6381111-1677176593732_restream === [00:00:00] Daryl Cagle: This is the Caglecast from Cagle.com. We're all about political cartoons and cartoonists, and about the news and issues of the day. Be sure to subscribe wherever you're watching or listening to this, and visit Cagle.com to see all the cartoons. In case you're just getting the audio podcast and you're not seeing the cartoons, we'll discuss the top 10 most reprinted editorial cartoons in America from the last week. I'm Daryl Cagle, and I'm here with Brian Farrington, our editor Cagle cartoons, and today we have two great award-winning cartoonists. Pat Bagley, who's drawn for decades for the Salt Lake Tribune in Utah. Hello, pat. Hi there. And RJ Matson from Maine who drew for years for the St. Louis Post Dispatch and MAD Magazine and the New Yorker, and just about every place else. Nice to see you rj. Hi, nice to see you. So gentle. What we're going to do is we're gonna go through, those top 10 cartoons. And I, just wanna say, these are the cartoons that editors chose to [00:01:00] print. They may not be your favorite cartoons or our favorite cartoons. Editors have, different criteria for cartoons of what cartoonists do. Cartoonists like hard-hitting, tough cartoons that, are persuasive and change people's minds and, we like to do powerful things, editors like cartoons that, don't generate any letters to the editor and are about, topics of the day, without taking a strong point of view on either side. And, I have mixed feelings about showing these top 10 cartoons, in each of these podcasts because, we end up talking all the time about what editor. Like, and how that frustrates us. And I guess that's on all of our minds. [00:01:43] Pat Bagley: Apparently this is true of small town newspapers that they don't really like. The controversy and cartoons are nothing but trouble. I think in bigger newspapers, they've got thicker skins and they tend to be a little. open-minded, [00:01:57] RJ Matson: I guess. True. When I was [00:02:00] hired at the post-dispatch, they, they told me they were looking for trouble and they wanted a crusading cartoonist, and that was the goal. You have the same situation in Salt Lake, pat, I'm sure if you're on the editorial board, you take part in all the editorial board meetings with the editorial page editor and the. and you generally come to a consensus on most issues. And even though they might present your cartoon as, the cartoonist view as opposed to the editorial page view of the day, I tended to stay in line with what we agreed on. So if we had a big debate and decided to mm-hmm endorse one candidate over another, I would reflect that in my cartoon. . Um, well, generally we were all somewhat aligned anyways, [00:02:44] Daryl Cagle: You have the number one cartoon of the week, which is this one. It's a social security card and the Democrat donkey and the Republican elephant are pushing the pillars out from under the social security roof, and they're both saying, [00:03:00] for starters, who are taking this off the table, benefit cuts and new taxes. I should say that I, I read all of these and describe the cartoons because we're also an audio podcast and. Most people can't see the cartoons. So RJ what do you think? I like the image, [00:03:15] RJ Matson: I like the joke. This is drawn for a roll call, which is a newspaper that has, been around for about 70 years. It covers Congress and Capitol Hill as if it were a small town. Uh, if it were like a, like a industry journal of like variety covers Hollywood the editors, you know, they're willing to do hard-hitting cartoons that make fun of specific politicians and take on each party, but I'm sort of always aware that day after day, week after week, they don't want it to seem like they're partisan and only picking on one side. So, and any deadline day, I'll send them four or five sketches of different jokes on different topics, and I always try to sprinkle in, cartoons that are sort of [00:04:00] epox on both your house type of a cartoon that make fun of both parties. So it never surprises me when they pick a cartoon like this. These cartoons may not always be the ones I'm most passionate about, but, sometimes they can be very funny and pointed and, I see how this could be popular in the sense of being reprinted in the most newspapers around the country. , [00:04:22] Daryl Cagle: It's got all that familiarity to the Social Security card, I think it's cool. It's a beautiful cartoon. Pat, you have the number two cartoon this week. It's an Into the Woods cartoon with Little Red Riding Hood walking into these spooky woods, but they're the spooky woods with a. For, Twitter and YouTube and TikTok and Pinterest and Facebook. Mm-hmm. , uh, scary Internet Woods. Can you wanna talk about this one lovely looking cartoon? Sure. [00:04:51] Pat Bagley: Apparently suicide