This is Historic Times » SCOTUS

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.

The Fabric of America

deephurting — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:20:18 +0000

This cartoon was inspired by the recent gun rights ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of McDonald v. Chicago, although my approach ended up being more of a topically-broad design than commentary addressing the specific case.

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

Not Just Any ‘Toon!

deephurting — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:59:27 +0000

Good news! My scanner came back to life.

Turns out the reason it stopped working before (I think) was the heat, so now that it’s cooled off around here, it’s working again.

I would have had a new cartoon sooner, but I spent about a week working on an animated piece which I ultimately scrapped because I don’t have the proper supplies for especially long or complex animation, and I ended up too far behind the news cycle before I got anywhere close to finished. I don’t have a tablet and can’t afford to buy one, so I had to draw every frame on tracing paper.

Related: I’m still coloring the above using my laptop’s trackpad. It’s a pain, but I’m not so sure a tablet would speed things up any.

I guess it would allow me to rely less on gradients, maybe.

The Bigger They Are…

deephurting — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:34:23 +0000