blanking them out with corrective fluid and rewriting them on the other side–no digital cheating for me! This way, the overall arrangement of elements forms several triangles, as well as an upward-sweeping arc which I feel helps with the cartoon’s narrative.

Back on the subject of donations: I wanted to once again thank everyone who helped me pay at least in part for the trip to pick up my Sigma Delta Chi award. Money’s still tight, though, so if anybody wants to help me pay my rent next month, it’d be much appreciated. Furthermore, it occurred to me recently that I’ve never really signaled interest in taking commissions from people as well–I’d much rather earn money by drawing something than just get money for no particular reason, after all. If anyone wants to commission me for anything, send an email here.

One last thing I should point out: Some of my cartoons are on display right now at the Olyphant Art Supply store in downtown Olympia, Washington, and should continue to be up at least through election day. Anyone who’s in the area and wants to see my original artwork up close, or buy some prints, or just get nice art supplies from some cool people should check it out.

If Y’Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

deephurting — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:32:15 +0000

As you may have heard, conservative talk-radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh was hospitalized on December 31st after experiencing chest pains. He was taken care of quickly and expertly, and naturally seized on the opportunity to declare that his situation was proof there is “not one thing wrong with the American healthcare system” and “it is working just fine.” Apparently, Limbaugh doesn’t understand the difference between himself–a millionaire who lives an opulent, oxycodone-fueled lifestyle when he’s not making fun of people with Parkinson’s disease–and America’s 47+ million uninsured.

I’m forced to come to one of two conclusions here–Limbaugh’s either extraordinarily stupid, or he’s generously offering to pay the hospital bills of those uninsured. In the spirit of Christmas, let’s assume the latter, and if you get sick or injure yourself and can’t afford the bill, send it to Rush! After all, I’m sure he’d rather pay it for you than be wr-wr-wrong!

By the way, I should mention that this cartoon was held up for at least a day by me knowing what I wanted to say with it, but not knowing how to frame it. I was certain I needed to have Limbaugh addressing somebody in the cartoon besides the audience, but I wasn’t sure whom.

Luckily, I got some unexpected help from Quentin Tarantino, or at least his movie, Inglourious Basterds. I figured research topics related to Conservative talk-radio broadcasters included Nazis, so I gave Basterds another watch, and the scene in which British Lt. Archie Hicox comments that Bridget von Hammersmark needs somebody around to light her cigarette inspired me to have Limbaugh making his comment to his doctor while the doctor is given the demeaning and counterintuitive task of lighting his cigar.

After that, the only issue that remained was how to fit everything I wanted in the space nicely, but again Tarantino came to the rescue–a shot in the scene immediately following the Mexican Standoff reminded me that I could just tilt the whole composition to dramatic effect, as I’ve sometimes done in the past.

So, if QT or anybody who knows him happens to be reading, I’d like to say thanks for the help!

Dead Weight

deephurting — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:39:05 +0000

I was born 27 years ago today (September 23rd). I couldn’t really afford to do anything for my birthday this year, so I packed up and paid a surprise visit to my parents.

Readers of the New York Times may have caught this earlier cartoon in Sunday’s Week in Review section. This is the first time I’ve appeared in a paper with so large an audience, although they mixed up attribution of my work with a cartoon by Jim Morin, and they misspelled my name. I haven’t gotten to communicate with them since then, but any readers who care should contact the Times and request that they reprint both cartoons with proper attribution, or at least run a correction.

The meaning of the last cartoon seems to have proven troublesome for quite a few people. Hopefully this one is better (though I feel my drawing got a bit sloppy in the last panel there).

Money Talks

deephurting — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:37:39 +0000

Appeared in the “Week in Review” section of the Sunday, September 20th, 2009 Edition of the New York Times, mistakenly credited there to Jim Morin