Daryl Cagle: Hi everybody. This is the Cagle cast from Cagle.com. It's all about political cartoons and cartoonists, and about the news and issues of the day. Today we're gonna discuss the top 10 most reprinted cartoons in America from the past week. I'm Daryl Cagle, and I'm here with Brian Farrington And hey Darrell. Uh, and Ed Wexler. Say hello, ed. Hello, ed. And Monty Wilton, ed and Monty are, , both brilliant Kegel cartoonists and you'll see them all the time on kegel.com. Monty has the number two cartoon of the week this week. He is just, absolutely great and Ed is absolutely great too. Fantastic caricature. He worked for, what is it, 70 years at Disney was just incredible. 30. 30. Oh wow. 70 30. Be uh, be sure to [00:01:00] subscribe, uh, wherever you're watching this. Podcast and visit ca cast.com to see all the cartoons. We're going to, describe the cartoons and talk about them. In case you're listening on the audio podcast, you can go to our sites and, see all the cartoons later. That probably drove you crazy because you couldn't see them in the audio podcast. So gentle. This is the number one cartoon of the week, and it's by Dave Wand, a cartoonist, who lives in Calgary. He's a Canadian, but we present him as an American cartoonist because if the American editors saw him as a Canadian cartoonist, his cartoons would just be invisible to them. You know, cartoons don't cross borders, so. Uh, a cartoonist does a great impression of an American cartoonist. We can call him an American cartoonist, and, uh, the editors will see him. He's suddenly visible. So it is with Dave, who is really very popular. He's got three cartoons in the top 10 this week. I'm just so impressed. So [00:02:00] Chinese spy satellites flying through the air and you've got the NSA gal and her colleague there. Looking down at their phones and she says our main focus has been Chinese attacks and cyberspace, but it's getting more worrisome. And her, elderly colleague says, twe, we keep you to eye on. So what do you think of this cartoon gentleman? This is cartoon editors. Like more than anything else last week. [00:02:25] Brian Fairrington: Well the balloon, that was a big story last week, so they were clamoring for that. Um, they really [00:02:30] Daryl Cagle: did want balloons. Yeah. I hope they want [00:02:32] Ed Wexler: a balloon in a couple of days. Cause I'm working on a balloon [00:02:36] Daryl Cagle: I think these balloons have legs. [00:02:38] Monte Wolverton: Yeah. This is, this has some irony to it. You got the NSA versus the thing that, in plain sight up there. . So yeah. That's fun. [00:02:49] Ed Wexler: It's fun. Maybe laugh. Okay. Made me laugh. It's graphically beautiful and simple. The [00:02:54] Daryl Cagle: clouds are funny. [00:02:55] Monte Wolverton: Yeah, I like the clouds. [00:02:56] Ed Wexler: Characters are funny. [00:02:58] Daryl Cagle: Okay, so we, we give it a, [00:03:00] we give it a good review. Yes, we do. Okay, here's the number two cartoon. And this cartoon comes from our own Monty Wilton. It is titled Prophet Wallowing, and the pig is wallowing in the piles of money and his belly is labeled big oil. Of course, this week we had the news that, there were record, profits at all of the oil companies, and they were, particularly, greedy. In the money that they collected. Uh, so very nice, Monty, you hit on a national curve here. Thank you. [00:03:35] Monte Wolverton: A hundred, 196, depending on 196.3 billion of profits. And instead of plowing it into renewable resources, they're plowing it back into fossil fuels. That's the problem with it. The pig is happy, but the pig does not have an eye for the future. Somehow. I think that's the thing there. [00:03:57] Daryl Cagle: You think this pig is a bit [00:04:00] shortsighted? [00:04:00] Monte Wolverton: The pig is shortsighted. Look at him. Obviously he needs [00:04:04] Daryl Cagle: glasses. You know, pigs are a metaphor that editorial cartoonists use all the time. I've, I've done so many pigs. Pigs work. Pigs are greed. [00:04:14] Brian Fairrington: Yeah. It's a great cartoon. Instant recognizable. Is, is one of Mons too. [00:04:18] Daryl Cagle: Absolutely it is money. You're, you're instantly recognizable. [00:04:24] Monte Wolverton: Oh, thank you. Yeah. All that money [00:04:27] Brian Fairrington: and hand draw and hand drawn, dollar bills so that must have taken away some time. [00:04:31] Monte Wolverton: Well, I may have uh, picked up some money from some other cartoons, , as I do occasionally, , and repurposed it here. It works. I may have done that or [00:04:40] Ed Wexler: I may not