Roughs, Volume 193

Ding dong! Roughs are here. Hurry up and get your hot fresh roughs, gets ’em while they’re hot and stinky.

I drew this last June on my way home from Miami on that Sloop John B. train ride from Hell where someone ate all my corn. On the way to Miami, the train hit a car and delayed us for four hours. On the way back, the train hit a tree and delayed us for about eight hours. I was cursing a lot. And no, I’m still not over it.

Anyway, shortly after the train pulled out of Miami, I started to draw this. Virtual Reality was in the news that week along with Trump’s second indictment and arraignment, and I thought this was a good cartoon. The nice old lady sitting next to me thought so too, but I stopped drawing it. Do you know why I stopped drawing it? Because the train was too shaky for me to do this much lettering and to draw this many elephants with this sort of strategic placement, so I drew Chompers instead. I like Chompers and so did the nice old lady who got off in Port St. Lucie and oddly enough, I made it all the way to Fredericksburg without anyone else sitting next to me which must have been some kind of miracle. Maybe the Amtrak gods were making up for sticking me next to so many fuckers from Jacksonville on my way to Miami.

One thing I have learned about drawing on trains is that you have to draw all your lines quickly. If you draw them slowly, they’re going to be shaky. Fortunately, I already have a sloppy drawing style (I like to think I’m the Keith Richards of political cartooning…without the heroin) so most readers probably don’t notice when I draw a cartoon on a train.

Now, if I had known the train was going to stop for eight hours in South Carolina, maybe I would have drawn the elephants or gotten off the train in Port St. Lucie with the nice old lady, but by that point, I was onto my CNN cartoon for the week, so I shelved this and it went into the Maybe folder. I liked it and wanted to do it.

A few weeks ago, I got a thing in the mail for the Homer Davenport International Cartoon Contest. Among the requirements was that all entries had to be non-published. I get an invitation to enter every year but I never have done it before. It’s a mix of pros and amateurs and I’ve never felt right about entering, but this year I figured I would and see what happens. I looked at everything in the Maybe folder and decided on this one. It won. Here is the finished version. I just took the rough and drew on top of it.

I got this idea while I was in Washington, D.C. covering Trump’s THIRD indictment and arraignment last week. I really do like this and I may come back and draw an official version later. But I need to hold off for a while because I drew two jail scenes last week.

Trump does have an issue with the judge overseeing the January 6 case because she’s an Obama appointee, but he doesn’t have any problem with the judge in Florida overseeing his stolen classified documents trial because she’s a Trump appointee. I don’t think this cartoon idea is very strong but I am looking forward to drawing Judge Tanya Chutkan in the very near future (like Monday maybe).

My editor at CNN took last week off and Jane was assigned to do the Opinion newsletter, which also meant she had to work with me. Poor Jane. She selected this one which I was very happy with. I drew this Wednesday morning but put it aside, no, not for Chompers Part II, but for something else. I almost did it Thursday but by Friday morning, I decided to hold it for CNN in case they wanted it. They did. Yay. I drew a few roughs on the train home from Washington, which didn’t hit any cars or trees this time (I’m still not over it), and this was selected by the time I got back to my apartment in the Burg. I think it turned out pretty well. Thanks, Jane.

This became an official cartoon and readers keep telling me that every time they share it on Facebook, they get a warning. I can’t figure it out. is it the fly?

Nah.

I thought this was kinda OK but then I did do something with 11,780 last week, and I’m glad I did.
This is how my memory works: When I started the soccer cartoon, I knew I had recently done something with “11,780,” but I couldn’t remember what it was. I was going through my files, driving myself nuts because I knew I had done something with it, and then I found it in the roughs. That was a relief because then I knew I could go ahead and use it for the soccer cartoon. Yay.

So which of these are your faves?

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.

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