Editorial Cartoonist du jour

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on

vickvarvel2.jpg
First published in The Indianapolis Star on July 30th. Artist Gary Varvel has a great blog where he explains the thought process behind his editorial cartoons.

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  • George

    Kill 4000 American soldiers and the naked emperor’s war rages on; kill American pet dogs and the guilty party hangs in the public square.

  • Fred Sparrman

    A jury of his peers!

  • david

    i agree with George. and deer are hunted and killed all the time, but you don’t see Bambi in an editorial cartoon pissed at hunters. If Vick had been busted for cock fighting, would anyone be as outraged?

    Don’t get me wrong dog fighting is wrong, but I find it ironic that people care more about animals than humans dying overseas, yet at the same time believing humans can hunt animals for sport because they are a lower form of being.

    While i will agree he cleverly uses the iconic cartoon dogs, pretty much every editorial cartoon following the Vick incident was basically angry dogs pissed at Michael Vick. To me the incident was basically a freebie for cartoonists, just draw angry dogs and Michael Vick…

  • http://www.human-dog.com Chris Weagel

    He’s on trial in Toon Town?

  • Jerry Colvin

    I think Pluto should be there instead of Goofy.

  • Jorge Garrido

    Nice cartoon, I would have liked them to be drawn more authentically, however, especially Goofy.

    >Kill 4000 American soldiers and the naked emperor’s war rages on; kill American pet dogs and the guilty party hangs in the public square.

    If you can’t see the difference between sending volunteer troops to war and an underground dog fight club, I feel sorry for you.

  • RR

    >If Vick had been busted for cock fighting, would anyone be as >outraged?

    Dogfighting is pretty nasty stuff. Dogs are forced to literally tear each other apart. And these guys electrocuted, drowned, shot, and tortured them too. There’s no excuse for it.

  • http://drgrantz.deviantart.com/ revned

    Jorge: Most editorial cartoonists don’t have the artistic chops that Gary Varvel has. The fact that you can tell which character is which without the use of nametags is a feat unto itself; you might as well complain that Michael Vick doesn’t look like Michael Vick. To expect on-chart accuracy of eight different cartoon characters in a single-panel editorial cartoon is preposterous.

  • Chuck R.

    “If you can’t see the difference…”

    Thanks, Jorge. I’ll second that.
    It’s a surprisingly lightweight cartoon. I get the sense he has more against Marmaduke than he does Vick.

  • http://www.micahtoons.com Micah Baker

    “IF you can’t see the difference…” Jorge, yeah no kidding. C’mon, George, you are just scrapping for a fight.

    As for editorial cartoonist’s drawing ability, Varvel is pretty darn fine. There’s a certain variety to the drawings that is missing in a lot of other artists’ work.

    That Blog of his is pretty keen.

  • Chuck R.

    Oh, and Jerry: Do you know which entries are going to be 90-comment threads when you post them? Do you and Amid wager on how many off-topic comments you’ll get? :-)

  • Dock Miles

    I’m certain a couple of the unseen jury members are Deputy Dawg, McGruff and Offissa Pupp.

  • Jesse H.

    “I think Pluto should be there instead of Goofy.”

    Indeed, probably a better choice for Disney representation. Assuming however Varvel had finalized all his front row inclusions and didn’t want to lose their presence, Pluto wouldn’t have been of tall enough stature for the back row crowd.

  • Steve

    Goofy owning one of his own species, keeping him as a lowly pet and probably standing in the way of Pluto learning to speak English and stand on his own hind legs puts him in the same league as Michael Vick.

  • Christopher Cook

    Muttley should have been in there, too. He’s more likely to bite Vick on the leg and/or butt.

  • Joel O.

    Maybe Mr. Peabody is the unseen court clerk and possibly Huckleberry Hound and Ruff are the court officers…

  • http://captainwrong.net Captain Wrong

    OK, I admit, that’s a good toon. Nice to see Varvel take a break from the usual right wing swill he puts forth in his ‘toons. Dude has some chops. I just wish he would use them for something more than regurgitating Republican talking points from time to time.

  • http://www.myspace.com/dougputhoff Douglas A. Putboff

    What, No Krypto?

  • http://www.christianziebarth.com Christian

    At least he got the right look for Underdog.

  • http://hitlersbrain.deviantart.com R

    Was the artist thinking “I-can’t-think-of-anything-satirical, so-I’ll-draw-a-load-of-familiar-characters-to-get-a-cheap ‘recognition laugh”?

  • Raven

    Whatever punishment he gets it will not be bad enough.
    I loathe people who abuse animals. The things that happen to these poor dogs is pretty horrific. Having worked in recue for some time I can tell you some of the things I have seen/heard still give me nightmares.
    This Cartoon is good. I did not think it was possible to make a statment about this mess that would put a smile on my face but that man having to face this particular panel of peers did it.

  • Tonya

    Deer are being hunted for food, did Vick eat any of the dogs he killed? Soldiers shouldn’t have signed up if they didn’t want to go to war and risk being killed, they had a choice it’s the military there might be death in a war. The dogs didn’t have any choice in the matter.