Protecting the right to offend by Ann Telnaes

Violence is never an acceptable response Read on Substack

In my recent post about participating in a French journalism festival, I mentioned that the publisher of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo appeared on one of the cartoonists’ panel discussions. Due to the high security around him, his participation wasn’t advertised and had, at least to my count, five armed bodyguards who followed him around constantly. Those murders at the offices of Charlie Hebdo were 10 years ago and this man still has to have around the clock protection.

I drew and wrote quite a bit about the issue of free speech during that time and it still infuriates me that some people feel they have the right to threaten (and even kill) cartoonists just because they feel offended. While most of the world were in solidarity after the massacre, the discussion in the U.S. turned to questions about limiting speech…coming even from the so-called liberals in the media.

And now we have another editorial cartoonist receiving death threats because of a cartoon he drew about the Texas floods. Right wing commentators and even several news outlets are describing the cartoon by Adam Zyglis as “mocking” the flood survivors, which of course it is not. It is a legitimate comment about the Republican hypocrisy of attacking government programs except when natural disasters affect them.

Margaret Sullivan has a good piece about how social media, the “right-wing outrage machine” (although I’d argue the left also engages in this), and ignorance of an editorial cartoon’s purpose all figure into these potentially dangerous situations.

(my graphic essay after the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre)

(snip-go see it on Substack; just click through. The comic turns quite small with a copy/paste, and enlarging it makes it blurry. -A.)

———————————

Fed TACO by Clay Jones

If Fed Chair Jerome Powell gets a hankering for Tacos today, we know why Read on Substack

Donald Trump hates Jerome Powell, which puts Powell in a non-exclusive club. Donald Trump hates a lot of people. Am I on that list?

Jerome Powell, of course, is the Chair of the Federal Reserve. Last night, TACO met with about a dozen House Republicans and asked their opinions on whether or not he should fire Powell. Trump even showed them a letter he wrote firing Powell. He just hasn’t sent it yet.

Asked today by the press in the Oval Office about this letter and the imminent firing of Powell, Trump said it’s very unlikely.

Did Trump just TACO Jerome Powell? Trump earned the nickname TACO from his tariff threats, where he threatens to place tariffs on nations, then backs off, and threatens again, then backs off. Wall Street has started to ignore Trump’s tariff threats, which created “Trump Always Chickens Out.” It’s the acronym for TACO.

Calling Trump TACO upsets him greatly, but he’s still chickening out with the tariffs.

Speaking of tariffs, in June, our nation had its first surplus in nine years. Wow! The surplus is $27 billion, though the national debt is still over $36 trillion (year to date is over $1 trillion). MAGAts are celebrating this, praising Trump, and calling him a genius for this surplus they think was paid by other nations, forgetting that tariffs are taxes. Trump raised taxes on Americans, and it’s the American taxpayer from where this $27 billion surplus came from.

Republicans, do not ever play a shell game because you will lose. On the other hand, I just created a new game, Republican. Come play with me. (snip-MORE)

Margolis & Cox by Clay Jones

(Note from A.-this one’s long, but I left it whole so we can check our comics sources. The names are interesting, though I’ve seen some of the work, and wondered about it. -A.)

I’m gonna get in trouble again, but it’s good trouble Read on Substack

There’s a duo who create cartoons together, which is my first issue with these guys.

Though there’s no set rule for it, political cartooning is supposed to be a solo craft. I don’t even take ideas from readers. Here, we have a writer feeding ideas to an artist, and they’re terrible ideas. The cartoons are worse than the vitriolic bigotry shit out by Gary Varvel, Steve Kelley, and Mike Lester (if you think I just pissed some cartoonists off, I’m just getting warmed up, baby). At least those dudes can suck on their own. But the MargoCox goons work for Townhall, a very racist right-wing propaganda outlet. Based on that alone, no legitimate news publication should be publishing their cartoons/propaganda, and no syndicate should be distributing them. Unfortunately, Politico publishes them as they’re syndicated by Cagle Cartoons, owned by Daryl Cagle.

