Tracy Lehr
MONTECITO, Calif. (KEYT) – Over the years, there is a good chance you have seen Daryl Cagle’s editorial cartoons in print and on TV.
But what you might not know is that he grew up in Montecito and attended the University of California, Santa Barbara and has helped fellow cartoonists along the way.
He loves what he does and it shows.
“Usually the best ideas come from watching the news and you get mad,” said Cagle.
Dagle work has covered many presidents.
“We draw a zillion President Trumps, probably more than anyone has been drawn,” said Cagle. “He has got the yellow hair, the orange bronzer, a blue suit, a red tie, unusually long, sometimes it goes down on the ground or wraps around his feet, it is wonderful a character can evolve like that.”
One cartoon shows President Trump facing off with California another with Mexico.
“Here is Trump killing PBS and of course these guys all live in my brain I have drawn them so many times.”
The Muppets live in his brain, too.
“The first half of my career I worked for The Muppets,” said Cagle.
Then came political cartoons.
“I always dreamed of being a political cartoonist and so I hoped for that and I drew a comic, a syndicated comic and the newspaper in Hawaii picked it up and they said Daryl how would you like to be a local cartoonist in Hawaii and I said yeah I want to do that and so I did.”
But he credits the Muppets for his success.
“I needed all the years of Muppets under my belt to be good enough!”
His job in Hawaii was a good fit.
“I was drawing weekly editorial cartoons in Hawaii for about 6 years but I lived here and my wife was raised in Hawaii. “
People in Hawaii saw his cartoons in the paper in the 1990s.
“When I was a cartoonist in Hawaii in the 90s, the first state to have a vote on gay marriage they actually voted it down.”
His Muppet roots inspired one of his cartoons about that.
The cartoon that was published showed Bert and Ernie and flying to Hawaii to get married.
“It outraged Baptists,” said Cagle, “they were furious, so they are surrounding the newspaper office of the Midweek holding signs and they are chanting send out the cartoonist, send out the cartoonists!”
He soon moved to another paper.
“I had an opportunity to switch to the daily newspaper in Hawaii which let me draw world and national events, from that I went to Slate and MSNBC and they were a nice opportunity for me too and grew the audience,” said Cagle.
He also started helping other editorial cartoonists.
“I got a bunch of other cartoonists to work with me and I started a syndicate so now I represent about 100 political cartoonists from all around the world, mostly in hundreds of newspapers, mostly in the United States.”
But it isn’t always easy.
“This is the toughest time ever to get into political cartoons, but we get lots of unsolicited submissions; people really want to do it.”
He has a website where editors can choose cartoons to run in their papers or on their websites.
“I have a website called Cagle Cartoons and they can look at everything and we give them a lot of strong cartoons, but we observe that it is the not strong cartoons that get printed, newspapers are becoming more timid,” said Cagle.
One cartoon that was in more than a dozen papers sparked controversy and ended up on television.
One anchor said critics called it the desecration of Mexico’s flag.
Cagle defended it on CNN saying, “all I was looking to do here is make a statement that the violence in Mexico is terrible and make it visually compelling.”
Reaction from readers appeared to be split.
“There are some things that are inappropriate to do,” said Cagle. “I do have more respect for religion than nationalist symbols.”
Cagle said images don’t need explanation.
“When you explain what a gag is, it is just not very funny,” said Cagle.
During California droughts he often draw California flags.
“If a cartoon has no words and they express everything perfectly it is like a poem, our version of a poem should not have to have all this prose,” said Cagle.
He also did a poignant UCSB cartoon following a tragedy.
Even teens have seen his work.
“Teachers are required to teach editorial cartoons in high school.”
They learn from them and are assigned to make their own cartoons.
“The point of cartoons is that you see them visually and they shouldn’t require explanation.”
The freedom to make cartoons is something Cagle appreciates.
“Editorial cartoons are a great American art form and I love it.”
Your News Channel will have more on Daryl Cagle this Wednesday.
And people are welcome to follow his work at https://darylcagle.com and or https://cagle.com
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