Here’s your cartoon for this week’s CNN Opinion newsletter. Please sign up to get these in your inbox every Sunday. 

I already blogged about the gazpacho/Gestapo thing, so I’m going to talk about the creative aspect of this one. Read my editor’s blog if you want a real blog on this one.

I had intended to return from Las Vegas on Wednesday of last week as that would have freed me up to focus on my CNN cartoon on Thursday. In case you’re a Republican, Thursday comes after Wednesday. But, I met somebody in Vegas and decided to stay another day and hang out with that person. This meant I would be returning on Thursday when I had to pitch CNN cartoons. Also, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, so no questions from the nosy snoopy-snoops.

I had one idea when I got on a plane in Vegas at 1 A.M. Nevada time. That flight was an hour and a half to Denver. I sat by a Caribou Coffee or some shit like that in the Denver airport and finished my daily cartoon for my clients. By the time I finished that, the other shops were opening, specifically, Dunkin Donuts. I grabbed a coffee from Dunkin and made my flight to Washington, D.C.

The flight to Washington was the first on my trip that had an open seat in my aisle. While landing, the guy a seat from me grabbed the vomit bag and started making those pre-vomit sounds your cat right before it yaks on your bed pillow. If I had even heard him ralphing, less enough, smelled it, I would not have been able to eat for a week and it may have made me reach for a vomit bag. So, I did the only thing a person could do in that situation. I performed the Jedi mind trick on the guy. This is not your time to vomit. You are not going to throw up. You are not nauseous. The plane will settle in just a moment and you will depart a happy camper without filling a vomit bag. Think of flowers and sunny meadows. It worked!

Planes are restricted from flying over the District of Columbia, so they have a sharp decline as they come in for a landing across the river at Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport, the stupidest and most insulting name for an airport if there ever was one. Naming one “D.B. Cooper International Airport” would make as much sense.

Escaping the airport without being hurled upon, I took a metro to the Alexandria Amtrak station where I had two hours to wait for my train back to Fredericksburg. I actually wrote and drew up five ideas for CNN at the train station that had only one electrical outlet (my iPad hadn’t been recharged from the Denver cartooning and my phone was nearly depleted of juice because I had rocked out to downloaded music through my AirPods during my flight to Washington. And yeah, I could hear that guy’s yakking sounds over Green Day). My iPad is WiFi-enabled and rides on my iPhone, so I had internet. Sure, there was the Amtrak internet, but c’mon. I even drew a couple more on the train (where I was able to charge iPad and phone) to the Burg. It was around 5 P.M. when I got to my apartment and I drew up a couple more ideas.

Sometimes my editor tells me we’ll take a break and start over again on Friday, but this time I asked to do that around 7 PM. I was tired. Plus, I hadn’t eaten anything since a bag of M&Ms in the Las Vegas airport (unlike Tucker, I ate the M&Ms and didn’t ogle Green M&M).
But, CNN and I were talking about gazpacho, so there was a plan.

And the first idea I got in the morning is the one you see here. Hopefully, it won’t make you vomit.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

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