Picking On Henry (1975)

Henry Kissinger (frustrated that Israelis did not trust him while he pressured us for concessions in the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur war) had declared that he was "Israel's savior".
That was three months earlier.
In August of 1975.
I did a cartoon about that.

Now just three months later, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee decided to cite Secretary of State Kissinger for contempt of Congress.

I couldn't resist doing this follow-up cartoon about the arrogant American.

Mike and Ike

I wanted to do a cartoon showing that the PLO and Hamas do not differ in their desire to destroy the Jewish State. I then remembered an early comic strip done by Rube Goldberg. The cartoon was called "Mike and Ike, They Look Alike," which became an American catch phrase.


The "heroes" of the strip were two identical twin buffoons. Rube was a cartoonist working in the early 1900's. He's a hero to most American cartoonists which is why the National Cartoonists Society's annual awards are called the Reuben awards... and why the URL of our website (yes I'm a member) is www.reuben.org.

I used Mike and Ike in today's Dry Bones cartoon. Notice that I used Mike, on the left in the cartoon below, in panel one of the Dry Bones cartoon... and Ike, doing the dishes in the cartoon below, to pose as the PLO in panel two of the Dry Bones cartoon. I like to think that Rube would have approved!

Mike and Ike
Rube Goldberg
1918

A Real Shmendrik

The Iranians revile us and taunt the memory of our millions slaughtered in the holocaust that they deny. And now that they mock us with an anti-Semitic cartoon competition, this Israeli Shmendrik (Yiddish for a "pitiful small-time loser, a jerk") feels left out and announces an anti-Semitic cartoon competition of his own for Jews to take part in, saying (as quoted by Haaretz, the Israeli daily):

"We'll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published! ...No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!"

The paper goes on to inform us that the Israeli's announcement:

"invited artists from all over the world to send in cartoons, illustrations and short comics that express hatred for Jews in the most outrageous way."

The Dry Bones Project is an NGO which issues an annual Shmendrik Award list. It's like the worst-dressed list or the worst movie (Razzies) awards.
The awards go to those Shmendriks who "seemingly unintentionally" aid the spread of anti-Semitism. The Awards are announced during the week of Purim (this year the week of March 12).

If you've got someone you want to nominate (other than this obvious Israeli candidate), hop over to the Dry Bones Project and tell us who you think deserves an award.

Henry Kissinger (1975)

The Yom Kippur War of October 1973 was halted when Israel reversed the tide and stopped losing. We in Israel were then treated to what was then called "shuttle diplomacy". The guy shuttling back and forth trying to pressure us was U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He became the butt of many Dry Bones cartoons at that time. But when he made the outrageous statment cited in this cartoon I went for his butt with a vengeance.

That I was warning Henry with a New York ghetto phrase was totally lost on my editors at the Jerusalem Post. They did not understand that the reference to Henry's "white ass" meant anything other than the donkey on which the Messiah was to ride into Jerusalem. An advantage of working in English in a non-English speaking country.

My editor was concerned, though, about the cartoon being possibly insulting to Christians. I assured him that they'd be okay with it. The next day the Jerusalem Post got a telephone call from a publication that loved and wanted to publish the cartoon.

It was "Christ for The Nations", in Lubbock Texas.

JIB Awards 2005

The excitement of the Second Annual JIB (Jewish & Israeli Blog) Awards has died down. Thanks to you readers and voters, the Dry Bones Blog snagged four Gold Medals including Best Blog (Overall)! No other nominee came in first in more than 2 categories!

The JIB Awards were created in 2004 by "Aussie Dave", of Isreallycool.com. Be sure to check out Dave's blog. You can see his posting of the final results here.

Dave's concept enabled us to discover and enjoy lots of Jewish and Israeli blogs that we otherwise would probably not have heard of. One such find, for me is a cool blog called "Because I'm In My Twenties And it's What You Do". We came down to the wire, battling each other in the Best Jewish Humor Blog category. Dry Bones won, but had we not been in the running, I'd have voted for them. Click here to check them out. And when you do, leave a comment, and tell 'em "Dry Bones sent you".

The Cartoon "Debate"

This cartoon is a fantasy.

There is no "debate" going on, there's an orchestrated, world-wide attack on Western values. A debate is an orderly exchange of opinions with clear cut rules of equal time and right of rebuttal.

Anti-Semitism and defamation of Jews in Arab cartoons, like the hate-mongering in Nazi and Soviet era cartoons serves the interest of the dictators and masters in those mind-numbing societies.

Pipe Dreams (1976)

You had to be there to understand it. The trauma of the '73 war (the Yom Kippur War to us) was behind us. Surely the unwillingness of "our cousins" to accept us as part of the Semitic family would fade with time. Surely the cycle of war could and would be broken. Or were our dreams just self delusion?

And then, some guy shows up in the Holy Land. A fellow with a dream of his own: a dream of freeing the world of nicotine addiction. His answer was... Lettuce cigarettes!!! And his plan was to have these lettuce "smokes" manufactured by Jews and Arabs working in harmony!