do that. Oh, oh yeah. I do that when I can. Sure. Yeah. But it, it's, [00:04:45] Daryl Cagle: do we want to admit to that? No, [00:04:48] Brian Fairrington: I think everybody does it. Nothing gives it away, right? Right. [00:04:51] Daryl Cagle: Okay. Well those big oil bastards. Yeah. Here is cartoon number three. This is by Chris White. Chris is best known as a New Yorker [00:05:00] cartoonist, but he's done all kinds of things. He draws two cartoons a week for us. One of them is also for the Boston Globe, and here we have the header Modern American Oxymorons. The first is the MAGA guy wearing his flag in his. gun, and he's just about to blow up the capitol. The second one is Republican Congressional Ethics Committees. You have the happy whistling blindfolded Republican elephant next to, George Santos, who I think is really a very funny character. I gotta enjoy George San. The third image is titled Top Secret, and it's got, the garbage cans, with, classified documents from Trump, Biden, and Pence. And then the fourth one is police reform with the names of lots of, tragic victims of police violence like George Floyd and Tyree Nichols. And, uh, these are all the American oxymorons.[00:06:00] , [00:06:00] Brian Fairrington: It surprises me that's a really hard hitting cartoon, in the end. And I'm surprised editors, didn't shy away from that. So that's a good thing because it's a, an issue that needs to be dealt with, but it's good that they, they didn't shy away from that. [00:06:13] Ed Wexler: It's a smart cartoon. I love it. [00:06:17] Brian Fairrington: Yeah, it is. Very [00:06:17] Daryl Cagle: smart. Very smart. It's also a liberal cartoon, the editors tend to avoid those, they want, cartoons that express no opinion left or right. Yeah. So it's nice to see, uh, liberal cartoon scoring this well in the top 10, [00:06:34] Monte Wolverton: It's , a deep in indictment of hypocrisy and irony, and it's got that, and yet it's done in a, sort of light innocent style. . He always does that. He's great at [00:06:44] Brian Fairrington: that. Yeah. [00:06:46] Ed Wexler: Lots of air around everything. Easy to read. Mm-hmm. know what's going on. It [00:06:51] Daryl Cagle: is, and these could be difficult Tableaus to draw, you know, having the capital and blowing it up dynamite and [00:06:58] Ed Wexler: doesn't get all, all bogged [00:07:00] down in details. Everything helps. There's nothing there that doesn't help. It's a funny Santo. It's a funny elephant. Yeah. Funny MAGA guy. [00:07:10] Daryl Cagle: It's a great cartoon. Yeah. So this one is by Jeff Urba. I think this is number five. It says, lead balloon in the little dove of peace is trying really hard to lift the lead US-China relations balloon, which is very, [00:07:27] Brian Fairrington: It's sort of a double two birds in one stone, no pun intended. Talking about the lead balloon, but then also on the heels of the, the balloon, the spy balloon, and then the, the talks that were gonna happen, between Biden and, uh, chi. Uh, so, you know, it's one of those that editor. would, definitely, [00:07:44] Daryl Cagle: this is one of those things too that the international cartoonists are always doing the dove of peace is, uh, right, uh, a thing that they rely on regularly. And, that poor bird has suffered, in every imaginable kind of, torture and form of [00:08:00] death. It's more international for them than us, [00:08:02] Monte Wolverton: I was gonna say that anytime you can put a tension device in a cartoon like that, it, it works. [00:08:08] Ed Wexler: Tension. Tension in physics. [00:08:09] Daryl Cagle: Okay. Here's another, cartoonist from Canada who draws like an American cartoonist and we present him as an American so that his cartoons are visible. This is Guy Parsons. He's got a magician who's, on the stage and. , ladies and gentlemen, for my next trick, I will attempt to correctly remember my [00:08:31] Brian Fairrington: password. I don't think this was tied in anything that happened necessarily this past week. This is just an evergreen cartoon that anybody can relate to. It's not political. Everyone forgets their password. So I don't think this is tied into any particular news story, but I can see why editors would go for it cuz it's an ongoing evergreen. forever issue that we'll always deal with, so absolutely. [00:08:51] Ed Wexler: It's every, everyone's issue. Definitely. I have all my passwords in a book now, so [00:08:57] Brian Fairrington: Yeah, it's, it's great. [00:08:59] Monte Wolverton: It, it [00:09:00] ran in our paper this morning and as I was reading it, [00:09:02] Daryl Cagle: