I’ve gotten some interesting, outraged e-mails and comments in response to my cartoon (above) which kills the eagle on the Mexican flag.  Here are some examples from angry readers …

Comment from Ramon De Leon | [e]
Time August 31, 2010 at 5:06 am
I think your idea of bringing the violence in Mexico to light is excellent. Too bad you butchered it along with the Mexican Flag. Laws in Mexico with regards to the use and depiction of the flag are in place to prevent this sort of stuff. Please consider taking it down and issuing an apology to the Mexican American community.

Comment from @oscargalvanmx | [e]
Time August 31, 2010 at 5:23 am
I understand the situation, but that’s not the way to say it. The flag is one of the most important things in any country, I understand this is how you live but do you have an iraqi kid with no legs on the US flag cartoon? Thank you for reading this.

Comment from Maribel Lackey | [e]
Time August 31, 2010 at 5:34 am
I agree with the previous comments. It is important to bring this situation to people’s attention and I appreciate you trying to do so, but to do this by defacing the flag is in very bad taste and completely disrespectful.

Comment from Patricia De Leon | [e]
Time August 31, 2010 at 3:25 pm
What were you thinking when you drew bullet holes through the flag of another country?

The flag is the most important symbol in our country and this is just wrong!
As kids we grow up waiting for the honor to bear the flag in grade school, you have totally shot down the message you wanted to send disgracing the Mexican flag. PLEASE TAKE THIS DOWN

Comment from JANETTE GARZA | [e]
Time August 31, 2010 at 3:41 pm
YO NO SE A QUIE SE LE OCURRIO ESTE GRAFICO …. EN MEXICO ES NUESTRO SIMBOLO PATRIO MAS AMADO Y RESPETADO TANTO QUE SOMOS CAPACES DE DAR LA VIDA POR ELLA …..ES UN INSULTO ESTE GRAFICO PARA MEXICO COMO PAIS , A SU BANDERA Y A LOS MEXICANOS …..LA VIOLENCIA O INSEGURIDAD QUE PUEDA HABER NO ES PRETEXTO PARA REALIZAR ESTE TIPO DE GRAFICOS PARA QUERER EXPRESAR IDEAS , DESDE NIÑOS SE NOS INCULCA EL AMOR Y EL RESPETO HACIA NUESTRA BANDERA …!!!!!!!!! OJALA QUE LAS AUTORIDADES MEXICANAS SE DEN CUENTA DE ESTO Y PUEDAN HACER ALGO AL RESPECTO… LE PIDO DE LA MANERA MAS ATENTA QUE RETIRE ESTE GRAFICO DE LA PUBLICACION PUES COMO LO HE DICHO ANTES ES UN INSULTO PARA NUESTRA BANDERA , NUESTRO PAIS Y PARA NOSOTROS COMO MEXICANOS …..

R.P. Overmyer

I just received the sad news that Hollywood Dog cartoonist R.P. Overmyer died last week due to complications from diabetes.

R.P. has worked as a cartoonist, illustrator and graphic designer in Los Angeles since the 1980s, working at times for LA Weekly, LA New Times and the San Jose Metro Weekly. He has also worked in animation at Fox, HBO, Universal Studios and Wolf Animation.

He is most well known, especially to visitors of our site, as the creator of the weekly cartoon strip Hollywood Dog (view R.P.’s cartoon archives here). Hollywood Dog was published across the country in papers large and small, most notably the Los Angeles Times.

His last cartoon was a funny one about Charlie Rangle’s hand (and nearly every other apendage) stuck in a cookie jar.  R.P.’s work was great fun and he will be missed.

I got some interesting e-mail responses to my Pakistan aid cartoon below.

The Taliban in Pakistan has threatened to attack western aid workers who are responding to help victims of floods there.  I got a couple of e-mails from foreign cartoonists telling me that they wanted to draw a cartoon like this one, but couldn’t because it was politically incorrect and their editors wouldn’t allow it.  I also got some impassioned objections to the cartoon, like the e-mail below.

… Before the flooding, Daryl’s cartoon would have stood by itself as legitimate lampooning of the political and military quagmire in which our country finds itself there; but because it comes now, after the terrible flooding - the worst natural disaster in Pakistan’s history- I afraid that it will have the effect of casting aspersions on all legitimate efforts to relieve the suffering of millions of innocent, poor Pakistanis.  And I don’t think that was his original intent.

Timing’s everything; and in this instance the cartoon’s appearance today is unfortunate. I hope it doesn’t discourage otherwise generous Americans from reaching out to help those desperately in need.

Would you be willing to encourage Daryl to draw something that would elicit the pity for those hapless victims, and that would encourage all of us to help?  That would be great!

Joe Moran
Durham, NC

We’ve just added a new cartoonist to our site, Emre Ozdemir from Turkey where he draws for the Zaman and Today’s Zaman newspapers and does 4 to 5 cartoons per week.

Sometimes Emre’s cartoons don’t mean what I expect them to mean. About his “yes-no” cartoon (right), Emre writes: “The existing Constitution in Turkey was made by the Military coup. We want a new, democratic one! Therefore we are having a Referendum soon. But there are still people who are voting with a “No!” for the change!”

See Emre’s cartoon archive here. E-mail Emre.

We have one other cartoonist from Turkey on the site, Oguz Gurel. There are lots of great cartoonists in Turkey - the problem is that their cartoons are often difficult for an American audience to understand; even so, it would be nice if we added a few more.

Below is another one of Emre’s cartoons that looks great, with the allusion to the Pulitzer Prize winning execution photo from Vietnam - here the Viet Cong is about to get shot by a gas pump in steamy Iraq, and again, I’m not sure I get it.  Looks nice though.