rates among teenagers are going up, uh, especially with, uh, girls and they're trying to figure out what is [00:05:00] causing it. And I think that one of the causes may be social media. Uh, Uh, evolved over millions of years to be in groups and all of a sudden we're thrown into this wholly different kind of group and we're not really, equipped to, handle this. Anybody who goes on the Twitter, Facebook, you don't have to go very far to find people who violently disagree with you and wish really horrible things on you. And I've got a thick. I've been doing this for 45 years, so I know what to expect. But people who are young and are thrown into that, uh, cesspool, it can be pretty traumatic I think. So that's what I'm trying to say in the cartoon is that it is like going into the woods and there are scary [00:05:47] Daryl Cagle: wolves out there. And also this is a cartoon that both left and right, would agree with right now. Um mm-hmm. , so that makes sense that the editors would gravitate towards this. Yeah. [00:06:00] Beautiful looking cartoon. Yeah, it's great. Oh, thank you. So the number three cartoon is by Jeff Koterba, who's a regular in the top 10 because oh, he's a moderate and he doesn't do those hard left from light cartoons. This is a little boy at the kitchen table eating, candy Easter eggs, and the header says, as we head into the Easter season, little. Chocolate eggs for breakfast. And mom says they were cheaper than the real thing. You know, these expensive eggs, cartoons have just been sweeping the top 10 in the, cartoonists. They're doing expensive eggs, cartoons. I don't think you guys are. [00:06:40] RJ Matson: I haven't done an egg cartoon yet. It's, it's on my, bucket list for the, for the month Well, [00:06:46] Daryl Cagle: I, [00:06:46] Pat Bagley: noticed that eggs were getting really expensive a couple months ago. But in the meantime they've solved the problem here anyway and it's, it's come back down. Mm-hmm. . Well, [00:06:55] Daryl Cagle: that's, that's very reassuring. Go up by [00:06:58] RJ Matson: when they come down, you have a [00:07:00] problem. . [00:07:00] Daryl Cagle: Okay. Uh, Dave Granlund is also very popular with editors and. He's got two in the top 10 this week he's got a Jimmy Carter tribute cartoon. Jimmy Carter, was um taken into hospice and things are looking bad for him with his cancer. Um, and it show, it's a pretty portrait cartoon man of many hats. He's holding his construction hat from Habitat for Humanity. It says Farmer, US Navy, governor, president, teacher Carpenter, Jimmy. , you know, every so often that we seek cartoons like this, typically they're obituary cartoons. This one's a little bit early actually. Mm-hmm. . I have been getting, , submissions of Jimmy Carter obituary cartoons early from cartoonists. We have to be careful not to post them. Um mm-hmm. , we've gotten a lot of trouble for that in the past, particularly with Nelson Mandela because he. Reportedly near death for something like three or four months, and we probably got 30 Nelson Mandela [00:08:00] obituary cartoons a couple of months before he died. And we got so many angry complaints. It's like the whole world was outraged at us. [00:08:08] Brian Fairrington: Well, I have a question for both of you guys. It's, it's pretty standard policy in the newspaper business to pre-write obituaries for popular people. That way when they actually go, they've already got it ready. I think the New York Times does that where they pretty much write everybody's obituary, sometimes decades before they die. But, did your editors at your papers ever ask you to do that? If somebody prominent was about to die, can you have this ready for us so we can run it immediately? [00:08:30] Pat Bagley: At least in my case, they, they haven't asked, asked for that yet. . . [00:08:34] RJ Matson: No, that's never happened. I could only imagine it happening if you're approaching a weekend deadline and they wanted to have something to slip into the Sunday paper on a Saturday. Yeah. You know, if I submitted my Sunday cartoon on Friday, but I, that never happened. [00:08:50] Daryl Cagle: It makes me uncomfortable and we have to watch out for it. It seems to be like you can wait until somebody actually dies. . That's right. All right. This one is Dave [00:09:00] Gralind second cartoon. In the top 10, it says Freight trains, but he crosses out the E and it becomes fright trains. And, this is a toxic chemical train, shooting down the tracks about, two feet above the tracks, ready for, an explosion like Palestine, Ohio. ,, you know, Palestine, Ohio's, on everybody's mind. And, this is what the editors were looking for. [00:09:24] Brian Fairrington: Well, that's another example of a cartoon that doesn't really take, uh, a left or right perspective. It kind of hits both sides equally. Mm-hmm. and that's why editors, gravitate towards that, it doesn't take an ideological point of view necessarily, so Right. And it's also, you know, a topical, uh, cartoon that covers tragedies. If it bleeds, it leads. So they have to cover that. So mm-hmm. [00:09:44] Daryl Cagle: it, it, it sort of interestingly, cartoons that just, uh, simply mention a topic that's in the news so that, uh, you're thinking about it graphically. Those tend to perform better than the cartoons that actually present a point of view about that topic. The news, right? Mm.