show it to us in your paper [00:09:04] Monte Wolverton: here. I actually laughed at it. I rarely laugh at, you know, things. [00:09:11] Daryl Cagle: His color is funny guy's. Color makes me laugh. [00:09:15] Ed Wexler: It's funny, I was gonna say that the color that purple fights the letters just a little bit for me. [00:09:21] Daryl Cagle: Yes. Uh, I noticed that when Monty showed me the black and white version of the papers, running this cartoon [00:09:29] Monte Wolverton: this is the editorial page of the Vancouver Colombian, and as you'll notice there are two of, of our cartoons [00:09:36] Brian Fairrington: in there. Yeah. We've got just the, the [00:09:38] Monte Wolverton: lead balloon we have and, and we have this, which is published in black and white because of some problem experiencing with the color units on their press. [00:09:47] Brian Fairrington: do they normally, uh, print in color? , [00:09:49] Monte Wolverton: not recently, but yes, normally. [00:09:52] Daryl Cagle: Well, there you go. It's a very funny, uh, [00:09:54] Ed Wexler: I like the cartoon. Jeff's, uh, cartoon really, took over the page in a great [00:10:00] way. They commanded [00:10:01] Daryl Cagle: the page well. They really wanted balloons right now. Yeah. Big, simple balloons. I think. work. Okay, here's the next one. This is, another one by Dave Wand. And it's the character from the movie up, the Edward Asner character from the movie up in his house with all the balloons flying in the air. And he says, wait, is that a fighter jet? ? [00:10:22] Brian Fairrington: Apologies to up too. I [00:10:24] Ed Wexler: like that. Yeah, [00:10:24] Brian Fairrington: yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great image. Image. Very recognizable, classic movie. [00:10:28] Daryl Cagle: So Disney cartoon Ed. [00:10:30] Ed Wexler: Yeah, it's great, , the cluster of, multicolor balloons is a great, device to have in the cartoon. It's beautiful. [00:10:38] Brian Fairrington: Did you do any work on that movie [00:10:40] Ed Wexler: I didn't, I worked on, uh, television. [00:10:43] Daryl Cagle: Gotcha. Yeah. You know, we have gotten complaints from editors when cartoons have, earth tones or not bright enough. The editors really like the very bright colors. [00:10:54] Ed Wexler: And these are bright without being brassy. It's, uh, there's a nice control. You know, that's a nice [00:11:00] choice for the blue of the sky.  It doesn't, it, it takes its proper place in space. For me, I [00:11:07] Daryl Cagle: like. I think apologies to UP is funny too. [00:11:09] Ed Wexler: And that's a great way to let you know which character he's drawing a caricature of cuz it is just nicely, nicely thumbnailed. You know, it's nicely simple [00:11:19] Brian Fairrington: and it's one of those cartoons that when you read the punchline and you think about the end result of fighter jet shooting this poor, helpless old man out of the sky, you know, that's where the belly laugh comes from, you know? Uh, yeah. That works very. . [00:11:30] Ed Wexler: I always like how Dave Darkens is the corners of his, compositions. Oh, he does? It just helps. It just helps you, it helps direct your eye. It's just . It [00:11:39] Daryl Cagle: feels good. Okay. This one is John Darco from Columbia, Missouri, and it's the giant Chinese balloon up in the air, and it's got the logo for TikTok on it and, , it says the Chinese collecting information on Americans. What's the big deal? We do it all the time. [00:11:57] Brian Fairrington: I wondered how long it would, how many we would see this, the [00:12:00] TikTok comparison mm-hmm. , because that's such a hot, hot issue, particularly amongst conservatives. But, um, interesting. Uh, that, I think John is the only one still hand coloring his work. I think he, he uses colored pencils and scans it in, so when it works, it has a nice textured. Field. Nice hand name, quality. . Nice. [00:12:18] Daryl Cagle: Yeah. This is really kind of just an informational cartoon. , . Now, this is a cartoon by Pat Bagley who draws for the Salt Lake Tribune in Utah, and it has, , a robot sitting on a pedestal labeled artificial intelligence. And he says, got it. Holds his finger up in the air as though he's got it. A scientist wearing his white science coat, and he looks a bit. Uh, disturbed, and I've gotta admit, I didn't really get this cartoon. We had a discussion about whether the robot was supposed to be a metaphor to ronan's the thinker statue. And I [00:13:00] think not because I think the, the thinker statue has to have, uh, his hand curled under his neck like this. For it to read