The Week in Cartoons, Annotated at the 17th Hole at Augusta

Just watchin' this golf and writing...

Poor Rory. I know the feeling.

Maybe he can pull it off.

Anyway. Hi.

Another week in Hades, again. You think you can’t survive another week of this stuff, and yet we do…thus far. Let’s check out the cartoons this week. First, the Smerconish cartoon:

Well, waddaya know? A golf cartoon!

This is getting to be a rather common metaphor, since the 47th president and perpetual Trump Golf Club Champion of the Known Universe has spent 27 percent of his presidency on his golf course.

Hey, buddy. Play someone else’s course and see how you do. I’ll play you at Land Park Golf Course, the course of the people ($21 for 9 holes, and real humans play there—even Democrats). No cart, either, Fat Ass. Speaking of which, his physician said he weighed 224 in his three pages of abject lies. The assertions that Trumps weighs 224 illustrates just how far he’s willing to go to lie.

250, easy. Maybe more.

That’s him this weekend. That ain’t 224. Sorry. Also: why does he have his own name on his shirt? Just in case you weren’t aware of who I am, here is my name and tit(le).

Anyway, when I drew this, and this does happen, I realized I used a rather similar approach a few weeks ago, Club Champion, etc.. Listen, when you draw as many of these as I do, it’s all a blur. Here’s the other golf champion theme I did on March 19…

Interestingly, it was just slightly different enough to confidently note the “…Again.” alters it enough. For the record, I have done over 13,000 editorial cartoons, by my rough count, so it’s not uncommon to duplicate once in awhile. The key is not to duplicate others not drawn by you. I see a lot of “homages”, shall we say. I also don’t think that anyone necessarily did it deliberately. That happens, too, but honestly, I am really amazed by the lack of duplication in my/our business.

On the first cartoon, which I liked better artistically, I was inspired by a photo I saw of Fat Ass with his navy golf pants hiked up to his nipples. Of course, I can’t find it now. He usually wears tan khakis, so the navy struck me. I liked the perspective from the MAGA guy, with the cigar and the sunglasses. The trophy was fun.

Not self-congratulating, just observing.

I hate lots of things that I do, mostly because I didn’t have enough time to execute them.

Next?

This one was derived from a few roughs I had worked on over the weekend before. Again, the “Jump!” stock market is common, but the trick is to do it a little differently. The original idea was Musk jumping:

(Rory missed the putt at 18. Sigh, Anyway…)

I had been following the antics of Peter (Ron Nava) Navarro that week as well, and Musk referred to him as a “moron”, and, even with Navarro’s Harvard PhD, I kinda had to agree. So I put both of them on the ledge.

Next up:

I have drawn these things for 47 years, I think it is, or nearly, and I am almost positive I have never drawn a rollercoaster cartoon. I have an original from Kevin Kallaugher that shows Nixon’s face as a rollercoaster, and I told every cartoonist I have ever spoken to that it is the single most brilliant editorial cartoon drawn in the history of mankind.

This:

Brilliant. Amirite?

Anyway, I had never drawn (in my recollection, a rollercoaster cartoon. I am pretty sure KAL has drawn many rollercoasters, and I even texted a mutual cartoonist buddy that I had done a KAL rough.

Mine turned out pretty well, considering. Solid Trump likeness, and I didn’t over-track the tracks.

I wouldn’t say I was influenced by KAL so much as I was continually inspired by KAL, who is just the best person ever, and a fine fly fisherman.

Next?

(Great shot by Rory in the playoff!)

This was for the Chronicle on Sunday. I really enjoyed doing this, and had been chewing on it for a few days.

(Rory hit the putt and won! Epic. Anyway…back to cartoons)

San Francisco is such a fun city for these sorts of cartoons, and only San Francisco could create this. I haven’t gotten any feedback from the California Institute of Integral Studies, but I hope they take it in the manner it was intended (see disclaimer). However, also in the manner of San Francisco, I am also prepared for them to be terribly offended. Oh, well. My editor’s address is: San Francisco Chronicle, 901 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, or something very close to that.

What else we got?

This was another Only in The City story—OK, maybe in Portland, as well. A 45 foot tall naked woman sculpture was put up in the Embarcadero. The key of the gag was, what’s the counter-sculpture? —as opposed to a naked lady joke.

I called American Journalism Hero and Managing Editor for Opinion Pete Wevurski and said, man, I’m wrestling with this. He did, too, and so a few hours later (yes), I managed to pull this together.

You want to be careful with that Musk crotch. So, there are palm trees down on the Embarcadero, and I positioned the fronds in front of his li’l plug-in, shall we say. I initially had a fig leaf in there that was labeled DOGE, and then decided to just go with the palm fronds.

Incidentally, I did the vast majority of this with a Uniball Micro. The palm fronds are brush. I changed brush sizes a few weeks ago (going from a pretty narrow 2 to a nice fat 6. Holds more ink and the tip seems to be the same as a 2. And, wow, you can cover a lot more ground faster. I’m a line quality obsessive, so this was a really revelation after 47 years. I used to use a very expensive Winsor Newton Series 7, size 00. They were really expensive, and now we can’t get the sable from…drumroll…Russia, so they say. Now I use a cheap Princeton, and they’re really nice. Maybe five bucks, and I can get several good weeks out of them.

Next:

I had completely forgotten about this one. I was editing this piece, and I thought, huh, there are only five cartoons. Usually it’s at least six and sometimes eight. So here it is.

I liked this one, and I managed (I think) to pull off a fun little word play off Liberation Day, which is, by far, the least-aptly named political slogan ever. I enjoy drawing the MAGA guys, and, I know, it’s terribly reductionist. I have a very talented conservative cartoonist friend who said to me, is that how you see us? This particular cartoonist happens to be a caricaturist of some renown, and we’re candid, so I said, yeah, buddy boy. Sorry. This guy also happens to be a handsome dude.

I guess a cartoonist can even insult another cartoonist. I remember Steve Kelley drew a caricature of me once that I still haven’t emotionally recovered from. The best caricature of me that I own was done by…TA-DA…

…KAL!

Here it is

I was 35 when he drew this; we were sitting around a hotel bar in San Diego at the 1996 GOP Convention, which was really fun—and they nominated a sane guy named Dole.

Let’s call it good for tonight.

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Hey, You Betchanians! : Baseball and dinner time. Catch you tomorrow! Have a great evening on the west coast and a great night’s sleep on the east coast. You midwesterners do whatever you do. Go check out the crops (former Minnesotan and one semester Ag Econ major—there’e a column!). Had a lot of upgrades this week! Thanks! YB! is closing in on 8,000 subscribers, and, wow, do I owe you folks! (too many exclamation points?)—J.