The Sixth Great Lake (plus the New Boston Tea Party, plus a shout-out to Erin)

In light of all the flooding throughout the Midwest:

Another map-themed cartoon in today's Daily Iowan. I tried to cover all the areas I knew were facing floods: Chicago, where flights were delayed at O'Hare, and Indiana, where there was a flood-related fatality, and then around here in eastern Iowa (although where we live is fine, in case you're wondering).

I also did another Boston Marathon bombing cartoon. The Daily Iowan didn't publish it today, and I don't think they can save it for later in the week, since it might be old news by then.

So I'll post it here.

Last week's saga in Boston was something, wasn't it? I wanted to draw something that showed the entire United States surrounding these two terrorists. I tried to think of something that represented 300,000,000 vs. 2. This is what I came up with.

My sister Kandis pointed out that the cartoon works in another way, because Dzokhar Tsarnaev was found in a boat. I realized, "Oh, I should have drawn a motorboat instead of an old colonial era ship!" That would have been a good idea. Oh well.

Oh, that reminds me, I should give credit where credit is due: for my Tax Day cartoon, I should publicly acknowledge that my beautiful wife Erin helped me come up with that idea. My first idea was a college kid with an accountant doing his taxes, saying something like "I wish I could hire someone to do this for my homework." But how many college students hire an accountant? So Erin thought of someone who comes to class exhausted because of working on his taxes. And that led me to think of the "hungover" element. Erin definitely helped me come up with something better than I came up with myself. Thanks, Erin!

Happy Tax Day!

In The Daily Iowan

Debating With Himself

I did another cartoon for The Daily Iowan about tonight's first presidential debate:

The joke has been thought up well before now that Mitt Romney could fill a whole hour just debating himself, or at least debating his former Governor of Massachusetts self. So I combined that idea with President Obama overpoliticizing his success in hunting down in Osama bin Laden, attempting a balanced mockery of both candidates.

These are all actual quotes from Mitt Romney. I found them compiled at this website (and, in case you're wondering, they have links to President Obama's own flip-flopping as well).

Why Can't I Get a Tax Cut? (October 20, 2008)

Fast forward a few months to the presidential debates between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. I watched all three (plus the vice presidential debate) as an assignment in my political science class. And what a wonderful source of comedic material they were.

I drew a few cartoons, but this is the one that was published. Both senators were fighting over whose plan gave better tax cuts to the little guy. The real insult in these tax fights was to accuse one another of wanting to give tax cuts to the millionaire CEOs, and that no tax cuts would make it all the way to "Joe the Plumber." Of course, a tax cut to Main Street U.S.A. seems like a good idea (although not all the time*). But, how do you think those millionaire CEOs felt? What if they want a tax cut?**

Evidently, it wasn't too long after this that CEOs from banks and Wall Street became Public Enemy No. 1, what with the ridiculous bonuses and lending subprime mortgage loans.

*(scroll down to this quote: "I mean, this was, if you want to talk firsts for Bush, this was the first time in American history that a president took us into a war and cut taxes.")

**(tongue-in-cheek)