[00:10:00] All right. Uh, this is Jeff Urba second cartoon in the Top 10 anniversary Cake, and it has Vladimir Zelensky standing on a big, cake, which is the map of Ukraine in a tiny little Vladimir Putin, eating a little bit of the cake, that he's very tiny. This is, uh a standard, uh trope for editorial cartoons to, draw. A character as diminished in being very small when you went to put 'em down. Presidents tend to shrink as they, they go more years in office, but, uh, not all presidents, you know, Trump got bigger and fatter. Uh, but boy. Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter, sure. Shrink. [00:10:41] Pat Bagley: Yeah, I think it was Jimmy Carter who was the first president. depicted as being diminished, and it could have been Jack McNally who did that. Since then, other people have picked it up too. [00:10:50] Daryl Cagle: I do notice that editors shy away from Ukraine cartoons. They do. I, that's kind of disappointing. [00:10:56] RJ Matson: I would've drawn many more cartoons on this after a [00:11:00] year than I have. And maybe I've gone month and not touched on the war in Ukraine. You know, [00:11:06] Brian Fairrington: they're them away from cartoons. Probably speaks to the editors thinking that the readers are not interested in those cartoons, which is a shame. [00:11:14] Daryl Cagle: We get the, the stats from our own site in any. any cartoons about anything happening in a foreign country, get very little traffic, even if it's a, a big important event in a foreign country. The readers just don't have interest in that, except when [00:11:32] Brian Fairrington: the Queen Crow. That got a lot of mileage. But, uh, other than that, [00:11:35] RJ Matson: I just think that. , the network news, you know, news on television, big newspapers, they just don't have the budgets and the staff to cover world events like they used to. Right. And they, then it's become less of a priority. And then there's, less demand from the editors. But if it's not always in the news prominently, then, then maybe even with a cartoonist,[00:12:00] you're just focusing on other. when you really should be focusing on this, this huge story. Like a presidential trip to Ukraine. I did a Ukraine cartoon this week because the president was, because Biden was there. I thought I, I just thought this would be covered a lot more than it. By cartoonists throughout [00:12:17] Brian Fairrington: the year. I'm, well if Kim, if Kim Kardashian traveled over there for some reason, it would be covered, but because she, you know mm-hmm. , that's part of the reason too. [00:12:24] Daryl Cagle: All right. This one's by Rick McKee. It's got a big inflation balloon and, newspapers just love these, big balloon cartoons. Mm-hmm. , uh, inflation balloon is lifting Uncle Sam up into the air and he's tangled up in the cord, and Uncle Sam is thinking, Where's a fighter jet when you need one? ? [00:12:43] RJ Matson: No. Soft landing if you get shot down . Anyway. [00:12:47] Daryl Cagle: Here's one by Adam Segla and Uncle Sam's looking up in the air at balloons and thinking we need to do something about these objects in the sky while at the same time behind his back unnoticed is the crash of [00:13:00] the chemical trade in Palestine, Ohio. [00:13:03] RJ Matson: Yep. That's a classic. Just sort of, yeah. Yoking two newspaper stories together. And those cartoons always click. I think [00:13:11] Daryl Cagle: that's a standard for cartoonists. How can we put two things together, draw chart with arrows between the, which two things go together to come up with your cartoon in the morning? Do you guys do that? [00:13:21] RJ Matson: When I'm desperate for an idea, maybe . Yeah, it's one of the ways to search out a joke when you need to. [00:13:28] Daryl Cagle: So here is, pat Burns, uh, new Yorker cartoonist. He's got the man sitting in the chair looking at his cell phone and the wife looks horrified, man. . I don't know. Sometimes I wonder myself if I truly have this much hat in my heart, or if I'm just doing it for the likes. . Mm-hmm. . I think that's cute. Yeah, [00:13:49] Brian Fairrington: it's a great comment on social [00:13:50] Daryl Cagle: media. Yeah. Pat Burns is great, and here at number 10 is John Darco from Missouri, and he's got Jesus preaching at looks like the [00:14:00] whaling. and the