It is rare that we see a great new editorial cartoonist enter our shrinking profession these days.  I’m thrilled to announce that we have added longtime cartoon illustration great Randall Enos to Cagle Cartoons. We will be syndicating his unique cartoons twice a week through our syndicate to over 850 newspapers. View Randy’s cartoons here.

Randy has been creating illustrations for magazines, newspapers, books, posters, CD covers and animated films for well over 40 years!  Among his clients are the New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Atlantic, Life, and Playboy, to name just a few.  Randy was a regular in the National Lampoon - I read Chicken Gutz regularly when I was in college.

Randy has been around in high profile spots for so long that I’m sure his unique look is recognizable to everyone.  Randy does all of his cartoons as linoleum block prints. That sounds like madness, but it is true - I have one of his carved linoleum blocks in front of me right now. Instead of drawing a cartoon with pen and ink, Randy cuts it out with knives, in reverse, into the surface of a sheet of linoleum. The uncarved areas become the relief, which are then inked with a roller and pressed onto paper - then he scans it into the computer - isn’t technology great?

Since Randy’s work is mostly illustration, I wasn’t sure what his political cartoons would be like; it looks like he’ll be pretty far to the left.  I think it will be great fun to see Randy mix it up with the other editorial cartoonists, and nice that his work looks so different from everyone else’s cartoons, since editorial cartoonists are so often accused of having a similar look.  Welcome aboard, Randy, go kick some butt!

The Washington Post reports that the new director of national intelligence, Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper, “adapted” one of my cartoons for a presentation, altering it to show himself in the cartoon wearing an Uncle Sam hat.  The Post Writes:

A final slide showed he was under no illusions about the pressure and expectations he faced. He had adapted a cartoon by Daryl Cagle of Slate.com (I haven’t been with Slate.com for five years, I draw for msnbc.com - Daryl) depicting a grim Clapper in an Uncle Sam hat at the wheel of a car, labeled “Leading the IC: A Re-set.” The car is packed with children imploring: “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

Here’s my newest cartoon.  My son thinks this one will make people mad, but I’ve drawn cartoons with crucifixion metaphors before, with little or no reaction.  We’ll see.  I thought this one was fun.

After my long vacation, finally, here is my mosque cartoon.  I entirely missed the crazy flight attendant while I was gone - I regret missing that one.

The most provocative ”Ground Zero Mosque” cartoons make me laugh, and make many of our readers quite angry.  Here are a few of my favorites:

By Brian Fairrington

By Mike Lester

Also by Mike Lester

Also by Mike Lester

By Bill Mutranowski

By Joe Heller

By Arend Van Dam

By John Cole

I just got back from a vacation in Spain.

The story on Spain in August? Hot, economically depressed, cute old towns, bad food, terrible internet connections, nice art museums.

Wow, there was a lot of business junk waiting for me to do when I got back and I’ve been really slow in posting a new cartoon.  I’m in an odd situation for an editorial cartoonist since I don’t work for a newspaper and I don’t have a daily deadline.  My work goes out through my own syndicate with a package of other cartoonists, and my publication of record, msnbc.com, has me put together slideshows of cartoons by multiple cartoonists for their articles - so there is no place, except here on my blog, that anyone would notice that I’m late with my new cartoon. I suppose that is a nice thing, and it gives me some unusual freedom, but it would be nice to be missed.

My daughter, Susie, went to Spain with me and tweeted about it.  Here’s a post from Susie’s blog, and a Rina Piccolo cartoon.

Tweetin’ and Toonin”

I’ve been up to all sorts of no good lately, but before I update you on all that, why not take a gander at this sweet little cartoon Rina Piccolo whipped up, inspired by my twit wit.

This is only one among many, and hopefully many more to come. I think Rina’s one of the most under-appreciated, hard-working cartoonists out there — maybe this little project will ingratiate her a bit more with the internet crowd.

I’m also crossing my fingers that Rina’s strip “Tina’s Groove” picks up some of those newly vacated spots left by Cathy’s retirement. Here’s to seeing less whining about fat and husbands and chocolate and more funny on the comics page!

I’m catching up after Comic Con and prepping for a vacation, but I have a few items of note.

Since writing my optimistic report on Apple’s iAds for the iPhone here, the performance of iAds has taken a tumble. On the first day, the CPM was $48.16. Yesterday it was $6. The ad fill rate has also declined, from around 15% to around 10%. The income from the ads is just a fraction of what it looked like it would be at the start. Very disappointing.

Comic Con was a blast this year. I always enjoy it. The high hotel prices are taking a toll, along with the limits on the crowd, which is capped at 125,000 because the San Diego Convention Center is too small to accommodate the demand. I heard from a lot of troubled cartoonists who couldn’t get tickets. It isn’t in a typical cartoonist’s nature to plan months in advance.

A new phenomenon is that people are filling the large rooms in the morning and sitting there all day so they can keep their spots for the popular panels. There are incredibly long lines of people waiting to get into these rooms that simply aren’t big enough.

There was a well publicized fight and stabbing in a tussle over a seat in a popular room and I would expect that these kinds of stresses will only get worse until the Comic Con finds a larger home.

The cartoonist gossip I hear at the Comic Con is about sales of print media being down for everyone. Book sales are falling. There is concern about where new media is going for comics, with lots of talk about the iPad. I talked to many cartoonists who are struggling to make a living as their income shrinks.

And I didn’t see a single Klingon this year. Times change.

I got a lot of angry response to my Glenn Beck cartoon last week (below), which has inspired me to draw another one that I’ll have up soon. I could do a whole series on Glenn Beck going blind.

Here’s the new one …