Favorite Cartoons of the Year

If you were a job-seeker, an Afghan civilian or an Obama voter, the year kinda sucked for you, dinnit? But if you were a cartoonist — that is to say, if you spent the year baking delicious and buttery loaves of humor from the dough of human misery — the year was simply delightful. Yes, ladies n gremlins, as we enter a new decade, one promising fulfillment of all those broken promises of yesteryear along with dreams anew, it is incumbent upon us to reflect upon blah blah blah blah etc etc etc etc.

OK, with all that out of the way, here are my favorite cartoons from the past year, presented in order of publication.

When Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford and running back Knowshon Moreno announced they’d enter the NFL draft (and thus cut short their UGA careers), Bulldog Nation was livid. The angry laptop guy in the third panel is based on stuff I heard from fans. But any one of us would do the same thing if offered a multimillion dollar signing bonus.

About sez it all, don’t it?

The Cookie Monster is fun to draw. Even more fun is drawing multiple Cookie Monsters.

Did this the day before my portfolio review for the graphic design program, so I wasn’t sure if I was going to graduate or not, hence the question mark.

Glenn Beck presents an interesting case because he’s not simply putting on a show of outrage, the way someone like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity might. He seems to be genuinely crazy. But just like his radio cohorts he’s a reliably good showman, so the Old Faithful analogy seemed appropriate.

Goofus and Gallant, you’ll recall, is a feature in Highlights, a children’s magazine. I have relied on these characters whenever I want to show how hypocritical the University of Georgia is regarding its self-presentation as a serious institution of learning versus the blind eye it turns toward gameday shenanigans that happen on campus.

Crying children are funny.

Whales keep dying at the Georgia Aquarium. Fitting, considering the place is more like a theme park than an animal sanctuary.

Lou Dobbs is a loathsome sack of shit. But now that he’s left CNN for the lucrative world of freelance media whoredom, it sure would be funny to see him in Spandex.

People never know whether I’m being serious when I portray myself in cartoons. This one is, like, so serious you don’t even know how serious it is.

To the nonbelievers, Francis the Magic Unicorn cries out “to the chambers, go!”

Last year my New Year’s resolution was to improve my brushwork. I think I was successful. Now I draw much freer and with more solid construction. This year my resolution is to do a bunch of blow and marry a Russian mail-order bride. How that will affect my composition and linework remains to be seen. But that’s another decade.