Hey, kids. It’s time to check out some roughs from the previous week. There’s a bunch of them so hunker down. In today’s edition from the butcher shop, I’m going to show you how a few ideas turned into completed cartoons.

This is the idea we went with for the CNN Opinion newsletter. It got a lot of reactions. I’m still getting tagged with it on various social media platforms.

And this is how it went from rough to final version.

I liked this one and did a full-fledged cartoon on it. It went from this version to…

…this. Funny thing. After I drew the plague doctor, he showed up in other cartoons by my colleagues. Trendsetter.

Here’s another rough I turned into a cartoon. It went from this to…

…this. I even made a “safer” version with curse word symbols. Believe it or not, a couple of my clients went with the dirty word version.

This was drawn before the great toilet paper freakout of 2020. But after I had sketched it out, I heard a lot of people make jokes and comments that Trump will respond by throwing out paper towels (now it’s toilet paper). I figured this was too obvious and almost drew it, but not after I bounced it off my proofreaders, Laura and Hilary.

This idea sucked. This is me scratching around and fleshing something out hoping it takes my brain to a better place in idea land. Sometimes you gotta go through a bad neighborhood to get there. Like a neighborhood with an Applebees.

Maybe too much of a stretch. Maybe not. Bernie Bros wouldn’t have liked it. But lately, they don’t like anything.

Hee. Hee. This was OK. Getting closer to the good neighborhood in idea land.

Too much of a reach for readers to get.

Not a great idea but it does sum up Trump’s stupidity and inability to take the issue seriously. Hey, let’s all gather around and share a microphone telling the American public to wash their hands.

Bernie Bros, you don’t lose every county in three states because there’s a conspiracy and the machine is out to get you. You lose every county because everyone voted for the other guy. But as ideas go, this was just OK.

I’m going to come back and draw people in a crowded subway. Not anytime soon, obviously.

They’re supposed to be little girls. Not a great idea.

I kinda liked this one but didn’t love it.

The concept was good, with Bernie, Biden, and Trump as bad doctors. The idea wasn’t good.

I liked this one. No, that’s not an apple in his mouth.

Meh.

I did do a cartoon with this concept. It went from this bad idea and turned into…

…my gorilla. I love him.

A joke from when the virus first started.

I like the message but the idea isn’t very good.

I’m glad I didn’t draw this cartoon.

Since this is a rough and I wasn’t going to personalize each individual in a crowd scene, I actually labeled “black voters.”

I posted this one last in honor of tonight’s debate. As you can see, I like drawing bar scenes. I need to think of more settings where people gather.

Which toon was your favorite? Give me a comment here on social media.

You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.

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