Aliens and Congress

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

I’m going to publish another cartoon on aliens and Congress for my newspaper clients and will write about that subject then. For now, click the link above and read my editor’s column. He’s good.

And the reason I wrote I’m going to “publish” instead of “draw” is because the second cartoon on aliens and Congress has already been drawn. In fact, what you’re seeing now is the second. Are you confused? I was confused on Friday.

What happened was… I send multiple ideas to my editor at CNN every Friday. I draw a very “rough” and loose and sloppy outline of the idea and how the cartoon might kinda sorta look if it’s chosen. It’s why I call those roughs and in case you’re new, I usually post a collection of them each week. The number I send to my editor each week varies. I think the average is eight but there are weeks when I only send one and there have been others where I have sent 30, which is insane. I drew 16 last week and this week, I only (for me, it’s an “only”) drew six.

After having to draw 16 last week and working past midnight, I was excited that I didn’t have to draw many this week and would finish up early. I sent roughs on various subjects and two cartoons on aliens and my editor picked one one of those. I started drawing pretty late because a friend came over to help me mount my TV on my wall (we failed) and I probably finished my cartoon around 6 P.M.

I was eating dinner around 7 P.M. when my editor emailed that I had…wait for it…drawn the wrong cartoon. I went back to look at his earlier email describing his selection and yeah, I was totally in the wrong. There was nothing confusing in his email about which cartoon he had selected. I think from being distracted by my buddy coming over, sweating from the heat (my poor little AC hasn’t been able to keep up), and just assuming my editor had picked what I perceived as the better of the two alien ideas, I didn’t really focus on the email. I drew the wrong damn cartoon.

I wasn’t even mad at myself. I just swallowed it and drew another cartoon. It was all my fault. I was tired and wanted to veg out and go into a food coma while turning off my brain and watching Netflix, but I just rolled with it and drew a new cartoon…the right cartoon. Now, my only concern is that the two cartoons share the same concept, but they’re still very different. I waited until CNN posted theirs before publishing the second, or the first, godammit I’m confused again.

You’ll see the other alien cartoon soon.

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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.

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