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.

and if you ain’t down you’ll get played out, son

Adam’s dealing with trouble in paradise… plus he’s having problems with his English class!

It’s not just that the students don’t have respect for their English teachers. They goof around and don’t do any work in their other classes just like they do in ours, but the difference in those classes is that the teachers either aren’t bothered or just decide to let it go. Kids are rewarded with good grades whether they deserve them or not. I mean, I’ve got kids failing my class (because their performance warrants it), and the officials at the school are telling our English Program Director that we can’t give kids grades like that because they might quit.

[zing] Since when did UGA open up a campus in Ecuador? [/zing]

grab bag o fun

-It would be remiss of me not to recall the name of my own blog. This is supposed to be a cartoon blog, and I haven’t posted a cartoon (or any other thing I’ve drawn) in months! The horror! Since returning from DC in April, much of my time has been spent transitioning into “art student” mode. I have just finished the first semester of the UGA art school’s foundations classes, i.e. drawing, composition and art history. At the outset I was worried that all the time I spent in cartoon mode had somehow robbed me of any latent ability to represent things as they actually, well, look. Judging from the meager, two-month sample size, this doesn’t appear to be the case. I will post a select few examples of what I’ve produced in these classes once I get the photos up (most are too big to scan).

-The semester has, in certain ways for me, been a months-long rationalization of what could be interpreted as a decision on my part to delay “real life.” I have come to the conclusion that the most useful thing a 22-year-old in my position could do in a recession would be to improve skills for a future potential economic upswing while at the same time becoming relatively self-sufficient. I’m using that as my narrative from now on.

- I’m currently working on a character that I haven’t spent much time on until now. You’ll see the results of that soon, too, hopefully.

- My image-hosting site has decided to change names, once again rendering all the embedded images in this blog dead. I will dig through my memory banks and correct everything in the next few days. Fixed.

- I have added to the “Luminaries” category the Web site of Joshua Bienko. Wish him well at Texas A&M.

about the way i talk / about the way i dress / about how my gold teeth look so fresh

Omaha-based freelance cartoonist Neal Obermeyer has posted on his blog a lengthy interview with me about college editorial cartooning. Check it out if you can’t get enough MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME!!!!!!!

we should stop drawing more often

We win more awards that way.

We may be announcing something interesting soon. Be advised.

my new favorite blog

On a subject that deserves more scholarly inquiry than it gets.

deep thought of the day

After examining a sample of exactly one instance … the best time to fly AirtranU seems to be in the early morning, when people (like me the other day) oversleep and miss their scheduled flights.

Of course, as someone pointed out to me, the whole purpose of the program could just be to lure college kids to the airport with the promise of cheap fares, only to reveal that all their flights are overbooked, except for a single $450 first-class seat on a flight six hours from now with said kid’s (parents’) name on it.

Not that I’m drawing from personal experience or anything, of course.

i’m touched

I thought Mom was the only one.

They dug pretty far back in the archives to fill the album, too.

blog-post-about-an-upcoming-blog-post dept.

…since I am contractually obligated to write at least one such item per week, after all.

On the bus coming back from Philly to DC this weekend, I wrote some cartoons starring Brent Spotswood, my old nemesis who used to draw the “Overheard in Athens” cartoons in the Red & Black. ETA is this weekend, assuming I’m not dead or still bedridden by then.

actual ad for a mcdonald’s kids meal

“Food to grow on.”

Whoever came up with that must be more cynical than even I.