A cartoon set in a parakeet prison. I wonder what he did to end up in that cell.
Busking flamingos. They lack important body parts. You should cut them some slack.
How artists perceive the world. This one has a slightly pessimistic outlook.
Another cartoon cliché mash-up: personified Death meets the dark alley clubber.
I've never really been a fan of Joe Cocker. This, however, is one cool collage.
A sequence of pictures dedicated to everyday loops. By the way.. Did I turn off the stove?
A caricature of singer/ guitar player Josh Homme. Great composition.
Puny craft scissors VS the intimidating power of the red velvet rope: Who ya got?
A series of tentacle-themed cartoons from Cuba mysteriously titled "wind".
Personal Favorite
I usually don't pick editorial cartoons as 'personal favorites' - A day after publishing them the situation might have changed considerably. This is of course true for the recent situation in Egypt. Still, I like this one by German artist Erl for its simple style and clear yet inventive metaphor.
This cartoon features free fur coats on mountain tops and growing suspicions.
Last week several NY mafiosi were arrested. Most of them had awesome nicknames
The Deaths on vacation - Hilarity ensues. Please note the ice cream & beer gut.
Hu Jintao cartoons tend to repeat yellow peril clichés. Hence a simple caricature.
Hungary's and Romania's traditional music instruments fail EU standards.
Pisa, Italy. Home to a lot of people with horribly bad posture. And some mice.
Somewhat late, (news-cycle-wise) I still like the idea and execution of this Assange punch.
Modern man and quiet defiance in the face of Facebook. A watercolor cartoon.
Toilet humor in a desert island cartoon. Could a traditionalist could wish for more?
Personal Favorite
This guy's desk looks familiar. Working from home I just had to pick this cartoon by Australian artist Mark Lynch. I am also a sucker for "static plaid".
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Elihu Duayer is a new member from Rio de Janeiro. Elihu has been working for major Brazilian magazines since the 1980s.Perhaps not surprisingly, if you consider both Brazil’s ecological riches and its economic growth, several of his cartoons and illustrations concentrate on environmental issues. His “Prison City”, “Amazonian Eden”, and his portrait of unionist and environmental activist Chico Mendes all are good examples. Again other drawings deal with topics like generational misunderstandings, racism, and new technologies. I am sure that Elihu also does simple gag cartoons though – after all he has been working for MAD magazine.
Cartoons of Interest
Ah, museum guards... I guess those killjoys are acceptable targets for stereotypization.
A link to toonpool's growing collection of cartoons on the recent events in Tunisia.
A charming portrait of famous Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker
I wish I knew enough Italian to know what M. Petrella's beautiful strips are about.
A cartoon portrait of The Who. Please note drummer Keith Moon's monkeyish charm.
A caricature of David Bowie by Darrell. Does Mr. Bowie really have those ugly fingers?
Personal Favorite
Western labor's two greatest fears finally combined in a cartoon by Swiss artist Martin Guhl. By the way.. does anyone know a decent comic font for the captions? The one I'm using looks awful.
Nikola Angelkoski is a new member from Skopje. Most of his works depict Macedonian celebrities so I can’t say too much about resemblance. What I thought was interesting about them is their variety of styles. The only constant feature is Nikola’s reliance on pens and pencils instead of computers. There are some portraits done in pencils and some in red chalk. Some are very losely sketched in ink (here & here) while again others are meticulously cross-hatched or (I think) done in drypoint. I especially like the somewhat old-fashioned character of works such as this portrait of Macedonian revolutionary Goce Delčev.
Cartoons of Interest
A portrait of Wikileaks' Julian Assange by Ben Heine. This probably took some time.
A snowman cartoon. Berlin is rather slushy these days - but we won't give up hope.
A lot of people here worry about high levels of dioxins found in poultry products.
Terpsichore. I couldn't identify the original painting, but it works great in this cartoon.
The sad truth about pirates and parrots. It also explains the eye patches and peg-legs.
So... this guy walks into a bar and meets this whoopee cushion. No, really.
Personal Favorite
My favorite cartoon is another "snowman" cartoon. It's from a series of cartoons called "Who's Perfect" by German artist Martin Zak. For more carrot-and-coal cartoons check out our collection "There's No Men Like Snowmen".