In the past, Cagle was also the syndicate for the “anonymous” cartoonist, who was Canadian Cameron Cardow, a racist conspiracy theorist pretending to be an American in fear for his life from liberals, wokeness, and trans people. Politico published his work, too, no matter that it violated every journalism ethics policy in existence. Instead of the racist Cameron, why couldn’t Canada just send us more black squirrels?

I’m pretty sure the first syndicate that will distribute AI-created “cartoons” will be Cagle, and Politico will be waiting to publish them. I’m shocked Cagle isn’t selling lying racist antisemitic conspiracy theorist MAGAt Ben Garrison’s cartoons. He draws Trump with muscles. Take note, MargoCox.

But MargoCox has been producing horrible cartoons, many typical of other conservative cartoons with bigotry and lies, but also boring and bad writing for the most part. They’re a two-man trope machine. Last week, they produced something extremely racist.

If Margo wrote it, then Cox should have refused to draw it. I don’t know these guys, but I’m going to have to assume they’re both equally racist bags of dicks (and after a brand new encounter with them today, I’m not assuming anymore). As for Cagle Cartoons, the syndicate should have said no. Daryl Cagle should have refused to have his name on it.

I took issue with this, so I tweeted and posted this to Facebook (which at this time has 156 comments) on Sunday.

I hate posting the cartoon here, but you have to see it to understand the extent of the racism. It’s like old-timey minstrel shit. I got a reply from Margocox, but it was just a nonsensical GIF.

To me, it comes off as “neener neener, I owned you by being racist. Tee-hee.” If I’m wrong, feel free to inform me what this shit is. I think the guys are proud to be racist. Later, they posted another gif, but this time to my Facebook page.

I did not hear from Daryl Cagle…or did I?

I got a message from a friend late Sunday night who works for Cagle. He said he had to call “bullshit” on my post about Cagle and MargoCox. He said that the cartoon duo worked for Townhall and not Cagle, which I thought I had been clear about. I know how a syndicate works. I own a syndicate.

He said that this specific cartoon hadn’t been sent to Cagle for syndication yet and was not in their database, and that he couldn’t even find it. He demanded to know where I found the cartoon. I told him…

How could I find the cartoon, and he couldn’t?

He explained that it was on Cagle’s website, but NOT on the syndicate website. Yeah, I’m confused. It’s sitting right there, on Cagle’s site with Cagle’s name on it. What up with that? But then he did a whatabout (which should be only a MAGAt technique, but it’s what he did) and said I never go after another syndicate for this kind of stuff, but I do, and I have called out other racist, gaslighting, conspiracy theorist cartoonists in the past. He’s known me for decades, so this can’t be the first time he’s seen me call out cartoonists. In fact, he’s secretly messaged me in the past to feed me dirt on other cartoonists, hoping I would publish it (other cartoonists do this too).

But as for the cartoon NOT being on the syndication site, it is, and presented here with the pricing list.

Cagle is definitely selling this racist cartoon.

I asked my friend, who may not be my friend anymore, if Cagle had sent him to talk to me. It took him a while to reply. Are you familiar with messenger services where you can see that the other person is replying, or trying to…and you see the dots while they’re typing, then they stop, start again, stop, start again, all because the person is trying to formulate how he wants to say something. There was a lot of that.

But he finally got his denial through, saying he hadn’t talked to Cagle about it. I replied, “He’s talking to you right now, isn’t he?” I never got another reply to the conversation he initiated. That was two days ago.

Today, Margolis & Cox came after me, not by defending themselves from accusations of racism, but by attacking my art skills, as if that has anything to do with their racism.

Only right-wing MAGAt trolls attack my drawing ability because it changes the subject and tries to put the onus on me. It’s also stupid criticism when it takes two of them to produce the rancid, bigoted tropes they crap out. I replied, saying that it doesn’t matter how well you draw if the ideas are shit. And their racist ideas are shit.

