Daryl Cagle: Hi, I'm Daryl Cagle, and this is the Caglecast where we're all about political cartoons. I'm gonna describe the cartoons to everybody, but if you want to get the video podcast, go to Cagle.com or Apple Podcasts, or YouTube or Spotify. You can see that cartoons as you listen to this. Today we are talking to editorial cartoonist Jeff Koterba, and we're gonna look at a whole bunch of Jeff's cartoons.
Daryl Cagle: Jeff was the editorial cartoonist at the big newspaper in Omaha, Nebraska that will remain unnamed for over 30 years. And Cagle Cartoonsare syndicates Jeff to newspapers everywhere. Jeff's original drawings have flown aboard the space shuttle discovery. He does Ted Talks, he gives talks on creativity and living with Tourettes syndrome.
Daryl Cagle: He wrote a popular memoir titled, "Inklings, a Powerful and Moving Portrait of an Artist". He's the lead singer in a swing and jump blues band called The Prairie Cats, and he's incredibly popular among editors in syndication. Really standing out by far from the other artists in our syndication package in terms of his popularity with editors and the amount that his cartoons get reprinted.
Daryl Cagle: That newspaper in Nebraska that we are not naming is kind of crashing and burning and laying people off like most newspapers are now. And they laid Jeff off too, and we're doing a crowdfunding campaign to try to keep Jeff drawing his great cartoons now that he doesn't have his job. I would hope that you will all visit Jeff's crowdfunding page at Cagle.com/Koterba.
Daryl Cagle: And, um, anything you can do to keep Jeff in the public debate would be great. His is this an important moderate voice not to lose? In fact, moderate voices are really pretty rare among cartoonists and among everybody in the public debate these extreme days. It's very interesting that there are any moderate cartoonists.
Daryl Cagle: There are certainly very few. You're a rare one, Jeff. We're gonna look at a whole bunch of Jeff's recent cartoons. And welcome,
Jeff Koterba: Jeff. Well, thank you very. Thank you very much, Daryl. Thanks for that, uh, wonderful, uh, intro. Thank you.
Daryl Cagle: Well, I am delighted to have you here, and I want to get you to talk about yourself and, and all about what you're doing and how things changed for you now that you've left the newspaper, you're just drawing for syndication, and what's up with this crowdfunding campaign?
Daryl Cagle: Tell us a bunch of stuff.
Jeff Koterba: Yeah. Well thanks for the opportunity again. Thanks for having me on. And, uh, as you mentioned, I was at the, uh, large newspaper in Omaha for over 30 years, something like 12,000 cartoons. And I know that because my mom clipped every single one and has them in binders. So she has the, probably the, the largest collection of Koterba cartoons.
Jeff Koterba: Um, and, you know, it was quite a shock. It was, again, my hometown newspaper. I grew up reading this newspaper and I dreamed of one day working there and, uh, took me, uh, nine years of, uh, trial and error in landing the job. And, uh, you know, did a lot of freelance work and, uh, you know, it wasn't easy taking lots of extra little non-paying gigs.
Jeff Koterba: And I finally landed the, landed the job. And then one day, these, you know, the outside owners came in and one day they, they called me and they said, you're done. You know, no chance to say thank you or goodbye to my, to my readers. Um,
Daryl Cagle: which is, I should add that, that is, that's not unusual these days. There's no just probably a handful of cartoonists left that have jobs at newspapers.
Daryl Cagle: And this is just right the way that the profession has gone. There used to be 40 years ago, there were about a hundred hundred and fifty, hundred and seventy jobs, um, in the, you know, in the seventies and eighties. It's ironic that at the same time, These jobs are all disappearing and newspapers are in such decline. I think the work of editorial cartoonists is better than it's ever been.
Daryl Cagle: You're certainly doing great work and the cartoons are getting seen, they're getting seen in all kinds of different places. But you know, the internet has not, uh, developed a culture for paying for content. So our, our clients who actually pay the rent are just these old print clients that are disappearing.