crowd, someone is saying, he seems to woke from me. It is really, really rare that any kind of cartoon that depicts Jesus gets, reprinted by newspapers. Hmm. I [00:14:14] RJ Matson: know. I'm happy to see that. That seems [00:14:16] Brian Fairrington: like a cartoon that Pat would've drawn as well, by the way. Mm-hmm. . [00:14:19] Daryl Cagle: I don't think I've, I have collected Jesus. Yeah. . Oh, I've drawn lots of Jesuses that [00:14:24] RJ Matson: I don't think I've ever drawn at all. Of course, I've never drawn Muhammad. I've never drawn Buddha. I, I gotta get off the ball here. . [00:14:31] Daryl Cagle: Well, I can't recommend that you do I have collected the five most reprinted cartoons that each of you have done in your entire careers with cable cartoons. And I thought I'd show those. . Okay, so Pat, this is your most popular cartoon ever with editors. It shows a little family, and, uh, they're looking at a house that's up in the air that looks like an arrow pointing up with the word rent. The rent is going up and it says a major cause of [00:15:00] homelessness explained, and the kids say it's too high with some good cartoon cussing, and the lady is trying to, step at a step ladder of her wages. I, I'm guessing that this is a surprise that this is, is your most popular cartoon ever? Yeah. In fact, 25% more popular than your second most popular cartoon. And it was reprinted in close to 250 papers the most that we can ever get a cartoon to be reprinted in. Wow. This was just, all out crazy hit that eclipse to everything else you've ever done. That's, that's [00:15:40] Pat Bagley: surprising me. But I mean, the cartoon is accurate. . [00:15:44] Brian Fairrington: No, it's, it makes a, it's accurate point. It makes a wonderful point. And graphically, I think editors, and I think, I thought the idea of using the arrow as the house and everything, I thought it was a good, good cartoon, so I'm not surprised by that at all. But yeah. So the little [00:15:56] Pat Bagley: kid who's swearing, it's too blank high. Hi.[00:16:00] He's from that guy who ran for president years ago. Right, right. And his high was the red damn high. Right. So the red, his two damn high he was, [00:16:08] Daryl Cagle: It does [00:16:08] Pat Bagley: surprise me. Yes. That this would be the most popular one I've ever done. but apparently it was, it was a good one. Uh, as [00:16:14] Daryl Cagle: many papers it is, but you know, you do so many beautiful drawings and your number two cartoon this week is just a fantastic, beautiful drawing Well, speaking to [00:16:23] Brian Fairrington: this cartoon for example, I think what happens is, when editors are logging in or when they're looking for something and you just happen to hit on that right image and that right issue at that very moment, then it blows up. And I think that's what happened. You probably, nobody else had anything comparable to this and they said, oh, this is great. We haven't commented on this. And so, you know, it becomes very popular. So there is a bit of luck in the timing of it, I think. [00:16:43] Daryl Cagle: It was crazy. All right, here's your number two cartoon. Oh, you've got, a huge crowd of, people of all colors and it's got a big, we the people um, and, uh, they're wearing t-shirts that say, Strike for [00:17:00] climate. No justice, no peace. Black Lives Matter. Global justice. iCare, do you equal pay? I can't breathe. Me too. Rainbow flag. It's just a very nice, patriotic freedom of speech cartoon. And editors liked it. I. [00:17:15] Pat Bagley: I wonder if they would like it now, because I did this during the George Floyd protests and I really felt like America was changing in a good way. There's gonna be police reform. Mm-hmm. , there was going to be addressing, racism, the systemic abuse of minorities in this country. I thought that we were heading in a good direction. Yeah. The blowback against that has. pretty ferocious. I don't know if you've seen [00:17:36] Brian Fairrington: it, but Yeah. I don't think this cartoon did very well in the conservative, markets for sure. [00:17:41] Daryl Cagle: Mm-hmm. for the Yes. You didn't include any t-shirts that say, right. To repair or keep the immigrants out. . Yeah. [00:17:47] RJ Matson: No, I didn't. [00:17:48] Daryl Cagle: Sec. Second Amendment. this is how, well, how [00:17:51] Brian Fairrington: well did it go in Salt Lake when this, appeared? How well did the, reception go in Salt Lake? [00:17:55] Pat Bagley: The Salt Lake Tribune. taken by people who are generally more, I guess, [00:18:00] liberal. Mm-hmm. . And so the cartoon got a great response I heard from people at the bookstore just out around the corner, uh, that they loved this cartoon. They thought it was great. [00:18:08] Daryl Cagle: This is a showpiece of a cartoon. This is a great one. [00:18:12] RJ Matson: It's really hard to