as the thinker statue. I guess it was, Brian that thought his feet were in, uh, thinker statue positioned, and that was good enough for Brian. [00:13:19] Brian Fairrington: Yeah, I, I think I wanna stick with that. I think it's probably what, what, uh, pat intended. Um, and like, like Ed said earlier, I think that the, the, uh, the pedestal gives it away. . And that's the whole point of that, that, uh, artificial intelligence is the debate is when will it start thinking for itself and reasoning and, and realize that humans are worthless and to take us over [00:13:40] Daryl Cagle: So that's the point is he's at, he's, he's, he's achieved understanding. He got it. And that's what disconcerts the, the scientist? [00:13:48] Brian Fairrington: Yeah, I think so. I think so. You know, I guess we should have had Pat on here and asked him and settled the debate, [00:13:55] Monte Wolverton: We'll, we'll never know. , the structure of the, of the joke is a good thing. [00:14:00] Sometimes you don't get things right away and then it takes a few seconds and it occurs to you and that's fun. So he's structured this, like one of those kind of gags [00:14:10] Daryl Cagle: Well, what I thought when I saw it was that I didn't get it, but he got it. [00:14:15] Brian Fairrington: Well, I mean, the thinker, that's the whole gag of it. Uh, the thinker is thinking, thinking, thinking, and all of a sudden, Hey, I. Yeah, I'm gonna take over the world. I'm gonna outsmart humans, I'm gonna replace them. I think those are all things that could be insinuated from it, but apparently editors got it because it's in the top 10. They did. It's in [00:14:31] Daryl Cagle: the top 10. It ran in hundred some papers. This one comes from Adam Segla. He's a Pulitzer Prize winner draws for the Buffalo News in New York. It's got a title on it that says The World According to China. In two panels, the first panel shows the research balloon in quotes. It's the Chinese balloon view from, looking up in the air, and the second panel shows the spy versus spy white character [00:15:00] sitting in a balloon. with big binoculars looking down on the usa, represented by a flag on the earth, and there's an angry American bald eagle flying at. the Spy, and he's got a label on him that says Bird Watcher because he's looking at the Eagle. This is of course, based on the Antonio Pros Spy versus Spy of Mad Magazine, which was taken over for more than 20 years by Peter Cooper, who also draws cartoons for Kegel cartoons. He is just a brilliant spy versus spy cartoonist. So, I have noticed there have, in the past, whatever, there's a spy story. There are a whole lot of cartoons with the spy versus spy metaphor, and they always perform very, very well. They use, uh, cartoonists, with every spy story. They use Spy versus Spy, and they use Boris and Natasha from Bullwinkle. [00:16:00] And both of those perform really, really well with editor. [00:16:03] Brian Fairrington: So gentlemen. Well, I think it also speaks to how old editors are because both of these, uh, references are not, I mean, I don't know if my kids would get them, but I certainly grew up on spy versus spy and [00:16:13] Daryl Cagle: average newspaper readers, what? 65? Bo Winkle and Mad Magazine. [00:16:17] Monte Wolverton: Stereotypical spy. [00:16:19] Daryl Cagle: Well, that's basically all this cartoon is, which is, it's just saying that the research balloon is really a spy balloon. Mm-hmm. . And here's our metaphor for spy. And, uh, we don't take that too seriously. Well, [00:16:31] Brian Fairrington: yeah, and it also speaks to the hypocrisy of China's excuse, that they were just, uh, it was just a weather balloon. But, um, yeah. Great cartoon. [00:16:39] Ed Wexler: I, I could not tell. Uh, that, uh, Adam finishes his work digitally. I thought it was watercolor till I asked him about [00:16:50] Brian Fairrington: it. Oh, I didn't realize that either. I did too. Yeah. [00:16:53] Ed Wexler: It's great. Yeah, he works. He draws traditionally and inks traditionally. Mm-hmm. and, and does [00:17:00] color. Um, . [00:17:02] Brian Fairrington: Yeah. The sky behind the, uh, the research balloon has a nice watercolor feel. It's not full. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think that's what so many, what so many cartis illustrators do, particularly guys that are just starting to use Photoshop. It looks too synthetic. It looks too, uh, yeah. You know, and, and when you can achieve this. That's where it really works. Yeah. And it would be hard to do that, on paper with watercolor. You'd have to have the right kind of scanner to scan it in, to reproduce it. Right. Uh, and that becomes problematic. So the fact that he could do that, like that, that's why it works. But yeah, I didn't know that yet. That's, that's remarkable. [00:17:36] Daryl Cagle: But yeah, just the, details of the washes really look like they're washes. Yeah. You notice this little bit way up at the top. Right here where, where the wash went over as black ink line. I mean, that would fool me. Yeah. Yeah. [00:17:52] Ed Wexler: That's the kind of thing that fools me. [00:17:54] Brian Fairrington: Yeah. No, it looks good. Looks [00:17:55] Daryl Cagle: good. Okay. So, this is Dave [00:18:00] Wand again with this third cartoon in the top 10, which is really very impressive. This is a tableau of characters. Joe Biden's State of the Union speech last night, and you've got Joe Biden with Kamala Harris and the Shaman from January 6th, character ripping something up. And there's, uh, Congresswoman Bobert and Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gates, Matt Gates's, playing with fire and Biden says, the state of the Union is, so the Republicans go boo and Biden says, I missed the old days, man. And you'll notice in the bottom there's a little hand squeezing the ketchup and the hand is orange. So that's obviously Trump squirting his ketchup. Oh, it's a little, it's a little hand and it's orange and [00:18:55] Monte Wolverton: it's ketchup. That's, [00:18:57] Daryl Cagle: that's, . So, um, a nice touch.[00:19:00] I was commenting that this is like an old courier and I've Christmas thing with all the stuff going on in it, but it's in Congress and it's with all these creepy characters and, I think that's just funny.  It's throwing everything in there and, the caricatures are fun. I like it. [00:19:17] Brian Fairrington: Yeah. I like what he has. He, I like how he, he has Biden phrase, by saying the word man at the end of it, you know, uh, that yes, that works. [00:19:26] Monte Wolverton: Uh, I wonder if he does miss the good old days though, because the g o p kind of played right into his hands with their heckling. He, he did a, he worked on a great job of taking care of him. He sure [00:19:37] Brian Fairrington: did. Yeah. Yeah. They're gonna, they're gonna have to live that down when they. Do, uh, want to cut those programs so they have to go back and listen to that. Uh, yep. Rebroadcast a Million. [00:19:45] Daryl Cagle: Boy, I can tell what channel you guys watched. I watched this on Fox and it was all about, how Biden is going. Sile. And his speech was in incompetent. And what what a, what a mess. And what a [00:20:00] travesty. I'm shocked. We just watched, we're watching different channels. I should be my, anyway, [00:20:04] Monte Wolverton: I thought. . [00:20:04] Daryl Cagle: Yeah. I, I thought this cartoon was cute and I like the characters, and actually, I think the Republicans are pretty funny. Each of these Republicans is such a cartoon character. I like, yes. I even like Bobert. I think that she's, I, she's kind of nerdy, cute, you know, in a Sarah Palin kind of way. . And she's funny cause she's just so crazy. She's, she's so crazy. She's funny and she's cute. [00:20:31] Brian Fairrington: Well, talking about Republican caricatures, the, Republicans make such a big deal about Biden's age, but Trump is only three years younger.  I mean, he is not 30 years younger. And he's arguably, far more crazier. But this is a great cartoon with all the characters in it. With Matt, down at the bottom. He's a, he's a piece of work, [00:20:48] Daryl Cagle: this is fun. Uh, this just struck me like a Christmas card. Ed, you know, Dave does Christmas cards. He does everything. He draws two comic strips. He does puzzles and cards [00:21:00] and editorial cartoons. It's just, it is crazy how much he does. Very impressed with Dave. Me too. This is cartoon number 10. Gentlemen, I think we've finished. Do you have any more comments on anything on the cartoons, on the week, on your politics, on our dying profession? [00:21:16] Brian Fairrington: The, uh, holiday cartoons are always the popular, uh, choices, and we've got Valentine's Day coming up next week. [00:21:21] Daryl Cagle: So we're all done with last words. That's the end of our podcast. Uh, remember to subscribe. Visit Cagle.com in order to see all the podcasts. Visit Cagle.com to see all of the cartoons. Be sure to, come back next week for. Our next top 10 and you'll be introduced to more of the top cartoonists. And thank you very much everybody. Thanks, [00:21:45] Brian Fairrington: Darrell. Hey, thank you. You're welcome. Thanks guys. It was fun.