Introducing…
Álvaro Cabral is from Porto Alegre, Brazil. His avatar has a Dürer-esque quality to it that I like very much. He did a similar thing in this portrait of architect Oscar Niemeyer. Some of his caricatures are standard fare – they’re not bad at all, but, well, I am looking at caricatures of Pope Benedict XVI. on a daily basis. Others, however, display interesting ways of distortion and composition (this caricature of adipose Brazilian singer Ed Motta), stunning plasticity (this one of football player Dunga) and nice little details (the shadow that turns the portrait of Hugo Chavez into a flying bust).
Jacek Piotrowski, Jaski for short, is based in Luzern, Switzerland. Most of his works are caption-based cartoons with nice, lightly sketched lines. Some of them form a series of cartoons on marketing and management (e.g. this one, this one, and this one). The soul-patched, pony-tailed main character alone gives me the creeps. Other cartoons by Jaski feature suicidal parrots, are hard to understand because they use Swiss dialect, or defy comprehensibility altogether despite their English caption (I like the driven expression in the chicken’s eyes, though).
Cartoons of Interest
Puns and absurd personifications is all I need in a toon. This one is on time zones.
Heck, I don't even need puns. Just give me ass rockets. 36 people died in this incident.
This one falls into the 'personification' group. I love how Death seems rather sheepish.
The war winter of 2010/2011. Great design and an un- comfortable reminder
Garrincha's other New Year's cartoon has the gag, this one has the colors. Enjoy.
A leftover Christmas cartoon. Or a post-Christmas cartoon. You decide.
Personal Favorite
I just had to pick a New Year's cartoon. This one is by Til Mette. The metaphor doesn't really work for all events that are unique, processural or follow a non-anual pattern. But, boy, is this true for society's little annual rituals. It won't be long and I will be writing about Easter cartoons, the summer slump in cartooning, Halloween cartoons, Christmas Cartoons, and - worst of all - New Year's cartoons AGAIN.
Goran Marcovic is a new member from Serbia. The works he has uploaded so far are captionless, manually colored drawings. Looking at the woman in this cartoon on cellphones or the stacked guys in this one on public speaking (?) you can’t help noticing Goran’s eye for posture. The one the varied content of newspapers also demonstrates his inventiveness and sense for interesting perspective. While you are at it, you can also look at his two drawings on gambling (1,2) and the one with the thorny window.
Cartoons of Interest
On Tuesday Silvio B. survived a confidence vote by the narrowest of margins
A cartoon about a bad dog and a classic prank. I wonder if this ever worked.
"City" by Bacsa. I would love to see this as a mural in a post office or town hall.
One of five drawings of the Romanian rugby team. These are great, subtle caricatures.
Can't say that I know what Politic by Caferli is about, but I'll keep staring to find out.
This cartoon offended one or two truck drivers. They have feelings too, y'know.
Personal Favorite
Another Christmas cartoon - "Burial Chamber Discovered!" by German cartoonist Gerd Bauer AKA GB. These two archaeologists will have to face the wrath of St. Nick. Don't let this affect your appetite for holiday sweets, though.
James Dean. I am impressed by the hairdo and intrigued by the weird red areas
I like the colors and the many details in this illustration by H. Mercker.
Consequences the half-assed Cancún resolution could have on cartoons.
Vladimir Mayakovsky This is part of a series of strange portraits of Russian writers.
Man shaped by his surroundings by Schwoe . Surreal, silly, and brilliant.
This is one of the less melodramatic cartoons on the Nobel peace prize ceremony
Of all last week's Assange caricatures, this is my favorite. Rocchetti quality.
... this is what we'll get. The maiden flight of the "Dragon" capsule was just the beginning
RIP Leslie Nielsen. This great caricature was drawn by Italian artist Sting-One.
Personal Favorite
This week's cartoon combines two topics I was actually hoping to avoid: Christmas and WikiLeaks. Canadian artist Mike Spicer has managed to create a cartoon that avoids both glorification and demonization of Julian Assange and yet is poignant and inventive.
Kifah Al Reefi grew up in Iraq and now resides in Amsterdam. He uses very simple color gradients for his cartoons that would seem a bit dated if they didn’t work so well (look at these two, for example). So far, his cartoons mostly deal with the big topics – war, peace, freedom and terrorism. I liked the symmetry of this one, the hypnotic cross-hatching in this one, and the overall design and sickish green background of this one.
Massachusetts-based Jeremy Billadeau works in a field of cartooning hardly found on toonpool.com. His “Skipper”, although technically a webcomic, is actually a classic American newspaper strip. The stories about the be-hatted title character and his friends (a rat and a squirrel) come in different formats: single or three-panel cartoons for weekdays, a larger format for Sundays. One of the Sunday strips has a nice shout-out to Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes. I think this is an interesting format and I would be glad if more “newspaper strip artists” would present their work on toonpool.com.