do a crowd scene with lots of faces in heaven. Looks like it was done so quick and easy, but really have a lot going on. And when I look at this, I see something I've never noticed about your work. It just looks like a Jules Pfeiffer cartoon from the 1960. Oh, he was one of my, [00:18:28] Pat Bagley: yeah, he was one of my heroes. Uh, yeah, growing up I loved his books. I loved his style. [00:18:32] RJ Matson: Great. Just really nice. [00:18:34] Daryl Cagle: Well, thank you. Well, . It's a beautiful cartoon. Pat, I would, I would put this on your obituary, but not early Okay. , [00:18:41] Pat Bagley: not too early. [00:18:42] Brian Fairrington: Okay. [00:18:42] Daryl Cagle: This is your third most popular cartoon, and you've got, uh mailbox, labeled as useful. A voting booth labeled as useful, and a guy labeled as useless. Who's saying, bruh, your vote don't matter. Mm. mail-in voting. [00:19:00] In-person voting ed. Useless. Useless. I think that's cute. [00:19:03] Pat Bagley: Yeah. Well, thank you. one of the biggest frustrations I have with our elections is the people who just don't care, they don't vote. . And they'll say stuff like, both parties are the same. What's the difference? Which drives me absolutely crazy because they are [00:19:15] Brian Fairrington: not the same. [00:19:16] RJ Matson: Yeah, . [00:19:16] Daryl Cagle: This is Shirley, an election day cartoon and also cartoons that are associated with holidays or events or anniversaries tend to far outperform other cartoons. So, uh, just the timing of this cartoon, was a big boost to it. Okay, here's your number five. Uh, you've got the graduate throwing up college cost on his, hat that he's throwing in the air and that he's looking up and looking. and his hat is gone. He lost it. Mm-hmm. , all that college cost went off into the ether. And I should say too, that you reposted this cartoon having posted it earlier, and this is just the stats from your, from your reposted cartoon. But if you added them together, which I wasn't able to do,[00:20:00] if this might be your most popular cartoon, interest. . I don't know about adding them together to, get a lifetime number on it, but, uh, well, [00:20:08] Pat Bagley: but again, it's one of those platoons that doesn't go Democrat or Republican. Right? Um, right, [00:20:13] Daryl Cagle: yes. And also it's kind of, uh, it's kind of tied to the event of graduation time and they really do scarf up the graduation cartoons at that time. [00:20:24] RJ Matson: Yeah. Right. And graduations happen over maybe six weeks. It's not like it's all tied to one week of the year. You could run that cartoon anytime in May or June and it would be appropriate. [00:20:34] Brian Fairrington: And editors are hungry for that. Just like holiday [00:20:37] Daryl Cagle: cartoons. We get six weeks of Christmas cartoons and, six weeks of it's too hot in the summer. Cartoons, . Some events last for a [00:20:45] Brian Fairrington: while. You have, uh, graduation, then you have back to school, then you have summer vacation cartoons and editors love that. [00:20:51] Daryl Cagle: And still, even though all these events are great and really boost, usage on the cartoons, the cartoonists submit the cartoons too late to be printed for the [00:21:00] events. And we get all kinds of complaints from editors about that, and it's very frustrating to us. We can't get the cartoonists to comply. But that's just our problem here. All right, pat, this is. last one. And, uh, I guess that makes it number five. And you've got the huge sun that's global warming. And, the lady is trying to explain to the Trumpy in a red MAGA hat what's going on, which is very obvious in the big global warming, littering. And he says, I just don't see it. [00:21:33] Pat Bagley: Yeah. Mm-hmm. . [00:21:33] Brian Fairrington: That's a great cartoon. From a technical standpoint, are you guys using a pencil or you guys get that sort of, organic feel, which is so appealing. [00:21:41] Daryl Cagle: There's beautiful texture throughout this criteria. [00:21:43] Brian Fairrington: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. . So I use [00:21:46] Pat Bagley: a, an iPad with a pen, and the app is procreate. Mm-hmm. . It's got all kinds of brushes and all kinds of textures and, you can achieve a lot of, different looks. [00:22:00] by changing pins and, and trying different things. It seems like I did something just a couple days ago where, uh, because I was using procreate, I could go back and, I can't remember what it was, , but it was an effect that I could do with procreate that I otherwise could not do with pen, pen and pencil. But it's the procreate pencil, so it, it looks like the real thing. [00:22:22] Brian Fairrington: No, it's a great effect. Great effect. Very lovely, very organic and great looking. [00:22:27] Daryl Cagle: Well, thank you. All right, rj, this is your most popular cartoon you've ever drawn for us, uh, and you've been with us quite a few years. Uh, this is, , Biden on the set of the prices, right. Looking very much like Bob Barker and. You've got the Democrats labeled progressives, moderates, and blue dogs with, their guests on how much it costs. 