His dream of an end to nicotine and our dream of peace and partnership would forge ahead together! A small cigarette factory in Bethlehem was to be purchased. Samples of lettuce "smokes" were circulated in Jerusalem.

And then came the threats to the Arab businessmen... And the whole thing, well, went up in smoke. I don't remember the name of the lettuce-pusher guy, but I suspect it was Puzant C. Torigian.
Why?
Because at a website for "Bravo Smokes" Puzant C. Torigian writes:

"My commitment to a safer smoke has taken 40 years to realize. The pro net, BRAVO smokes, looks and smokes like a cigarette but is made from fresh lettuce treated by a process I have patented. Now, it is available to the public. Because of my commitment, there is a safer smoke."

Puzant C. Torigian refuses to give up his dream, and to tell you the truth,
neither will I!

Flight Plan

This is one of those cartoons where I have fun taking a minimalist approach to "animating" through the four panels of the strip. Only Uncle Shuldig's eyes and mouth change from panel to panel.
I believe that readers will "get" the changes in facial signals without being consciously aware of them. I also think that it's funny. Let me explain.

Shuldig's body pose is identical in the four panels.

But in the first panel his eyes look at us and at the same time are tilted slightly up. This signals that he is both speaking to us and remembering at the same time.
In the second panel his eyes show that he's thinking and speaking to himself.
In panel three, his eyes are focused on the text that he's reading.
The "pained" eyebrow In the last panel completes the eye sequence.

Mr. Shuldig's mouth also goes through a similar four step sequence that I think communicates without being noticed.

One trick that I thought would be noticed (and appreciated) was my switching of lettering style for the quote Shuldig reads from the newspaper.
I commented on it to an artist friend who'd stopped by my studio and had just read the cartoon. "Gee" she said, "I didn't notice that."

Oh well,
You can't win 'em all.

The Hamas Question

Hamas better watch out.
In the search for peace and security, every "hard line" Israeli PM has taken steps he'd previously rejected. It's one of the dangers of attaining power. Sometimes you've got to face reality. Sometimes you're forced to compromise.

We have no idea if Hamas will soften as it deals with the reality of garbage collection and the economic pressures on its public. We don't know if Hamas will simply be puppet stooges, carrying out the orders of their Iranian masters.

We don't know.
But we're about to find out.

Israeli Elections (1996)

Then as now.

Pens and Swords

"The pen is mightier than the sword" goes the saying so dear to believers in democracy.
There's also a wonderfully descriptive American phrase that goes "when push comes to shove". It describes that moment in an argument when physical pushing crosses a borderline and intensifies to become "shoving". . . (that level of intensity just before one side actually hits the other).

So has "push" actually come to "shove"?
Has modern Western civilization actually decided to shove back at last?
To stand up for its cherished principles and beliefs?

Or will the appeasers just follow Bill Clinton's lead, bow their heads to Moslem threats of violence and "apologize" for freedom of the press?


"Appalling... totally outrageous!" said ex President Clinton about the image below.


"This is Art" said then President Clinton.
"Piss Christ": National Endowment for the Arts-funded piece consisting of a photograph of Jesus submerged in a bottle of urine
.

"This is Art!" said then President Clinton.
"Dung Madonna": the Virgin Mary made of balls of elephant dung and cut out pictures of female genitalia shown at the Brooklyn Museum

Chernobyl (1986)

Twenty years ago. The world was threatened by a Soviet nuclear disaster and the movement of a nuclear cloud across Europe.

Today the world is threatened by the disaster of Russian cozying up to the Iranians and the movement of Russian nuclear technology to the nuke-hungry Ayatollahs in Teheran.

This is a photo of the Chernobyl nucler power plant, taken a few days after the deadly meltdown of April 26 1986 . In front of the chimney is the destroyed 4th reactor. The nuclear "event", reported to be "many times bigger than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined", sent a radioactive cloud over parts of then-Soviet Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and parts of Western Europe. (AP Photo/STR/FILE)

The Russians Invite Hamas

Excuse me for ignoring the ongoing cartoon war and taking note of the Russian capitulation to terror.
For whomever doesn't remember that terrible terrorist slaughter of hundreds of Russian school kids in September 2004, read about it here.
What Putin said at the time was:

"We must create a much more effective system of security," he said. "We couldn't adequately react. ... We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten."

Hamas is, of course, a partner of those same Chechen terrorists, and Hamas proudly displays, on its website, an interesting poster that you can see at FreeRepublic.com which:

"shows the organization’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin alongside Osama Bin Laden and Chechen rebel leaders Shamil Basayev, who is known to be one of those behind the Beslan school massacre in September 2004."

By his latest actions, Putin continues to show weakness in dealing with terrorists, and as we could remind him in his own words: "weak people are beaten."

Looney 'Toons

A couple of weeks ago there were three big stories in the news.

The Iranian nukes, the Syrian assasinations of Lebanese leaders, and the Hamas victory in the Palestinian authority.

Then, suddenly, mobs in Iran, Syria, and the PA rioted because they were supposedly "outraged" by drawings that had been published in Denmark six months earlier.