Daryl Cagle: So that's the reason for the crowdfunding campaign. We're trying to keep. Our profession, which is more relevant now than ever, alive. And you are just a very important part of it, and you're an unusual cartoonist.
Jeff Koterba: Well, I thank you. Thank you, Daryl. You know I, when that happened with the newspaper, when they called me, I was hurt in the way it was handled, but I wasn't angry and I felt liberated actually.
Jeff Koterba: And I do, uh, feel that my work has dramatically improved. I'm allowed, able to say, well, whatever I want, really. And I never really had that freedom that I, you know, desired. So that has been a real blessing actually. Uh, but it, in some ways it also feels like, I mentioned that it took me several years to slam the job, and it feels like I'm kind of back in my twnties.
Jeff Koterba: So it's keeping me young. I feel like I'm back in my twenties, but it's sort of like, okay, I need to reinvent myself and what can I do? And it's like I, I still have this desire to draw cartoons and as you said, I mean the world has drawn mad madder than it's ever been, probably. And I do feel like, I do believe that it is so vital to have commentary.
Jeff Koterba: Reasonable commentary to have journalism. And I think the world now more than ever, needs to laugh and to lighten up. But I think cartoons are so relevant more than they ever have been. And so it's, it's, the ironic thing is that it is such an exciting time to be drawing editorial cartoons. And I'm grateful for this platform.
Jeff Koterba: And, you know, again, anything that folks wanna offer to help me heat the lights on, uh, or the light bulb flash, uh, over my head, I'm grateful.
Daryl Cagle: That's great. Can you talk a little bit about being a moderate cartoonist, because that is so unusual. Yeah. I just
Jeff Koterba: find that, um, of course the, you know, first one we see here is a, is a Trump cartoon.
Jeff Koterba: But, you know, I, throughout my career ...
Daryl Cagle: I should add, you know, Trump cartoons just don't get reprinted. Yeah. The cartoonists have been looking for ways to try to slip Trump cartoons past editors because, You know, that's a great frustration for cartoonists. They really wanna draw the Trump cartoons
Jeff Koterba: Well, um, and let, and, and let me say this about that, uh, as much as I love poking fun, so let me just cut, you know, talk a little bit about being a moderate, I poke fun at anyone, I believe deserves it any politician, any newsmaker.
Jeff Koterba: If I need to point out hypocrisy, if you know they're lying about something, if something, if I need to ridicule, uh, or satirize someone, I will do it. And I don't care from which side of the aisle they come. I also like to believe, and I do believe this, that I comment and criticize with a sense of humanity.
Jeff Koterba: I don't hate people. I want to criticize, but I also wanna have that sense of humanity, uh, in there. So when I'm drawing, uh, drawing Trump, for example, He's fun to draw and fun to poke fun and deserves it because he's a liar and, uh, you know, and, and he gets what he deserves. And you know, there's a part of me
Daryl Cagle: that now that that doesn't sound too moderate.
Jeff Koterba: Well, no, it isn't. But I just said, as I just said, as a journalist, as someone who believes in commentary, if someone deserve to be criticized, I will criticize them. And that goes for the current president. That goes for a past president. And this has been true throughout my career, uh, in, in, in newspapers. And, and I can tell you there have been times when there were times, uh, and there still are where, where I am, someone reacts to something or I'll get an email or a phone call or whatever, uh, phone calls when I was at the newspaper.
Jeff Koterba: But I get an email, uh, and someone will say, you left wing, blah, blah, blah. And then the very next, I swear this has happened. The very next message, you, rightwinger, blah, blah blah. And I think, oh, that has to do with, um, you know, the person, they're bringing their own, uh, biases into the, into the conversation, into how they look at a cartoon.
Jeff Koterba: So does Trump deserve to be criticized? Yeah. Am I going to draw him every time? No. It's lazy. With all due respect to those, I see some cartoonists, with all due respect, some of my friends, but all they do is draw Trump every, all the time. Not every day time, but like, and they'll probably be mad at me for saying this, but its like
Jeff Koterba: there are, there are so many other things to be commenting on. Partly, we already have a bunch of Trump cartoons out there. We everybody, there are lots of people criticizing him. So let's look for things that people aren't talking about and looking at, because again, there are so many important things happening in the world and my one little cartoon about Trump isn't gonna make or change anything.
