Roughs, Volume 200

Holy crapolla! Can you believe we’re at blog entry 200 for the roughs? Can you imagine just how many roughs that contain? It’s about 2,400. I’ve been drawing roughs for my cartoons since 1990, but I was drawing less after I was laid off in 2012 because I didn’t have to submit ideas for approval. The only person I needed to show an idea to for approval was, well, me. That is until CNN came along in 2019 which made me start drawing roughs again. I even draw roughs for myself sometimes just because. So basically, these 200 blogs of roughs are from 2019 until today. I hope we get to 400 blogs of roughs.

And talk about a week. The Friday before last,, September 29, I had to draw 16 ideas before we settled on one. I think I started around 10 a.m. and finished around 10 p.m. Last Friday, October 5 in San Francisco, I only had to draw one.

I started this blog in a Holiday Inn by Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C. in Virginia last Wednesday, October 4. I considered publishing it while I was in San Francisco but time got away from me. It’s Friday now and I’m home. Let’s do this.

I really liked this idea and was totally planning on drawing it, but I shelved it for a day….just one stinking day, and then guess what happened. That Bramhall guy at the New York Daily News snuck up behind me and beat me to it. I’m actually a fan of his work. He’s amazing.

I didn’t draw this cartoon but then Kevin blamed Democrats for his ouster as Speaker. Dude.

Sheesh, the shutdown crisis seems like it was a lot longer than just two weeks ago.

I adjusted this one and was going to draw an official version while in San Francisco, but shit kept changing. I may still do a version of this later, so maybe forget you saw this.

I didn’t like this one.

This probably would have been great for a cartoonist who’s not as picky as I am.

I was trying to work Tupac into something.

I kept at it.

This led to this cartoon which made liberals and conservatives scream at me.

This was sketched out before Kevin made his deal with Democrats…which got him ousted by Matt Gaetz.

As you can see, I was working on the budget deal, the threat of a shutdown, and ridiculous impeachment hearings, and then General Milley made his “wannabe dictator” statement and my editor suggested we change gears and do that. I liked it.

This was OK.

This was OK too.

This is also OK but I probably like it better than the first two.

This didn’t work but I do like drawing heads in jars.

This was OK.

And this was the one, and really…. how could this one not be the one to be selected for the CNN Opinion newsletter. I think I was so tired at the time that I didn’t see just how good it truly was until it ran Sunday. I sat back and looked at it in the newsletter and said, “Well alright then.”

Here’s a little bonus for you. This was drawn about a month ago and submitted for National Newspaper Week. They liked it and I didn’t have to draw any more ideas. I changed it up a LOT. And then I had to sit on it for a month. The reason the lettering is completed is because this was going to be the final version, but then it bored me and I changed the scene. The National Newspaper Association sent this to all of its 2,300 member newspapers and told me that since it was free to them, I could also give it to my clients, many of whom are also members. A lot of my clients used it as did a bunch of publications who are not my clients. I couldn’t see most of them because ironically, they were behind paywalls. I don’t mind that.

I only had to draw two roughs for CNN last week when I was in San Francisco. You saw the completed cartoon published last Sunday, but here’s the other rough. I should have changed this from Trump to Kevin McCarthy, but all that’s old news now.

Which of these are your favorites?

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