And now there's only one story in the news: the cartoon war.

The Neighborhood (1985)

I often use "King Solomon" to represent the government of Israel.
In this particular cartoon, the wise king stands on the balcony of his castle and ponders the violent nature of the nations in the neighborhood.

These days we face the collaboration between repressive governments in the region and the international jihad movement. A case in point is the current orchestrated rioting of "outraged Moslems" in response to 12 innocuous cartoons in a Danish newspaper some 6 months ago. Danish Embassies are attacked. Death threats issued. Boycotts planned. Western appeasers are falling over each other in a rush to show sympathy for the shocked Moslem masses.

So here's a scoop for you.
The cartoons were printed in an Egyptian newspaper last October.
No riots. No death threats. No shocked Moslem masses. No nothing.

The Egyptian blogger SandMonkey reports:

"they were actually printed in the Egyptian Newspaper Al Fagr back in October 2005. I repeat, October 2005, during Ramadan, for all the Egyptian Muslim population to see, and not a single squeak of outrage was present. Al Fagr isn't a small newspaper either: it has respectable circulation in Egypt, since it's helmed by known Journalist Adel Hamoudah. Looking around in my house I found the copy of the newspaper, so I decided to scan it and present to all of you to see"

Details (and the scans) at SandMonkey, a wonderful blog by an important Egyptian blogger .

What's in a Name?

I can't pronounce this latest villain's name.
Radio and TV commentators had to learn.
But I'm a cartoonist, so forget it.

I had some fun by calling the cartoon Schicklgruber?! and Dzhugashvili!?! for my own amusement.
My guess is that most newspaper readers won't understand and will just ignore it.
Schicklgruber was Hitler's real name.
Dzhugashvili was Stalin's real name.

Iran (1989)

This cartoon from 1989 uses "King Solomon and his advisor" to represent the government of Israel.

Way back in 1989, Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued an execution order against British author Salman Rushdie and his publishers over the publication of a novel. Then, as now, Iran was angry at the West for its Freedom of the Press. Then as now, Iran dreamed of wiping the Jewish State off the map.

Long before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Long before the row over "the 12 Danish Cartoons".

Now, in 2006, seventeen years later, the leader of Hizbullah, the Iranian-directed, Lebanese-based, "Palestinian" terrorist gang on Israel's northern border makes the connection, as reported by MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute):

Hassan Nasrallah: "If any Muslim had carried out the fatwa of Imam Khomeini against the apostate Salman Rushdie, those despicable people would not have dared to insult the Prophet Muhammad - not in Denmark, not in Norway, and not in France."

Rushdie

And just in case you think that the cartoons must have been really insulting and outrageously offensive (you'd be wrong), you can find them and other cartoon goodies at Daryl Cagle's Professional Cartoonists weblog, which is a treat to read, even if you're not a professional cartoonist.) Or go straight to the 12 cartoons by clicking here.

Yawn!

I guess that I should have been outraged, but I confess that chronic Islamic dehumanization of Jews is more and more a symptom of the degenerative sickness of contemporary Moslem culture.

It ceases to shock.

Here's an Idea!

As a kid I got into trouble for drawing cartoons in my schoolbooks. So I subconsciously associate doing cartoons with getting into trouble. So what's going on does not surprise me.

Over the years I've noticed that more and more newspaper editors disparage the importance and power of the editorial cartoon. Well this'll show 'em.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, look here.

And for some thoughts on the subject from some non-cartoonists, check out Israpundit and Dhimmi Watch

Why? (1996)

1996. In the cartoon Mr. Shuldig asks a rhetorical question and unexpectedly gets an answer. Notice how Mr. Shuldig's face broadcasts anger in the first panel, then curiosity in the second, in panel 3 he shows smug pride, and in the final panel the pain of reality. I felt the need back in 1996 to answer the question...

Which we'll have to ask ourselves again as soon as the world moves to accept a Hamastan in Palestine and begins, again, to lean on the Jewish State.

Funny How It Turned Out

When I was a kid, during the very early days of television, there was a TV puppet show that I loved. It was called "Time For Beany" and featured a little boy puppet who wore a "Propeller Beany" and a sock puppet sea monster called "Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent". It was way before hand puppet technology got sophisticated. One of the standard gag lines on the show was when one of the characters said "that's funny" and the other would ask for clarification with the line "Funny ha ha or funny peculiar?"

I thought of that when I did the cartoon about the "funny" situation we all face with the Hamas victory.".

By the way adults also watched that old kiddie show (there wasn't that much on TV in those days). You can read about Beany and Cecil at POV online.

"It was that rarest, most elusive of creatures: A kids' show that adults enjoyed watching — and not just any adults. Among its declared fans were Groucho Marx, Albert Einstein and the kid who would grow up to be Frank Zappa. (Allegedly, Einstein once cut short a high-level meeting on quantum molecular mechanics by announcing, "Excuse me, gentlemen, but it's Time For Beany!")".

Below is a promo shot for the TV show.


Time For Beany