Fighting Words: 12/28/09 Cartoon...

"Barack 'n Bernanke's Repair Shop"

New Design Page!

Check it out...

Fighting Words: 12/21/09 Cartoon...

"Public Emergency!"

Fighting Words: 12/7/09 Cartoon...

"Breaking News: Secret Plot to Destroy Journalism"

Fighting Words: 11/23/09 Cartoon...

"Christmas-Time is Here!"

Fighting Words: 11/9/09 Cartoon...

"The Republican Guide to Parenting"

State of the Toon Address

Many apologies for the spottiness of Fighting Words 'toons this year. If you haven't guessed, there's no new 'toon this week, and, for the forseeable future, Fighting Words may have to become a bi-weekly feature while I stabilize my income. That means spending the majority of my time on design jobs that bring in the green stuff.

A few things you can do:

• Shoot an email to your favorite local publication and ask them to run Fighting Words...


• Hire me to do a web design, business logo, or other design or illustration for you!


• Follow me on the Twitter or friend me on the Facebook, and know the minute a new 'toon goes up.


• Keep tuning in to check for new developments... including a complete redesign of my website (coming soon)!

Thanks for stickin' with me! I'm not gonna quit the cartoon... I've got too much to say, and I've put too much damn work into it up to this point. But production of the 'toon is gonna be a little inconsistent while I get my business pointed in the right direction...

Fighting Words: 10/26/09 Cartoon...

"Mysteries of the Bible Revealed!"


Actually supposed to be last week's 'toon, but delayed in production due to work schedule...

Fighting Words: 10/12/09 Cartoon...

"Gameday"


Kinda similar to one I did a couple weeks ago, but I wasn't really happy with that one...

Fighting Words: 10/5/09 Cartoon...

"Happyland Tales"

somethin' extra...

I had to shrink this way down in the 'toon, so I wanted to post it full size. I haven't tried to draw Calvin in over 20 years...


That said, how pissed would I be if a piece of my work was ripped off (as Watterson's has been) to serve as a commonly-recognized symbol of douchebaggery?

Fighting Words: 9/28/09 Cartoon...

"Rosetta Rock"

Many apologies

Probably no new 'toon this week. Had mucho web design work to do first...

We'll see... I'll try to whip out 2 by this weekend...

Fighting Words: 9/14/09 Cartoon...

"Great Speeches in History"


Still no color again...

But dammit, NOBODY puts baby into a corner!!

2 new websites done...

...for Kurt Smith Photography and The Grub Hut.

Check 'em out! And hire me to do one for you...

Fighting Words: 9/7/09 Cartoon...

"Pro-Life Town Hall"


Hmmm... just realized I didn't post an update to my blog last week. Just lost track with all the updates on Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, LinkedIn, Digg, Mixx, uggg, suxxx, noggg... etc. etc. Does anybody still read regular blogs anymore?


Anyway, just black & white again this week... hopefully back to color next time.

Fighting Words: 8/24/09 Cartoon...

"LOCKUP: RAW!"


After 5.5 years, I'm finally trying out a new format... one that's a bit more traditional for editorial cartoons. Let me know what you think!

Fighting Words: 8/17/09 Cartoon...

"Democrate-do"

Fighting Words: 8/10/09 Cartoon...

"The NEW Standards of Professionalism"


Only black & white for now... I'll try to come back and do some color soon.

Fighting Words: 8/3/09 Cartoon...

"PSA: Terrible Illness"

Program Note

No new 'toon this week... had design jobs out the yin-yang this week.

Or something like that...

Fighting Words: 7/20/09 Cartoon...

"Party Conversations with Prominent Conservatives"

Fighting Words: 7/13/09 Cartoon...

"Breaking News: New Details On Bush Admin Surveillance Programs"

Previous similar 'toon:

Changing servers today...

... so I might have an interruption in the site or in receiving emails.

Fighting Words: 7/6/09 Cartoon...

"A Self-Explanatory Sarah Palin Cartoon, #2"

OK, this one was a bit of a phone-in, but oh well...

Previous episode:

On the news!

Quite an AAEC convention so far. Had a great panel discussion Thursday, and here's a video of me on the KING 5 local news in a segment set up by the terrific David Horsey.

Shoulda trimmed the beard, though... I look like friggin' Grizzly Adams...

