This cartoon started out so well... but then I went off the deep end with symbolism. At one point I was considering putting a reference to Narcissus in the painting and having Nader staring at it... Then I smudged that out and gave him a small mirror. I have no idea whether it works or not.

Noticing some issues with my caricatures.... (other than my Nader turned out way too realistic). I'm doing the big heads, little bodies thing. I don't know if this is bad, but I do know it is a common tic for real "caricaturists" (you know, those people who work at amusement parks,who are overly kind with your features, and who draw you doing your favorite activity like flying a rocket ships). If I practice more on the caricatures and make them more iconic, I think I can draw the heads smaller and overcome this tic... but then again, do I want to overcome it? Most political cartoonist draw so iconistic, that they make all their people regulation size. But do I have to do what most cartoonist do? Also, I noticed some of Steve Brodner's work in the New Yorker (see http://www.stevebrodner.com/ ...nice little political water colors)... and noticed he got away with the big heads little bodies thing... and he is a less iconistic artist. So, blah, for now I'm going to try not to worry about it.

My brother suggested I play with the Levels in PS to get my lines darker and to work better with the true-black font. I tried it with the above. Also, my registration copy of Font Creater ran out of time. Can't buy a new copy of the software now... I'll need to find another solution for my font woes.

I thought it was funny how Chavez was threatening to cut off oil from the US while continuing to sell the majority of its oil to, um, the US. Not that I side with US oil (or certainly not Exxon Mobil), but Venezuela obviously has no choice. I listened to a news story where they said Exxon Mobil made something like 10 times more money than the GNP of Venezuela and really didn't need their oil.

I also thought it would be funny to draw Chavez as a bourgeois gentleman, worried about the "bandits."

Um, don't ask.... I actually think this is a funny cartoon, even though the drawing sucks. I've been only able to complete a few half-baked ideas lately... I would like to have time to draw two different sketches based on the same idea, then pick one. This may eliminate some of the garbage.

As for pens, I've eliminated a few more.. The Uniball Vision Elites have too much friction in the finer points. The Staedtler is sort of fun, but for some reasons my drawings always turn out bad with them (this one, for example).... I'm not sure why. It's sort of like that one mirror in the house that always makes you look like a complete dork. I'm about to get on a website and order a set of illustrating pens. Enough with this Staples/Target crap.

Tried one of these two-panel cartoons.... Typically, I'm not a big fan. Not into the punch-line format for a cartoon. I'm really impressed with Clay Bennet (who I mentioned yesterday). His cartoons are like little poems... working all on a symbolic level. Less narrative and dialogue.

Wanted to quote Tim. He wrote, "Remember your basic atmospheric perspective. Things get bluer and lower in contrast as they go to the horizon. In black and white, that simply means high contrast in the foreground and low contrast in the background. Intentionally exaggerate that shift in contrast (low contrast even if something is only 20 feet away) and it will help separate the foreground from the background." This is something that I should have thought about, but hadn't. I haven't been doing a lot of background stuff in the last cartoons, but when I do, I want to keep this notion in mind. It comes into play even when I'm working on elements in the same figure (the sleeves on Uncle Sam, for example, in this cartoon).

Trying a new font for the bubble text. Also this is jpg instead of a gif. Curious if I well get cleaner images.

I've been looking at Clay Bennett's work. http://www.claybennett.com/latest.html. Goofy simple characters, with unusual depth. He reuses the same symbols (snakes, painters, construction workers, etc.). Somehow he is able to make cartoons that hold up days after the event... He is often interested on commenting on bigger, less-concreate ideas like "liberty" or "violence."