3.5 trillion, 2.5 trillion, 1 trillion. And the Republican looking glu, and he's one. Um, this is epoxy booth. Your house. [00:23:00] I'm sorry. What I. [00:23:02] RJ Matson: What the low bid is always a smart fit, isn't it? On, on prices, right? ? The reason I'm surprised is because, often when I sketch ideas, I, I have two or three that I absolutely fall in love with and often I just throw in another idea or two just to fill out what I'm submitting to my editors. And this is one of those that was just thought of at the last second, and I really didn't think anybody would, would. You know, I didn't think my editors would go for it. They, they loved it. And so I, I probably fine tuned it from the sketch stage to this in terms of the elements that are in it. But, um, so it just surprises me some, you know, you never know where an idea that will click with people will come from, you know, and some, and it wouldn't have been one, you know, at the sketch stage that I would've picked to be a really good cartoon or [00:23:55] Daryl Cagle: popular cartoon. . Well, it's surprised cause it's got, donkeys and [00:24:00] elephants in it and it's got Biden in it. And usually you put a president in a cartoon and that just, kills it. Mm-hmm. . But, the price is right is like, uh, middle America, it's a Americana and you don't see prices. Right. Cartoons and, I'll at the editor, Just thought, I know my readers, they all watch the prices, right? They gotta have this cartoon. [00:24:21] RJ Matson: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Actually I think I've done two other prices, right? Cartoons, in the last two or three years. So maybe I'm on something. I got a little niche. [00:24:29] Daryl Cagle: I think so myself. All right, here's your number two cartoon. And this was another one that surprised me because this is, uh bashing the. A bit more than the Republicans and you've got the Democrat showing, his presentation says 2022 midterm elections focus group, and he says, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. In all the voters in the audience, sir, saying Inflation war with Putin rising crime, a nuclear exchange, illegal immigration, war, covid. Editors like [00:25:00] these cartoons that are a list of all the things that are troubling to people, particularly at, the New Year's cartoons when everybody's, uh, so happy to get rid of the last year and every, year can have the same kind of cartoons about the list of everything that's terrible. Uh, this is a list of everything that's terrible cartoon. Uh, and those are, [00:25:20] RJ Matson: Duly noted. I'll send, I'll do more of 'em. . I, you know, I've gotta say, I'm just wary of the idea of drawing cartoons to be popular. Cause it's kind of going down the, the road that Fox News went down, , you know, trying to cater to your audience instead, instead of just doing what you think is important. You know? [00:25:37] Daryl Cagle: Well, I should say that, the vast majority of our cartoons, uh, we've got 60 cartoon. We get about 130 cartoons a week, and the top five of the top 10 every week probably, , are reprinted so much more than the bottom five in all the other 120 cartoons of the week That, uh, it's [00:26:00] probably equal, the top five and the other 125 cartoons. Fascinating. And, we really need to have some cartoons that editors want in order to have a viable mm-hmm. thing that editors wanna subscribe to because the cartoons that cartoonists wanna draw that 120 out of 130, that is not at all what the customer wants. And, cartoonists Right. Tend to pay very little attention to the demand side of the equation. which I don't mind because I am not really fond of what editors want, but at the same time, we have to have a viable product to make it work. Now, in both your cases, right, you guys draw lots and lots of strong cartoons and really, everybody draws, some cartoons that editors would like, but also the strong cartoons that they want that the editors don't ever print. [00:26:49] Brian Fairrington: To Darrell's point, the major pushback we've had, was right after Trump was elected in that, first spring. Mm-hmm. of 17. And about halfway through, the spring, we started getting numerous [00:27:00] complaints from editors saying, do you guys have any cartoons that aren't Trump bashing cartoons? And I said, well, Trump's a unique character and even our conservative guys are taking swings at him. And they just said, well, the readers are sick of it. And we got a lot of pushback on that in terms of what the cartoonists