Mirror Alphabet

A very beautiful ambigram from Thomas Haller Buchanan's Pictorial Arts blog.

Venezuelan cartoonist Rayma Suprani

Sampsonia Way presents the first installment of Chávez Time, a series of interviews with Venezuelan media professionals about working under Hugo Chávez’s government.

Cartoon of the week (14)

Seen 140 times on Twitpic.

RJ Matson laid off from The St. Louis Post Dispatch

From The Daily Cartoonist.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has announced it has laid off 23 staffers from their newsroom citing weak economic conditions. Riverfront Times reports Post-Dispatch editorial cartoonist R.J. Matson was among those let go.

The Post-Dispatch announcement:

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has laid off 23 staffers from the newsroom, advertising and production, the company announced today.

The cuts continue the trend of downsizing at the newspaper, the largest in the Lee Enterprises chain, as the industry struggles to contend with declining print advertising revenue.

Lee earlier this month announced that it had narrowed its losses in the fiscal third quarter. The loss of $1.5 million, or three cents a share, compared with a loss of $155.5 million, or $3.46 a share, a year earlier.

Lee Enterprises, the paper’s parent company, also announced it gave CEO Mary Junck a stock bonus worth some $655,000.

Some Favourite "National Lampoon" Covers

Every time the Olympic Games come around I can't help but think of this hilarious National Lampoon cover.

National Lampoon, "Sports" issue, April 1976
(photo by Chris Callis)

While we're on the subject, here is a selection of some famous and personal favourite covers:

Poster of the Week

From the Center for the Study of Political Graphics blog.

New Yorker cartoon in "Seinfeld" episode

From the Daily Cartoonist blog.

Remember the Seinfeld episode wherein Elaine complains about how non-understandable New Yorker cartoons are and she sets out to “crack the code” using the J Peterman catalog as an excuse to talk to The New Yorker editor “Elinoff”?

"Cartoon Contest" drawing by Mick Stevens

The Toronto Star apologizes for a de Adder editorial cartoon

The Toronto Star apology:

The Globe & Mail pulls Batman cartoon

With notes from the Jim Romenesko blog.

The public editor for the Toronto-based Globe and Mail writes: “In light of the shooting in Colorado, editors have removed Friday’s editorial cartoon, which contained references to the new Batman movie.”

A Romenesko reader sends it:

Brian Gable, The Globe and Mail

On the same day Serge Chapleau of Montreal's La Presse drew Toronto's mayor Rob Ford in a Batman outfit:

New Yorker Cartoonist Gardner Rea (1894-1966)

From the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Blog:

Tunisian cartoonist Z

Tunisian cartoonist Z: 'My hatred for Ben Ali made me free' - video

The anonymous Z, who also works as an architect, discusses his cartoons, which gained prominence through his blog, debatunisie.com. Having criticised the Ben Ali regime he now questions the direction of the revolution, which he feels has been hijacked by conservatism and bigotry

• This video is part of a series on cartoonists from the Arab world, produced by Samar Media

Tunisian cartoonist Nadia Khiari

Tunisian cartoonist Nadia Khiari: 'I draw to take the heat off certain situations' - video

A teacher at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Tunis and a cartoon fan, Nadia Khiari was so dismayed by the former Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's response to the popular uprising in January 2011, she started drawing a cat commenting on current events. Her 'Willis from Tunis' series quickly became very popular

• This video is part of a series on cartoonists from the Arab world produced by Samar Media

Algerian cartoonist Ali Dilem

Algerian cartoonist Ali Dilem: 'The most taboo subject in Algeria is sex' - video

 Ali Dilem has been drawing for the Algerian daily newspaper Liberté since 1996. Here he discusses his work, which has been critical of Abdelaziz Bouteflika's regime and has earned him about 20 international awards … and no fewer than 60 trials

• This video is part of a series on cartoonists from the Arab world produced by Samar Media

Egyptian cartoonist George Bahgoury

Egyptian cartoonist George Bahgoury: 'My vision is contaminated in Egypt' - video

Regarded as the father of Egyptian caricature, George Bahgoury's political cartoons have featured in Arabic newspapers for decades. Born in Luxor in Upper Egypt, he has lived in Paris since 1970. Here he discusses his life and work, and the problems of being an artist in post-revolutionary Egypt

• This video is part of a series on cartoonists from the Arab world, produced by Samar Media

Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat

Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat: 'They broke my hands to stop me drawing Assad' - video



Ali Farzat founded in 2001 Syria's first satirical weekly, Ad Domari. In August 2011, he was attacked by Bashar al-Assad's militia who broke his hands. The incident prompted international condemnation of the Assad regime. Farzat was awarded the European parliament Sakharov prize for freedom of thought

• This video is the first episode of a series on cartoonists from the Arab world, produced by Samar Media

Aislin and Bors on the State of Editorial Cartoons

Montreal Gazette cartoonist Aislin and Pulizter-nominated cartoonist Matt Bors discuss the state of editorial cartoons in Canada and abroad in an interview with Jian Ghomeshi, host of CBC’s Q cultural affairs show:

The State of Editorial Cartoons18:51

The Impact of Laughter

From Cartoon Movement.