Fighting Words: 6/29/09 Cartoon...

"Fox News for Cats"

Hey... a new cartoon! How about that!

This one's a little silly, but oh well...

Program Note

There obviously is no new cartoon yet, but it's there... if you believe it's there! No, actually it's almost done, but I am swamped with graphic design projects at the moment. Of course, by the time I actually get the 'toon done and up, it may be next Monday already anyway... just a fact of life in the dying industry of political cartooning! The gigs that put food on the table gotta come first...

As always, the best way to help circumvent this problem and keep seeing new stuff from me is to: (1) Send an email to nomind@fightingwordscomics.com and hire me to do a graphic/web design job for you, or... (2) Contact your local newspaper or alternative newsweekly and tell them you want to see Fighting Words!

Fighting Words: 6/15/09 Cartoon...

"Big Pharmaxx"

Fighting Words: 6/8/09 Cartoon...

"New Toilet Paper Brands for Today's Economy"

Fighting Words: 6/1/09 Cartoon...

"History Machine: Stories of Reverse Racism"

Fighting Words: 5/25/09 Cartoon...

"Barack Obama's One-Man Show"

Great paragraph...

One of the best single paragraphs I've ever read in a column, from Chris Hedges a couple of months ago:

We live in an age of moral nihilism. We have trashed our universities, turning them into vocational factories that produce corporate drones and chase after defense-related grants and funding. The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered. Our press, which should promote such intellectual and moral questioning, confuses bread and circus with news and refuses to give a voice to critics who challenge not this bonus payment or that bailout but the pernicious superstructure of the corporate state itself. We kneel before a cult of the self, elaborately constructed by the architects of our consumer society, which dismisses compassion, sacrifice for the less fortunate, and honesty. The methods used to attain what we want, we are told by reality television programs, business schools and self-help gurus, are irrelevant. Success, always defined in terms of money and power, is its own justification. The capacity for manipulation is what is most highly prized. And our moral collapse is as terrifying, and as dangerous, as our economic collapse.

Fighting Words: 5/18/09 Cartoon...

"History Machine: The NRA's Top Moments in History"...

New design work...

I've put up a few more of my recent projects on my design page, including a website, caricature and shirt design... go on and have yourself a gander!

As always, if you like me or my work (or you like me but can't stand my work, or you like my work but think I'm a jerk, or... never mind), there are two big ways you can help my ever-evolving career...

1. Send a nice note to your local newspaper or alternative newsweekly and tell them you want to see Fighting Words, or...

2. Hire me to do a design for you! I do websites, logos, shirt designs, illustrations, a little bit of Flash animation... I'll walk your dog for you, wash your car, mow your lawn... I don't do hedges, though...

Fighting Words: 5/11/09 Cartoon...

"Breaking News: Actual Mastermind Revealed!"...


If there's actually a 44 year-old Earl Meyers living in Lancaster, PA... sorry dude.

However, if you're really the mastermind behind Bush's crimes and/or you like to wear a Rockstar Energy Drink trucker hat, I'm not sorry.

Fighting Words: 5/4/09 Cartoon...

"Outbreak!"...


Rule #1 of political satire: if you have no idea, just repeat a bunch of crap said by high-profile crazy people.

Good line

Stephanie Zacharek, on movies about killer plagues:

In your standard plague movie, news stations can't stay on the air and ultimately fade out with a staticky crackle; newspapers can't publish (though, it turns out, we probably don't need a plague for either of those things to happen).

Update on this week's 'toon...

Thanks a lot Specter... I put you in a crappy cartoon that characterizes you as a dogmatic Republican, and you totally blow it out of the water by switching parties. I'm sure next Boehner will resign his seat in Congress to become head of Amnesty International...

Actually, in the end, Specter putting a "D" next to his name doesn't change much (for the Democrats, anyway). He's still going to vote how he wants to vote on stuff, and he'll probably still use right-wing rhetoric on stuff like torture. And this week's 'toon will still be crappy...

Fighting Words: 4/27/09 Cartoon...

"Fascinating Scientific Phenomena"...


Meh... sorry...

Fighting Words: 4/20/09 Cartoon...

"Crusty McCrotchety, Spokesman"...


MORE:

I forgot to post some links to previous Crusty 'toons, as it's been a while since we've heard from him:

Stupidity (STDY) shot up 500 points on the Dow today...

