Roughs, Volume 258 by Clay Jones

Ding-Dong! Roughs are here! Read on Substack

You’re not going to get a new cartoon from me until Sunday. Say what? I’m ahead of schedule with last night’s Charlie Kirk cartoon, dated for September 19. But you will get new content here daily.

I’m in North Bethesda, Maryland for my cartoonist association’s annual convention today, and that’s why I got ahead with work. But I’m going to post stuff about the convention while I’m there. I plan to do at least one Zoom conversation with another cartoonist while at the convention. And today, you’re getting a blog of roughs.

Speaking of the Charlie Kirk cartoon, I got a death threat today. First, it was a death wish, as in, “I hope you and your family get what Charlie Kirk got,” and then it turned into, “you’re easy to find.” I consider that a death threat. And why is he threatening my family? They’re innocent, and in fact, two of them posted on the cartoon on Facebook to tell me I’m disgusting and an asshole. Anyhoos….

DING-DONG! Roughs are here!

I drew this on August 27 and made it a real cartoon a few days later.

I liked it so much that I nearly roughed it out twice.

This was my first idea, and I roughed it out on August 28. By the way, I’m writing this on a train. Let’s blame today’s typos on that.

Here’s another I roughed out twice. This was drawn on August 28.

I even lettered this version. It grew up to become a real cartoon.

this was drawn on August 29 and became a real cartoon. It got comments.

I roughed this out on August 29, and became a real cartoon for the FXBG Advance.

I drew this on September 1, and it became a two-panel cartoon.

I drew this on September 2, and I might like it more than the version I went with.

I was just goofing around with this on September 9. Why do I keep hearing about pickleball?

I roughed this out for the FXBG Advance on September 5. It became a real cartoon.

I liked naming some of my colleagues here, but I thought it was too many words. I roughed this up on September 9.

This was also drawn on September 9, but I went with something else.

I drew this on September 9, it became a real cartoon, and it got a lot of comments. A LOT of comments. I can’t wait for it to land on GoComics, which will be tomorrow.

I just got my idea for the FXBG Advance’s Sunday cartoon approved, but it wasn’t my first idea.

For context, we have some new public schools in this area. I got this idea and emailed it to my editor early this morning (September 11) with the subject line: “How brave are you feeling this morning?” (snip-MORE, both roughs and commentary)