I broke one in all my guidelines for this cartoon. I’m not massive on vacation
cartoons to start with and since I’m a freelancer, I don’t have to attract
them now. Again once I labored at The Free Lance-Star, my editor demanded a
cartoon for each Memorial and Veterans Day together with most different
holidays. I do consider we must always thank those that fought for our nation,
however I feel most cartoons that memorialize are boring. I’ve a rule
towards drawing boring cartoons, however that’s not the rule I broke right here.

My rule about vacation cartoons is to do them a number of days forward of the
vacation. That approach my purchasers have time to schedule it for his or her pages.
It appears to me if you happen to draw political cartoons for a dwelling, it is best to
know this. It drives me nuts once I see a cartoonist draw a vacation
cartoon the day earlier than a vacation (until he works for a publication),
the day of, or the day after…or days after. After I see a cartoonist draw
a cartoon the day of the vacation, it leads me to consider that
cartoonist is simply working for Fb likes. It’s amateurish.

However I broke that rule right this moment by drawing this cartoon and sending it to
my purchasers the day earlier than Memorial Day. Most of my purchasers gained’t use
it. However then once more, apart from the alt-weeklies who subscribe to my work
(they’re daring), most of my purchasers by no means run my cartoons on gun points.
For instance, one in all my purchasers is a nationwide publication that runs a
dozen cartoons a day on its web site. Despite the fact that I gained a journalism
award final week from a human rights outlet (sure, I’m going to exploit that
for all it’s value) on points like faculty shootings, this publication
didn’t run one in all my cartoons on the Uvalde faculty taking pictures, however they
did run a cartoon with a crying Uncle Sam and no less than 4 cartoons
with hugs and grief. Editors LOVE weak cartoons, however even then, why run
greater than a type of gushy cartoons? As David Byrne sang in “Psycho
Killer,” while you say one thing as soon as, why say it once more?

I’m not working for social media with this cartoon as I’m utilizing it to
struggle for change. I’m utilizing social media to disgrace these gun fetishists.
They get all scorching and squishy inside once they profess their love for
veterans who died for freedom, however they make excuses and throw blame at
political opponents when assault rifles are used to homicide youngsters.
They consider their freedom to personal an assault rifle is extra essential
than the lives of youngsters. They show that each fucking time this
occurs. And every time it occurs, they keep away from the reality. Republicans are
about as pro-life as Hannibal Lecter.

Because the Uvalde taking pictures, the gun whackos have blamed psychological well being,
liberals, wokeness, trans individuals, essential race idea, socialism,
video video games, Democrats, doorways, and every little thing else they will consider
besides weapons. They’ve zero proof of any of that. They’ll’t cite any
research to assist their deflections and excuses. However we don’t want any
graphs or statistics to know these 21 individuals in that Uvalde elementary
had been killed by an assault rifle. After which we’ve the Buffalo taking pictures
the place the gun-humpers blame every little thing besides racism regardless of the
killer’s racist manifesto and the n-word on the barrel of his assault
rifle.

So perhaps I did ship my purchasers a cartoon most gained’t use, nevertheless it’s
value it to take one other shot at shaming the individuals who have to be
shamed.

Completely satisfied Memorial Day, fuckers. Get pleasure from your barbeques.

Music Word: After all of the lettering, I turned on the
music to take heed to whereas drawing grass. It took some time and I listened
to Cowboy Junkies, the Cranberries, The Hives, Coheed and Cambria, Gap,
and another stuff I can’t keep in mind now.