The two big news stories this week were the Boston Marathon bombing and the sinking of the gun bill by Republicans in the Senate.  Of-course, the gun bill got lost in the media focus on the Boston Bombing (we have a great collection of cartoons on the Boston Bombing here).

The problem with dominant news stories is that every cartoonist is drawing the same thing at the same time – why?  Editors all want the same thing at the same time.  Usually I like to steer a little different path then the cartoonist pack, because of supply and demand. There were just too many similar cartoons about the Boston Marathon Bombing this week, with bloody tennis shoes, bowed heads on statues, damaged Boston logos, symbolic metaphors breaking ribbons at finish lines – just what editors wanted, but too much of it for them to use.  I tried to take a bit of a different tack with memorial candles, and I wanted to avoid drawing something bloody, still, I’m sure my cartoon didn’t get reprinted much because of oversupply.  Here is the rough pencil sketch.

…and here is the black and white line art, that most people will see in the newspaper.

… and here is the color …

If I use colors in cartoons that are too dark, I get complaints from editors, so the color was a compromise. I’m not sure I’m happy with it. Oh well, it is a cartoon I was obligated to draw and the marketplace didn’t need – the story of my career.

The next cartoon was about the Republicans sinking the gun bill in the Senate. Republicans love their guns a bit too much – and that’s all that this cartoon says. Here is the rough sketch.

I found a photo of an assault rifle on Google and printed it out for my rough sketch.  For a moment, I thought about Photoshopping the actual photo into the cartoon – it would be a jarring contrast to have the drawing of an elephant with what looks like a real, nasty, assault rifle photo – then I thought about how Bill Day tried that and was pilloried by this colleagues, and my good judgement got the better of me. Gotta watch out for those gun photos, they can get you labeled as a “plagiarist” and make you the wallflower at AAEC cartoonist parties.

Here is the black and white art …

and the color …

Ah!  Love in the springtime!

Here are my most recent cartoons! Here’s the rough sketch for today’s cartoon, a little snarkiness pointed at troubled newspapers. I drew the three characters on the left, and then took a piece of tracing papers to make some changes for the panel on the right, to keep them looking consistent.

Then I drew it up as line art, in pencil on vellum.  This black and white version is what most people will see in the newspaper – if newspapers will print this one. I always like the black and white version best.

And here I added color, in Photoshop layers behind the black line art.

Those young people are so disrespectful of Grandpa! Here is yesterday’s cartoon …

My wife’s Uncle Keene e-mailed this idea to me, which he tells me was given to him by a friend who prefers to remain anonymous. I usually don’t draw other peoples ideas, but what the heck, I liked this one.  Thanks, Keene. Here it is as it looked in my local newspaper this morning.

I notice they picked up some gray scuzzy tone in the background. Yuck. Why do newspapers take pretty, clean crispy cartoons and muck them up? Here’s a previous cartoon, about the terrible air pollution in China.

This one was fun, and it is nice to do cartoons with no words. The previous cartoon was this quicky for Groundhog’s Day.

I didn’t bother doing color for this one. The previous one was about the immigration debate …

Now I’m caught up!  I need to post more often.