Bingo!

I don't know about you, but I thought Dennis Rodman's trip to North Korea was totally random. Then I thought of the other Americans who have been allowed to enter the borders: the Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Bill Clinton (that was back when it was Kim Jong Il).

So that's when I came up with this, in today's Daily Iowan:

It was fun coming up with random celebrities to fill out the bingo card. I did basically whoever popped into my head, leaning toward people who have been in the news lately and people with short names that would fit in the squares I drew. In case you can't read them, here they are: Jennifer Lawrence, Tupac Shakur, Wayne LaPierre, Chuck Norris, George Michael Bluth, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, Geico Gecko, Donald Trump, [I don't remember who I meant to be behind Kim Jong Un's hand], LeBron James, Joe Biden, free square, Dennis Rodman, Bill Clinton, Condi Rice, Malia Obama, Russell Simmons, Oprah Winfrey, Tina Fey, Piers Morgan, Joe Flacco, William Shatner, Joe the Plumber.

Oblivious

And the Manti Te'o jokes continue.

So I actually drew two cartoons, one for either team winning. For some reason, The Daily Iowan has the other cartoon online ... I'm not sure if that was on purpose, so that no matter what happened, at least either the paper or the website would be correct. I was a little worried, because I saw it online first and I thought, "Oh no, they ran the wrong cartoon! I wonder if my cartoons were too confusing ..." But I was relieved to see the right one was published in the paper.*

Here's that other cartoon, in case you're curious:

Obviously, it's simply the reverse of the cartoon above. Which I could foresee as being confusing, if a newspaper editor under a looming deadline had to choose between the two.

How about that blackout, huh? I wish the Super Bowl weren't so past press deadlines, or else I definitely could have come up with a cartoon about that. (For some hilarious Twitter reactions, go here: The Funniest Tweets of the Great Super Bowl Blackout.)

* The Daily Iowan has since fixed the cartoon online.

Syncopated

Am I right?

(Published in today's Daily Iowan.)

Almost Harmony

I love when I can combine more than one news story into one cartoon.

I actually drew this cartoon last week, as a possible alternative to this one. But it also worked for this week since Iowa beat Minnesota, 31-13. (See, I don't always need Iowa to lose to advance my cartooning career.)

Winter 2011

With the end of Christmas vacation comes the beginning of a new semester for The Daily Universe.

I'm still a sports editor, but David Mortimer has graduated. I am now joined by Alex Hairston and Sarah Gambles, who were our football writers last semester. I spent a lot of time with each of them (Alex went with me to Colorado Springs, Sarah went with me to Fort Collins), and they're both a lot of fun to work with and are both good at what they do.

The reason we have three editors is because the sports desk gets to be the guinea pig for a new experiment at The Daily Universe. We are working on a new website, that will be more realistic according to the current journalism world. It's basically a Wordpress blog, so all of our reporters with their laptops will be able to upload stories from wherever they are, and we don't have to wait until the newspaper layout is being done before the stories can be read. The website is still in its preparation stages, so I'm not going to broadcast the link quite yet.

In all the craziness of having sports pages to fill and reporters to get stared on their beats, Alex, Sarah and I ended up doing a lot of writing on our own. Here's what I contributed:

BYU sports in action during Christmas break - An article to catch up the student body on what football and men's and women's basketball did over vacation. (Here's another link, in case that first one doesn't work once the new website is up and running. For some reason it says Alex wrote it, but, I promise, it was me. :) )

The road to an NFL title is still a possibility for several former Cougars - This was a fun one to put together. Our copy chief and crazy-BYU-fan-in-residence, Brandon Judd, gave me a list of all the former BYU Cougars who are on teams in the NFL playoffs.

Let the experts speak* - Alex, Sarah and I each gave our predictions for the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.

The whole double truck* looks great. One of my new favorites.


(Oh yeah: Take a look at the photo that goes with this gymnastics story, and tell me if you recognize anyone in there.)

*Go to page 10.

My Very First Opinion Page

I've seen my name in print before, but today is a little different. I put together an entire page! I laid out and wrote part of page 3 of today's Daily Universe.

I haven't yet checked for any responses in the du.letters@gmail.com inbox...that might be interesting.

Anyway, here's what you can find on page 3:

- To those who are leaving us, a viewpoint from BYU's Pulitzer Prize-winning professor John Hughes
- The first edition of J Squared, a new column I created for myself
- A few letters: Open letter to Arizona, Spring break is vital, More women in business and Tenure and apathy
- And three cartoons. Here's the one I did:

This cartoon might already be outdated. But I just thought it was interesting to compare and contrast Tiger Woods' and Ben Roethlisberger's situations. It seemed to me like all anyone was talking about was the question of Tiger's return, and a little later everyone was talking about how long to keep Roethlisberger out of the NFL. Now, I know there are some major differences between them (Woods cheated on his wife, but Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault...Woods never broke the law, Roethlisberger was charged...Woods voluntarily took a break from golf, Roethlisberger was facing punitive measures from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell...). But, at the very least, they're both fun to caricature.

If you want to look at the whole page, go here and look at page 3.

"Who dat?" (February 5, 2010)

It's that time of year again. For the Universe's weekend edition, there was a page for the sports writers to predict the Super Bowl.

I've got the links here: Saints predictions, Colts predictions. But I'll also put my prediction right here in this blog post, because I have a little extra to add.

"J.J. Despain

Saints 24 – Colts 21

The Colts are an amazing team with an amazing quarterback, but I feel like it’s time once again for an underdog upset. Maybe the Saints have never been to the Super Bowl before, but they are going to capitalize on their momentum. They were energized by the big win over Brett Favre and the Vikings for the NFC championship. Plus, they are propelled by the pre-emptive Mardi Gras going on in New Orleans right now. N’Awlins is ready for a historic win for reasons other than football, too."
Now, when I turned in my paragraph, I had one more sentence at the end. I finished my prediction with "("Take that, Hurricane Katrina!") I figured it would probably be a little too political and controversial, and sure enough they took it out.

It's not really that I don't think the Colts will win. They are the favorites. But I've always been inclined to root for the underdog. Plus, because of the Katrina tragedy I feel more American if I root for New Orleans, for some reason.

Whatever happens, it should be an exciting game.

Discerning the Draft (January 12, 2010)

An article on the front page! The very next day!

Discerning the draft