Cartoons of Interest
One of several cartoons on last week's WikiLeaks disclosure. It's by R. Slabbers.
Madrid devastatingly lost to Barça last week. Great use of colors in this cartoon by Portos.
A dazed-looking, possibly Spanish, lady listening to a Victrola. Who needs gags?
Howto mug people in regions without street corners to hide behind: the manual
I bet lots of professional musicians dream about doing the exact same thing.
A cartoon about Fifa's controversial decision. It took me some time, but it works.
Personal Favorite
Rex May's "Recession" is my favorite cartoon of last week. It is a great comment on economists' abstract definitions of developments that can have very concrete consequences. It also reminded me of these simulation computer games like "Civilization" - especially of those little guys representing your population.
PS: Another cartoon by Rex – the one with the marriage counselor – was a very close contestant.
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Sascha Dörp, AKA Schoolpeppers, is a new member from Cologne. His single-panel cartoons are in German, but most of them work in translation as well. The cartoons frequently are a bit on the dark and/or scatological side, just look at this one, this one and this one. He does, however, also do more family friendly stuff like this one on the early 1990s or this one starring recurring character Beppo the Clown. Besides Beppo, there are a couple of other regular characters like Count Dracula, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and a guy who farts. Count me out on the fart jokes, but I really like some of the other stuff.B
Lluis Fuzzhound is from Melbourne, Australia. He owes a lot to artists like MAD-Magazine’s Basil Wolverton and Harvey Kurtzman or hot-rod fanatic Ed Roth. In fact he even included a shout-out to Roth (for reference, look at the Roth piece on Birthday Party’s amazing “Junkyard”. They are from Melbourne, too). The silkscreen-print look to this illustration alone demonstrates Mr. Fuzzhound’s superb artistic skills and his proclivity towards vintage styles. Among others, I enjoyed his comment on the love for underage sheep, his New Yorker-style cartoons, and this one about a talkative orifice.
Cartoons of Interest
Burglary in a fish museum. Apparently a pro job, sez Comissioner Goldstein.
I always thought that Turkey smelled funny. Happy belated Thanksgiving!
The Berlin-Neukölln (think: South Bronx) town musicians. Alas, poor donkey.
Only one of several Kim Yong Il cartoons uploaded last week. He sure loves the bomb.
Jim Worthy works for several animated shows. This is one of his characters.
H. Bauer, jr. started to learn Russian. I don't understand a thing. Looks great, though.
Personal Favorite
"Attack" by Alex Falco. Very simple pictogram style yet managing to include gender relations, Raiders of the Lost Ark AND large heads.
Sting One (born Alberto Sting Russo) is a “digital” caricaturist living in Lausanne, Switzerland. Apart from actually achieving a likeness to the portrait’s subject – a talent not as widespread among caricaturists as one might think – Alberto also has some other talents I would like to point out. First of all, he chooses poses and backdrops that differ from your standard caricature. This might just be a talent for choosing the right reference photos, but it stillmakes a difference. Take, for example the light in McQueen’s eyes & the garage backdrop in Miss Tyler‘s portrait. Second, there’s a feel for the right amount of distortion – look at Bruce Campbell‘s neck. Finally, there is also a certain sense of humor that shows in Hulk Hogan‘s shirt.
Ruben Arutchyan is a new toonpool.com member from Yerevan, Armenia. The most striking thing about his drawings is his use of lines – lok at these three cartoons, for example. He also did this nice redecorating Napoléon and – dismissing his trademark lines – this mysterious painting. A third approach of his is this minimalist line drawing. Not as hypnotic as the other ones but similarly effective. I only wish he would choose actual names for his cartoons rather than just numbering them.
Cartoons of Interest
Croatian artist Zed started painting his watercolor portraits on pages of books.
Probably not funny if you don't know comedian Mario Barth. It is if you do.
...And that is why you are not supposed to touch some paintings in art galleries.
Not a cartoon. I just thought this was a beautiful 50s retro illustration.
Doesn't work in translation. No generalizing singular in English. Dang.
A caricature of Stevie Wonder by Darrel. Does Stevie really have creepy teeth?
Personal Favorite
This week I decided on a caricature of Georgian politician Eduard Shevardnadze by Medi Belortaja. Cross-hatching and digital colorization do go together well.
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