felt they wanted to draw versus what the editors wanted to run. and of course that cooled off. And, editors were sympathetic to what was happening. They just said, listen, we need anything that doesn't have Trump in it. We'll take anything , everything has Trump in it right now. Right. And so what we, what we did is on our login page, we put up, the Trump friendly section just so any cartoon about holiday or anything like that had nothing to do with Trump. Those became popular during that period of time. But, but that was a, definitely a period where the cartoonists wanted to draw it and they, it was a responsibility to do that. So it was a little bit of a trying period, [00:27:46] Pat Bagley: Daryl, you should, you should mention that on your website, you put up the most popular cartoons on the right hand side of the screen. [00:27:54] Daryl Cagle: Right? Keep in mind that that is, A site that's only for editors. That the readers go to [00:28:00] the Cagle.com site where we don't call that out. Right. Uh, but for editors, we were finding didn't that, editors complaining that, there were no conservative cartoons because they're bothered by cartoons that they disagree with more than they're reassured by the cartoons that reinforce their preexisting worldview. and so we put up a conservative section at the top just to stop those complaints so that they would see that there are conservative cartoons. And what we found was the conservative editors really don't print the conservative cartoons more than the liberal editors. Print the same cartoons, which are the ones that are not taking any point of view. , so that is really just to deal with the complaints and the popular section is to deal with the editors who complain that all the cartoons are terrible. And, you know, there's a lot of editors that complain about that. I realized that by calling out the cartoons that are popular, we are, uh, making them even more popular. [00:29:00] Which creates more of a distance between the popular ones and the less popular ones. [00:29:05] Brian Fairrington: Well, I should clarify, I should clarify the point of what Darryl said. When they complain and say they're terrible, they don't mean they're terribly drawn. They, they think they're wonderfully drawn. It's just they're terrible and they don't particularly agree with the message. We have editors complaining about other syndicates, which we won't name, that are competitors who they think are terrible because the art is bad. That's not what, that doesn't happen with us. they, really appreciate, , the standard of work that most of our guys do. Uh, it's just that when they disagree, it's over. It's over the tone or the subject of the cartoon, which is, you know, to be expected. [00:29:35] Daryl Cagle: This is one reason I think, uh, these podcasts, I wouldn't get away from just doing the popular cartoons [00:29:40] RJ Matson: There's a simple solution. They could just hire a cartoonist to work for that . But, and so, I mean, that kind of raises the question though, since there's so few papers that have a cartoonist, do the syndicated cartoonist have a responsibility to provide the material for all these newspapers that don't hire their own, to create stuff that, with that [00:30:00] broad. because if you're at a big daily newspaper, if you're doing your job right, in my opinion, you may be drawing five or six cartoons a week, and at least three of 'em should be on local issues. And then you do to do some national stuff. And the local stuff, is for your own audience, but you're also tailoring your cartoons to your own editorial page's point of view. And if you're in that kind of situation to be. , cartoons with broad appeal. but there's definitely a need for it. I [00:30:29] Brian Fairrington: see that. No, I think a cartoonist has to be true to his own, conscience and what he wants to draw. Mm-hmm. or she wants to draw. We don't tell anybody what to draw. We just have the data from the feedback of, , years of editors bitching and moaning and this is what they bitch and Mo [00:30:42] RJ Matson: Yeah. But I mean, at any paper I'm at, I don't, I don't want to be a jerk. I genuinely like my community and I want to draw cartoons that people in the community will like I don't wanna always be, uh, a GadLight picking up, pointing out flaws. Or challenging people to change their beliefs. I genuinely like [00:31:00] drawing a cartoon that everybody loves and it's just a feel good cartoon. [00:31:04] Brian Fairrington: A cartoonist has to be in tune with his own audience. I mean, Pat's probably better at that than anybody around is. He's so in tune with the people of Utah, and I think that's why he's. He's still around is because I've been, I've [00:31:17] Pat Bagley: been here a long, long, long time. Yeah. , yeah. [00:31:20] Daryl Cagle: Pat's been employed