I'm gonna leave the ball-dipping parties thing alone today...

But what's the deal with the morbid glee that so many cartoonists are taking today in the deaths of the Somali pirates? Last I checked, the rampant piracy there was the result of a collapsed government and years of European ships invading Somali waters to steal their fish and dump nuclear waste. You guys really want a "Yahtzee" on skulls with bullet holes on this one?

And, someone please tell me I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing in this cartoon...

Fighting Words: 4/13/09 Cartoon(s)...

"Hysterical Whack-Job Monthly"...

...and, just below it, a bonus 'toon...



"Newspaper Tycoon"...

Say That Again?

I just had to post this quote...

As you may know, one of the right-wing media's favorite things to scream about these days is the conspiracy theory that Obama intends to eliminate the United States of America and place us all under the rule of a "one-world government." So any attempt at international diplomacy is now being pointed to as an indication that Obama wants to subvert us all to the French, or whoever. This is from a recent appearance by John Bolton on the Glenn Beck show:

BOLTON: ...you have to look underneath of it. And it's on a range of issues, not just the money supply, but gun control, the death penalty --

BECK: Global warming.

BOLTON: -- abortion, all -- global warming -- all of which are issues we can and should debate in our -- in our constitutional democratic framework. We don't need to decide them internationally. But that's what the agenda is of many people very close to the Obama administration.

BECK: OK. Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Ambassador.

Let's say that again... global warming is not something that should be discussed internationally. This man used to be United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

The Obama years are turning out to be fun for satirists after all...

hi...

OK, I'm putting more effort into Twitter now... follow me here. Although I still don't quite see the point...

Look for a bonus cartoon from me along with the new one Monday, to make up for my unexcused absence last week...

MORE: actually, it was VERY excused... I was workin' my friggin' ass off. Look for more updates to my design page coming soon!

Program Note

There will be a new cartoon this week... but not 'til Thursday or Friday.

I'm currently hard at work finishing up a website design job...

Fighting Words: 3/30/09 Cartoon...

"Making A Budget For Tough Economic Times"...


It's a cartoon about being in an accountant's office... you were expecting something visually spectacular?

Fighting Words: 3/23/09 Cartoon...

"Inside the Movies: Commonly-Used Plot Devices!"..

Fighting Words News: Graphic / Web Design Page...

I finally have a separate page up on my website for my graphic & web design work... go look! It includes a website I did recently for a local cafe:



I've got two more website jobs currently in the works, and a couple more lined up after that. While my skills may not be quite as polished as a big-time professional web designer working for a firm, I'm getting better. Also, I think there's something to be said for having an artist's touch on a web design project. If you're interested in hiring me, shoot me an email at nomind (at) fightingwordscomics (dot) com.

Time waster

Flash Face.

Would you serve this man another Guinness?

Newspaper Blues

Sad day. The Seattle P-I was a fixture of my childhood, as my dad was a photographer there for nearly 20 years. When I was a kid, a few times I was allowed to sit and watch David Horsey and Steve Greenberg work at their desks, which were adjacent to the photographers' area. I went to Ingraham High School, just as Horsey did, and drew cartoons for the school newspaper. My dad's salary at the P-I would eventually put me through college at the University of Washington.

More than sad though, I am pissed off. There's something that's been bothering me for a long time, which was brought up again by this article in the NYT the other day and its accompanying graphic. I've written longer analyses on the plight of newspapers before, but if you'll permit me, I'd like to indulge in a little angry, superficial, Republican-style ranting about my surface impressions on a complex issue, the finer details of which I have little understanding. I am not an economist. I won't pretend that I have an alternative business model that will definitely work for newspapers, and that they are fools for ignoring this obvious course of action.

However, my read of the landscape tells me that this entire predicament for newspapers basically boils down to the existence of one website... CraigsList. The biggest killer for newspapers throughout this crisis seems to have been the drying up of their classified advertising dollars because of CraigsList. And thus, here's my rant: how in the hell can one little piddling website bring an entire vital industry like this to its knees?! How could newspapers not have a plan for this in their business models? The NYT article has the beginnings of an additional explanation -- that the huge newspaper chains took on too much debt "in a spree of buying other newspapers from 2005 to 2007, just before the bottom dropped out of the business" -- but that still doesn't explain to me the across-the-board tanking that you see in the Times' graphic. Not all failing newspapers are owned by greedy conglomerates.