Of course, I was accused of trying to cancel them, and they’re right. I’m trying to cancel racism. They, with Daryl Cagle’s help, are advancing racism. In addition to racism, you should see all the homophobic crap they’re selling. Homophobic cartoons like this, and this, and this. Also, fellas…don’t talk about my art until you figure out how doors work.

I don’t know which one was coming at me, Margo or Cox, but it demanded that I defend myself from their attacks on my art (roll your eyes) and said there was nothing racist about drawing a black woman as a clown, except these art critics didn’t draw her as a clown. All they did was give her giant lips.

They said I was a “mediocre” cartoonist, jealous of them, and that being “printed” means they don’t “suck.” It’s like talking to very racist and stupid children. I really don’t like to boast about my success, and I don’t think I am that successful, but guys…I’m published more than the two of you put together, and I have more awards at this time than you will ever see, unless the Daily Stormer gives out cartoon awards.

And you can’t brag about being syndicated when your cartoons are sold by the same guy who sells Gary McCoy and the “Anonymous” cartoonist.

This went on for a while with them, and I quickly learned it was pointless to talk to the moron twins because they’re like insecure and immature little boys… little stupid racist boys. If someone were able to make them listen to why their cartoon is racist, they wouldn’t have the intellectual bandwidth combined to comprehend. They’re too stupid to be drawing political cartoons, and much too stupid to be syndicated. But I’ve also learned over the years that Cagle will syndicate anyone if it’ll get him a nickel. He exercises zero civic responsibility.

Syndicates need to be responsible for the stuff they put out. If they can’t, then they shouldn’t sell it. When I asked Cagle a couple of years ago on Twitter to justify syndicating the anonymous cartoonist, his answer was, “I don’t see a problem with it,” which is not an answer.

Now, he’s not replying to this. Why not? Because he can’t justify it. His only reason for carrying this shit is that it might sell. But he needs to explain why he sells racist cartoons. This is beyond a different viewpoint or a counterpoint. He can’t argue it’s not racist, because it is, and the comments from his employee indicate that they know it’s racist. Why was he so upset in the first place? Because I “accused” Cagle of selling a racist cartoon, which I have proven they are doing.

One of Cagle’s cartoonists, Gary McCoy, has had multiple newspapers apologize to their readers for his racist cartoons, with one paper even pulling cartoons altogether over it. This happens with Gary’s work TIME after TIME after TIME after TIME, and Cagle continues to sell his racist cartoons. I don’t understand why Cagle continues to carry McCoy despite his racism, because McCoy’s cartoons suck. They can’t be bringing in that much revenue, can they?

What I propose, since Daryl Cagle refuses responsibility for selling racism, is that all of his cartoonists, the ones whose work he syndicates, need to tell him he needs to stop.

A few cartoonists commented on my initial post about MargoCox, outraged over their racism. A few of those are Lalo Alcaraz, Chris Britt, Marc Murphy, John Kovalic, Kevin Necessary, Bob Krieger, Phil Hands, Gary Huck, and Steve Brodner. Other cartoonists need to step up, even those syndicated by Cagle, and denounce racism in political cartooning.

Guys, you are in the business of publishing your opinions…publish your opinion on this. Speak up, or at least speak to Daryl. Tell him to cut out the bullshit. This should go double for the good cartoonists who are in Cagle’s stable. I’m looking at you, some of whom are my friends who I respect greatly, Pat Bagley, Adam Zyglis, Ed Wexler, Michael de Adder, Rick McKee, Bill Day, Jeff Koterba, John Cole, and Alexandra Bowman. For the love of god, for the love of this industry, say something.

I’m asking my colleagues to stand up against racism in our industry, because we know Daryl never will.

A friend of mine, who is a Black woman, said about this, “It’s sad but the good thing as Black women is that we are used to this type of hate to the point where we expect it, and since we have so much experience with it, we are able to rise above it because that’s the only other choice that we have.”

One last note: MargoCox told me that calling them out “will not end well for me.”

The comments will be open for everyone on this blog, because the accused and the ones I’ve called out deserve the opportunity to reply.

Note: Yes, I wrote this blog while sober. (snip)