Pure Imagination

Facebook is coming to Iowa.

This reminded me of Google coming to The Dalles, Oregon, sometime around when I was graduating high school It was so exciting and mysterious - I remember thinking about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory back then, too.

So here it is, my last cartoon of the year, and probably ever, for The Daily Iowan. It was a lot of fun, and a very cool opportunity to continue drawing. I'm grateful to The Daily Iowan for being yet another outlet for me to share my ideas and expressions.

To prepare for my next year of law school though, I have to cut out some of the things I'm involved with, as enjoyable as they are. So I don't think I'll submit any more cartoons.

But thanks everyone for checking them out and being my audience.

The New Boston Tea Party

Oh, so it turned out the Boston cartoon I thought wasn't going to be published, was published today in The Daily Iowan. I thought it was going to be old news before today, since now the news isn't so much catching Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but how he is being criminally charged. But I'm grateful that The Daily Iowan put it in the paper anyway.

For more on this cartoon, click here.

I only now realized that I forgot to put my signature on this one. Oh well.

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!

A Little Busy Right Now

Here's a cartoon in The Daily Iowan that combines the tragedies in Boston and West, TX, and North Korea:

This week has been fascinating from a journalist's point of view, and I've been watching the Boston story especially. Of course, it's also been horrific. I can't even imagine what Bostonians are going through right now. I don't think I've ever had the feeling that I'm only safe if I'm locked up in my home, and even then I might be in danger. I don't think I've ever experienced that terror.

Here are a couple of awesome Boston tributes that were spread around this week:

In Tuesday's New Yorker magazine

On The Colbert Report, on Tuesday

I did another Boston cartoon earlier this week, but for some reason The Daily Iowan didn't publish it. Good thing I have a blog to publish it on!

In case you need some explaining: that's Paul Revere outside the Old North Church, pausing on his famous Midnight Ride, to take in the sadness.

Political cartoons aren't always funny or sarcastic. Occasionally, a cartoonist takes the opportunity to portray the community's emotions and sorrow, or recognizes history and heroes. I've noticed cartoons like that on the anniversary of September 11, or on Veteran's Day. I've never done that before - any tragedy over the years has always been when I wasn't currently drawing cartoons. (The Newtown school shooting was on the last day of final exams last December, so I was done drawing cartoons for The Daily Iowan for the semester.) So this was my first time trying out a serious cartoon. I thought it turned out pretty well, but for whatever reason it didn't end up in the paper.

I'm doing just one more week of Daily Iowan cartoons, so stay tuned!

Happy Tax Day!

In The Daily Iowan

Rock the Vote

Today is the last day of UISG elections (for all my BYU readers, it's basically Iowa's BYUSA elections). So I just had a funny image in my head of Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room on CNN, talking about the returns coming in.

And then I added Anderson Cooper playing with the touchscreen map that CNN always has fun with on election night. I didn't even do speech bubbles, to me the image was enough. Maybe it isn't that funny, but I hope the candidates see the cartoon and think it's cool.

For more about the election, read this story: UISG voting begins today

And playing with the map reminds me of this hilarious clip from Saturday Night Live, the 2008 election:

Terrible Twos

In today's Daily Iowan. (In case you can't tell, President Obama is talking to is Park Geun-hye, the president of South Korea.)

All Aboard!

Today's cartoon in The Daily Iowan:

Everywhere you turn, another politician (Republicans and Democrats alike) is coming out in support of "marriage equality." They are saying it's "the right thing to do" and that they have "evolved" ... and it doesn't hurt that public support for "marriage equality" has made it safe for them to "evolve" these days.

This weekend was General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and among the many things I was listening for I found some very interesting and reassuring teachings on marriage and its true place in the world today. I'm sure there are some statements that will make people pretty mad, but they were meaningful and I took them to be truth.

Here are the talks I thought were especially relevant. The texts aren't available online yet, but you can watch video or listen to audio here.

President Boyd K. Packer - Saturday Morning Session
Elder David A. Bednar - Saturday Afternoon Session
Elder Robert D. Hales - Priesthood Session
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf - Priesthood Session
Elder L. Tom Perry - Sunday Morning Session

Ol' Hawk Eyes

Iowa basketball is playing in the NIT championship today against Baylor at Madison Square Garden, in New York City.

Time to invoke my inner Frank Sinatra.

In today's Daily Iowan.

MSG

Iowa basketball plays today at Madison Square Garden, in the "NIT Final Four."

Not a brilliant cartoon, but hey, it's something.

In an interesting turn of events, BYU is also in the quarterfinals. So I got to include both Iowa and BYU in a cartoon. And if Iowa beats Maryland and BYU beats Baylor, then my two schools will be playing each other in the NIT championship. Whaddaya know.

When we lived in New York, we never saw Madison Square Garden. Although, when my family came to visit, I went with them to Penn Station to try and figure out how to get them from there to New Jersey to their hotel. Penn Station is directly under Madison Square Garden.

I remember Erin, Allisyn, and I walking by the Flatiron Building and seeing Madison Square, and thinking, "Oh, this must be where Madison Square Garden is." Of course, later I realized Madison Square Garden is above Penn Station, which is eight blocks north. It wasn't until preparing this cartoon did I come across the history and reasons why Madison Square is in two different places.

Supreme Troll

It's rare that I come up with a cartoon that even cracks me up.

This one didn't even require much drawing, not even Photoshopping. It was all Microsoft Paint. I was pretty proud of it when I finished, I think it's one of my top five favorites.

The only problem was that it was originally in color, but when I changed it to black and white for the newspaper I somehow deleted the original color version. Maybe I'll get around to re-creating it sometime.

It sort of reminds me of this cartoon, from summer 2010, with the "Photoshopping" and social media:

For more of my thoughts on the actual same-sex marriage issue, click here.