longer than any other cartoonist that has a job now, and there are very few cartoons who have jobs [00:31:27] Brian Fairrington: now. Yeah, he does great cartoons about the state of Utah and the politics and. , the social aspect of it. Uh, probably better than anybody cuz he's so in tune with that. And I think that speaks to why it's so important to have a cartoonist on staff is because after so much time, they, they know the, uh, the readers better than anybody. And I think, uh, to RJs point, that's why it's so important to hire a cartoonist is to have that voice and the readers can open up the paper or what, read it online and they can relate to it because they said, this is familiar. I get the references, I get you. Uh, whatever else it is. And I think when you do [00:32:00] purely syndicated material, you lose that [00:32:02] Daryl Cagle: Well, I, I should add that about 50 years ago in the seventies, there were, a little more than 2000 newspapers and there were about 150 cartoonists who had staff jobs, , and, you know, that is still, 7%. yeah. Of of papers that had staff jobs. Yeah. Even if it's very, there have never been a large percentage of papers that had staff jobs and ever since syndication, almost everybody who saw editorial cartoons and most of the content on the editorial page we're seeing syndicated content. Right. So, although for us it's a calamity that all of these cartoonist jobs are gone. Mm-hmm. 150 down to maybe less than 20 now. that's not uh, big percentage chain since it was, uh, right. Ever. Um mm-hmm. , it's always been mostly syndicated cartoons. Right. Um, uh, [00:32:53] RJ Matson: When I was in St. Louis, uh, the post dispatches, the traditionally liberal paper and the St. Louis, globe [00:33:00] democrat, I think it was called, was the conservative paper where Pat Buchanan. Editorial page editor, but that was closed about 20 years before I got there. But everyone in the community remembered it, at least all the conservatives. And so they were always policing the editorial page of the post dispatched to make sure that we were somehow even handed and always writing me. But when I was laid off after they went through bankruptcy, I took great solace into the letters I got from conservatives. bemoaning the fact that they weren't gonna see all the great local cartoons, right? Because they just, they wanted the local issues and their city covered, and they like seeing it reflected back within the cartoons, right? They like seeing drawings that had what St. Louis landmarks in them and then, and neighborhoods they recognize as background. It's, it's just a great way for a newspaper to build community and it's just [00:33:49] Pat Bagley: a, well, and it's the local cartoons that have the most impact. If I do a cartoon about Joe Biden, Another pebble in a landslide. But if I do a cartoon [00:34:00] about, cutting taxes for rich people in Salt Lake City, uh mm-hmm. , that gets noticed. Mm-hmm. , [00:34:06] RJ Matson: right? Exactly. [00:34:07] Daryl Cagle: So, RJ, this is your next post popular cartoon. It's nice Operation warp speed ahead. Mm-hmm. , you've got the Starship Enterprise with, uh, two vaccine needles on it label Covid 19 vaccines. And, it's, warp speeding to an arm near you. This doesn't surprise me because it's got Star Trek in it. All right. And, uh, The Polarized Express, this is your last popular cartoon, the Coronavirus Relief edition. You've got a, a train in front of the Capitol labeled Congress, and the Democrat and Republican engines are pulling the train in opposite direction so that it's going nowhere. The coronavirus relief is going nowhere. This epox in both your house cartoons. Exactly. And it's a beautiful cartoon. , thank you. I [00:34:52] RJ Matson: could probably publish a book of over the past 20 or 30 years of gridlock, Washington is stuck. Nothing gets done. Cartoon. Yeah. . [00:35:00] It's, it's a staple. Especially drawing for, you know, the Congress as a newspaper of Congress. One of my audience is, [00:35:07] Daryl Cagle: . Hey, we have reached the end of our cartoons, gentlemen. Good to see [00:35:10] RJ Matson: you. Yeah. Good to see you. [00:35:11] Daryl Cagle: Thanks, Gerald. Good to see you guys. Mm-hmm. . Hey, thanks for joining us That's it. Remember to subscribe. Visit the Caglecast.com site for all of our podcasts. Visit Cagle.com to see all the cartoons by all the best cartoonists, including Patton rj. And I'll see you next time with another exciting episode about editorial cartoons drawn, by artificial intelligence with our brilliant district McKee, who did the first syndicated drawn by artificial intelligence cartoon. That we will be discussing as a threat to our lives and livelihood. Gentlemen, I will, see you later and again, thank you so much. Thank you. [00:35:46] RJ Matson: Thanks [00:35:46] Daryl Cagle: guys. Bye.