1/30/10

Well, well, well

It appears I have a stalker. And from France, no less.
You don't believe me? Here's a list of the blog's recent visitor hits:

See?

Drawn using:
Black ballpoint pen

1/25/10

Today's J. Post cartoon


Took me a while to come up with, but the end result was worth waiting for IMO. Contrasting the state of the settlements (10-month building moratorium), the southern region of Israel (flooded), and the "peace" talks (stalled), all with a pithy weather-related title. I'm a mad genius!

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

1/22/10

Ripped From the Archives: February 2009

world asleep 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 rockets from gaza 2008 israel fights back waking up this is an outrage shame on them
After eight years and thousands of rockets, Israel strikes back with Operation Cast Lead. The world is not amused at the Neighborhood Bully's antics.
Unpublished!

bernard madoff bank medici sterling shapiro family foundation natixis yeshuva university kingate maxam hadassah elie wiesel foundation for humanity fairfield tree with shriveled rotten trunk fruit with dollar signs
The tree that bore so many fruit had a core that was oh so rotten...

i fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant you don't know the half of it hamas hq escape tunnels gaza operation cast lead
The quote is apocryphal, but the sentiment definitely wasn't, as Hamas's leaders scurried to hiding places like rats. (Naturally, no one had the guts to actually finish the job...)

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black ballpoint pen

1/20/10

Darth Obvius



All hail Darth Obvius, Dark Lord of the Nether Regions, the Sith Master who was kicked out of the Galactic Empire for being too evil. In his spare time he's written articles for a comedy website on Planet Earth.
Why yes, my alter ego is an obese Black man with a huge Afro. What's so odd about that?

Drawn using:
Black ballpoint pen
Google Images
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

1/18/10

Those Guys With the Glasses


Doug Walker, a.k.a. The Nostalgia Critic, reviews movies. Lewis Lovhaug, a.k.a. Linkara, reviews comic books. And they are hysterical.
Catch them both at www.thatguywiththeglasses.com!

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.5 mm pilot pen

1/16/10

Young Justice: The Next Generation - colored, by hand


Adapting the YJ:TNG drawing for computer coloring is taking a mite longer than I expected; in the meantime, enjoy a hand-colored version!

Colored using:
No. 2 pencil
Colored markers
Colored pencils

1/14/10

Today's J. Post cartoon



So long to Miep Gies, the remarkable Dutchwoman who helped hide Anne Frank and her family. :'(

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black marker
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

1/13/10

Ripped From the Archives: June 2008

the 70s golda meir we will not negotiate with terrorists yasser arafat death to israel the 90s yitzhak rabin the 00s ehud olmert oh what the heck take it all ismail haniyeh mahmoud abbas
The Middle East version of give-and-take: we give, they take. The Yitzhak Rabin caricature did not come out well at all.
And here are the two other cartoons submitted that month, never previously published!

ehud olmert bashar assad tragicomedy farce israel syria water source supply lake kinneret sea of galilee golan crisis drought divert old boy
Then-PM Ehud Olmert and Syrian leader Bashar Assad. As British vaudevillians. Yes.

unhrc united nations human rights commission envoy in theory impartial in actuality self hating jewish left winger richard falk
Reaction to the appointment of Richard Falk (a leftist self-hating Jew) as the UN's Human Rights Commission envoy.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black ballpoint pen

1/11/10

Today's J. Post cartoon


That's Hillary Clinton, still in denial about her ability to hold her peacekeeping, dragging Bibi along for another shot or two dozen from Abbas the bartender.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Black marker
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

1/10/10

Last month's J. Post Christian Edition cartoon


Yeah, you read that right. For no reason I can discern, the editors of the Post's Christian affiliate were so enamored of this cartoon that everybody ignored that they decided to run it about a month a half after it was topical. Go figure.
Oh, and the subject is Israel's religious Right (represented by a Jewish Indiana Jones), already reeling from the breaking of the Ya'acov Teitel story, immediately got followed up by the publication of the controversial "Torat HaMelech" ("The King's Way") book, which--among other things--stated that it is permissible to kill Gentile children if one fears they may grow up to be an enemy of the Jews. Yeah.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

1/6/10

Today's jpost.com cartoon--and how it got there

Recently, Anonymous from Birmingham commented on one of the Post cartoons, wondering if I could show the process of creating one. I'm happy to oblige with my latest featured drawing!
Before starting, I read the morning paper and seeing if any of the articles' subjects happen to catch my eye. Sometimes it will be something as specific as Roger Waters telling Israel to remove the checkpoints; sometimes it will be something vaguer like Achmed Tibi's attendance at the Fatah GA. And sometimes it will be more general, like the Iranian threat, or today's subject: the settlement freeze, and the settlers' defiant fight against it.
Step 1: Visualization. Freeze... fight... aha! A freezer! And Netanyahu and Barak trying to contain within it the settlers who are trying to get loose.
Step 2: Rough Sketch, done in pencil. Each one takes up half an A4 sheet of paper. This one was a simple, uncluttered drawing.

Step 3: Initial Inking. I mostly use a 0.7mm pen, with a 0.4 for finer details and shading.

Step 4: Erasing and Final Inking. The pencil sketch is eradicated and final touches are added, such as in this one using white-out to deawkwardize Bibi's right leg.

Step 5: Scanning and Coloring. I finish up using the free Serif PhotoPlus software, as it is less cumbersome than Photoshop, whose dozens of extra features I don't need anyhow for this type of work.

And there you have it! A cartoon fit for print. Or perhaps just online display. Or not even that. Whatever. Ta-da!

UPDATE: The finished cartoon was also featured on La Boucle d'Occam.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Blue 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

1/5/10

Today's J. Post cartoon


Yes, it's an idea that's been done before--security at airports tightening to the point of passengers having to strip naked has been a political cartoon staple for years--but I brought to this one the twist of showing the progression of restrictions: no shoes after Richard Reid, no liquids after Ahmed Abdullah Ali et al... and now, possibly, no clothes after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab hid explosives in his underwear (specifically, the crotch)? Who knows?
UPDATE: This was picked up by the JOSHUAPUNDIT blog and then featured on several affiliated sites, as well as separately on a Brazilian blog. BTW Joshua, it's not just the Israelis making a joke out of it...
UPDATE 2: With the new TSA full-body scanners, this joke has turned out to be ramerkably prescient.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

1/4/10

Today's J. Post cartoon


Oh, that rascally Ahmadinejad, always ignoring deadlines the US sets for him to sit down and negotiate and end to that silly nuke nonsense. Ah well, Obama's response will probably be the same as always... nothing.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Black 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

1/1/10

Dead Presidents' Society - sketch


aa Rough sketch based on yet another offbeat germ of an idea I've had recently. Washington's mecha suit can also transform into a horse, FDR's braces can turn into a rocket-powered wheelchair, and Kennedy is the team's tech genius (think about it and you'll understand why).

Drawn using:
Blue ballpoint pen
Black marker