A Dictator's Nightmare - Jean Gouders

Interview with Robert Russell, director of Cartoonists Rights Network International
By Tjeerd Royaards

An update on the "Blown Covers" blog

Dear Friends and Followers - 

After Monday’s announcement that this blog would wind down at the end of July, the Blowncover’s inbox was flooded with letters of support and encouragement. A clever and talented community of artists and commenters has sprung up around  this project and I can’t bear to let it go. So. You’ve convinced me! The blog will live on. But we’ll have to make some changes.

We will be transitioning from weekly contests to monthly contests. I’d love to continue just as we’re doing now, but the pace isn’t sustainable. This week, we got twice as many submissions as usual! (And they’re all great - way to make our lives difficult.)  I’d like to make it so artists can look at each other’s submissions over the course of a month (a public or semi-public flickr gallery perhaps?), vote and comment on them, then Françoise and I will post our favorites here on the tumblr. I’m going to take the weekend to think about the best way to do this (your suggestions are very welcome: blowncovers@gmail.com). I’ll be back on Monday, with a new plan - and later next week, with the results of the cats and dogs contest. 

Thank you for all your encouragement,

Nadja

"The Someday Funnies" 2012 Will Eisner Awards Finalist

The awards were given out at the 24th annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, Friday night July 13, at the Indigo Ballroom in the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel, as part of Comic-Con International: San Diego. Unfortunately for Michel Choquette, "Dark Horse Presents" won for Best Anthology.

Best Anthology
Dark Horse Presents, edited by Mike Richardson (Dark Horse)
Nelson, edited by Rob Davis and Woodrow Phoenix (Blank Slate)
Nursery Rhyme Comics, edited by Chris Duffy (First Second)
The Someday Funnies, edited by Michel Choquette (Abrams ComicArts)
Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land, edited by Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle (Abrams ComicArts)
http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_main.php

Art Supplies CAN Be Funny!

From Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies News.

Enbridge parody video update (2)

From Cartoonists Rights Network.

Dan Murphy, the editorial cartoonist and animator for the Vancouver Province, speaks out after his paper and his company "blink".

“Is that supposed to happen? I don’t think that’s supposed to happen,” are early lines in an animated parody of an energy company’s advertisement as first globs and then gushes of animated oil blot out the pastoral scene portrayed in the advertisement.

The Rolling Stones at 50

This is as good a time as any to showcase the work of caricaturist extraordinaire Sebastian Krüger.

The Canada Council for the Arts: Make cartoonists and their publishers eligible for grants and honours.

The Canada Council for the Arts supports the publication of most literary forms, including graphic novels, but not cartooning and cartoon books.

 It currently supports Canadian novelists and their novels, short fiction writers and their collections, poets and their poetry, essayists and their essays etc. Such work is eligible for funding both for the artist and for the publishers of the work, and it is also eligible for prizes such as the Governor General's Literary Awards (which are administered by the Canada Council). Such work - a previously published poem, say - is eligible even when it has already appeared in magazines, newspapers and other publications.

#!&% CARTOONS!! A Festival Celebrating the Political Cartoon

To celebrate this enduring craft, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists is hosting

#!&% CARTOONS!! A Festival Celebrating the Political Cartoon
September 14-15 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

New Yorker cartoonist Barry Blitt

Entourage

ACEC book and convention get blanket coverage in Montreal Gazette

The ACEC convention in Montreal was given full treatment in the July 1 edition of the Gazette.

Political cartooning in Canada: a history by Aislin

In an exclusive video, The Gazette’s Aislin (Terry Mosher) talks about the history of political cartooning in Canada, including the great cartoonists of the past, their drawing styles, and how Canadians have developed a taste for “something with a little bite.”

Editorial cartoons make their mark in museum exhibition

Anthony Bonaparte, The Suburban, July 4th, 2012

Mixed among the many tourists who flocked to our city for last week's opening of the Montreal International Jazz Festival were some 50 ink-stained satirists from across Canada in town for a four-day convention of the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists (ACEC). Add family members and some special invitees, the 70-odd participants made it the largest event of its kind ever held by the organization.

Enbridge parody video update

Cartoonist Geoff Olson of the Vancouver Courier writes about Dan Murphy's Enbridge parody video.

New Yorker cartoonists at the ACEC convention

Montreal Gazette journalist Marion Scott interviews New Yorker cartoonists Matt Diffee, Anita Kunz and Barry Blitt who were in town for a panel discussion at McGill University and a book signing at the Drawn & Quarterly bookstore.

Girls Will Be Girls

Canadian artists’ success isn’t bound by borders

Montreal Gazette journalist Marion Scott interviews cartoonists Oleg Dergachov and David Parkins whose works are featured in the "Cartoon Canada" exhibition at the McCord Museum.

Canada Drawn Together

Montreal Gazette journalist Marion Scott interviews her paper's editorial cartoonist Terry Mosher (Aislin).

His eternal cigarette in hand, newly elected premier René Lévesque offered those words of comfort to Gazette readers in Aislin’s editorial-page cartoon the morning after the Parti Québécois victory of Nov. 15, 1976.