How could newspapers have allowed this to happen to them?

This is not rhetorical... someone smarter than me please help me out with this...

Fighting Words: 3/16/09 Cartoon...

"Yuppanzees #2"...

Sorry about the "Classic" Fighting Words this week, folks... as I've been complaining about frequently, I'm having to spend quite a bit of time on website design projects to pay the bills. As a result, the cartooning hours suffer, since the cartoons don't pay for jack right now. So, you might expect a few more "Classics" from me this year than in years past...

OR

...as always, you can drop a line to your local alternative newsweekly and respectfully suggest that, instead of cutting out all their best content in these tough times, they should spend a little money on even more hard-hitting alternative political comic strips such as, oh I don't know, this one I like called Fighting Words!

Anybody who wanted to do that would be totally freaking awesome in my book...

Fighting Words: 3/9/09 Cartoon...

"The Wall Street Media's Faces of the New Great Depression"...

I'm doing a website job right now for a photographer, so I've got photojournalism on the brain...

Great cartoon business idea

Doing image research for this week's 'toon, I came across this. This guy takes monsters and other characters in kids' drawings, and develops them into full paintings.

Fighting Words: 3/2/09 Cartoon...

"Bobby's World"...

Fighting Words: 2/23/09 Cartoon...

"Big Money-Making Opportunity!!"...

Fighting Words: 2/16/09 Cartoon...

"Stuff I'd Rather Do Than Watch That Movie, #6"...

Fighting Words: 2/9/09 Cartoon...

"Drunk News Network: The Economy"...

Are you kidding me?

Michael Phelps suspended for 3 months by USA swimming.

This kid has been training his whole life to become an Olympic athlete, and won eight freaking gold medals. For chrissakes, LET THE KID HAVE A VACATION!!!

How many people do you know who do nothing BUT smoke weed?

Good 'toon

(click here to view)

V.C. Rogers Independent Weekly Feb 4, 2009 EditorialCartoonists.com

Does my blog still work?

Just checking...

9 days 'til pitchers and catchers report.

(Might be my favorite day of the year... not because the Mariners are gonna be any good, but because it means we're almost done with another God-awful Seattle winter!)

Fighting Words: 2/2/09 Cartoon...

"The Republican Recovery Plan!"...

My first post-election shot at Obama...

Fighting Words: 1/26/09 Cartoon...

"Shady Harbor Retirement Community"...


I'll just date this cartoon for yesterday... don't tell anyone...

Fighting Words: 1/19/09 Cartoon... and the "end" of Bush?

"Trav'lin' with Post-Presidency George W. Bush"...


Classic Fighting Words this week, as I have been utterly swamped with freelance design work. How, you ask, could I possibly not have a Bush retrospective cartoon on this, the week we're finally rid of him? See last week's 'toon on life in our new Great Depression... gotta pay the bills...

But, in all honesty, one big reason is that I do not plan to stop doing cartoons about him any time soon. I tried for weeks to come up with some kind of "goodbye" comic or special animation. The reality, though, is that most of our biggest problems right now were either directly caused by decisions that he made (Iraq, the degradation of civil liberties and the rule of law) or were problems that were made worse by his decisions (the economy, the environment). So many of the issues that we will be dealing with for the foreseeable future were basically his fault, I don't see any reason why he should automatically disappear from political cartoons just because he's not in office anymore. I would hope that I won't be like some conservative cartoonists who are still talking about Vince Foster and Whitewater 8 years after Clinton has left office, but neither should Bush/Cheney be allowed to ride off into the sunset.

But mostly it's the paying the bills thing... which Fighting Words doesn't really do. Want to keep seeing regular cartoons, from me or any of your other favorite political cartoonists? Write to your local newspaper and tell them!! There are a ton of portal sites like this one with links to all local papers, or you can look up your local Alt-newsweekly site here. If you only read comics like this online because you can't find good comics in the newspaper, write to them anyway and tell them that... maybe they'll finally get the idea that getting rid of all their best visual content may have something to do with them losing so much money.

Fighting Words: 1/12/09 Cartoon...

"As the Depression Turns"...


I'm a horrible, horrible blogger right now... hopefully I'll get in with something this week...