Last week I wrote and asked for topic suggestions for my blog–and I got an enthusiastic response, including kazoo funerals, crochet bombing, star-nosed moles, Plutarch, medical indexing, and catfish noodling, which, as it turns out, is a real thing. It’s gross, but at least it’s not catfish canoodling, which would be an order of magnitude grosser if it existed … which it doesn’t, and let’s keep it that way.
So, many thanks for those ridiculous suggestions, which I’m going to ignore.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the ridiculous, especially when–according to Webster’s New Dictionary of Synonyms–it applies to “what excites derision because of extreme absurdity, foolishness or contemptibility” … or Trump.
Let me guess. If you like Trump, you don’t think that’s funny, and if you don’t, you do. That’s ok by me because to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “You can make some of the people laugh all of the time and all of the people laugh some of the time, but you can’t make all the people laugh all of the time.” Just as well. Think of the cacophony.
Trump was a popular topic suggestion I received and not in a positive way. That’s not surprising. He’s the president of a nation divided with more people on the other side of the divide than he is.
In general, my taste in cartoons isn’t derisive. Or it wasn’t when I was the cartoon editor of The New Yorker where the humor wasn’t of the punch up or punch down kind, but of the elbow to the side variety.
However, we always took great care to treat political figures with disrespect. That’s a cartoonist’s job. And, regardless of policy considerations, Trump’s own brand of “rage-icule” renaming of those he despises, combined with his world-class thin-skinnedness, makes him an inviting target for humorists of all stripes and especially cartoonists.
Today, I’m thrilled to offer my blog as a platform for taking aim at our president while introducing you to an amazing new talent in our cartoon archive, Kieron Dwyer.
Kieron is best known for his work in Marvel and DC comics. He has aptly focused his superhero drawing chops on undressing The Orange Emperor, as evidenced in the following cartoon.
In fact, Kieron has a new collection of Trump funnies published by Image Comics which will be available April 29 on that popular mega-site offering bulk toilet paper in 1 to 3 weeks.
Here’s a selection of my favorites available right now, from CartoonStock and CartoonStock.
All of these and a fun-load more are available for licensing, prints and mugs here. Sorry, no toilet paper.
Comments, complaints, compliments–you can write to me here at bob@cartooncollections.com
Yours in Good Humor,
Bob