Jeff Koterba: Now this one we're looking at, it's historic. It's absolutely historic and it's a huge, it is a huge story. Whether you like him or don't like him or whatever, it's a big story. So I felt compelled to draw about it, even if nobody runs it.
Daryl Cagle: Yeah. You want your cartoons to be part of the historical record and you can't ignore these things even though editors ignore them.
Jeff Koterba: Right. Well, that's the journalist in me. You know? It needs to be on the record in some fashion that Cagle, at Cagle Cartoons.
Jeff Koterba: Well, of course, you know, this started as a, you know, more of a. Local story you might say, in Florida. I mean, it, it started getting some traction, but I think because of all the things that DeSantis has done and you know, all the other, uh, pushback against, you know, wokeness and whatever else in Florida, this story became a national and international story.
Jeff Koterba: Well, thanks. And you know, and I will tell you, just talk about a little bit about the creative process.
I spent quite a bit of time, this isn't just slap together quickly. I spent quite a bit of time figuring out exactly the angle of the state of Florida, how big to make it and all of that. Because I wanted, you know, I wanted to make it. You know, a little bit provocative, of course, and I wanted it to, to have an opinion, but I also wanted it to be, you know, uh, something that would be acceptable to run a newspapers in a family newspaper.
Daryl Cagle: Well, that's very funny. How about this one?
Jeff Koterba: It's, it's just shocking what's happening with, uh, you know, legislation across the country and across the world. Um, you know, I do find, you know, as a moderate, I do find that I am commenting more on these sorts of social issues because there has been, uh, such a pushback from, from the right and I, and I'll say the far right, but it's, it's infringing on, you know, on, on the Republican party in general.
Jeff Koterba: I mean, not everyone, and again, I'm a moderate, but really for gosh sakes, we don't have other truly huge issues to worry about in this world. And lawmakers are pushing what is clearly discriminatory, uh, legislation down our throats. Uh, it, it's, it's horrific and offensive to me. So I, yeah, I felt compelled to draw this, and I'm always looking,
Daryl Cagle: well, it's disappointing to think that this is viewed as a liberal cartoon and, uh, a liberal issue.
Jeff Koterba: I, you know what Daryl, you are absolutely right. It's just a, it's a human, it's a human issue. Exactly right. And, um, you know, I think that there are those on the right who are showing their colors. And, um, you know, from the cartooning point of view, I just, I'm always looking for visual elements. I get, I get tired of talking heads and I see those kinds of cartoons.
Jeff Koterba: That's fine. If that's what you do, that's all fine. But I'm always looking for some visual element to tell the story to, to, uh, uh, get to the heart of the matter as quickly and as efficiently as possible using visual elements and wanted to show the contrast between this beautiful rainbow and this, this awful approaching, you know, approaching storm.
Jeff Koterba: Very good. You know, I'm, I'm all about kindness and humanity and I'm just, you know, please people just be kind to one another and, and that the some of the legislative, uh, proposals that are proposals that are out there don't seem very kind.
Daryl Cagle: That is certainly true. So I've gotta remember to describe all these cartoons for the audio listeners.
Daryl Cagle: There are people watching tv. And they're looking at a map of the United States where it's got extreme cold in the top and record heat on the bottom. And the husband says, "I hate how politically divided this country is". And the wife says, "FYI, that's the weather the map." You know, cartoonists love to complain about cartoons about the weather, and yet editors just love cartoons about the weather.
Jeff Koterba: Well, and, and this is about
Daryl Cagle: Isn't reall about the weather, but it's kinda about the weather and that that gets the editors to love it. I mean, this one, this one got reprinted a whole lot. I think this was the number one cartoon of the week.
Jeff Koterba: I think you're right. And, and for the folks just listening, uh, it's a map of the, the US maybe you mentioned that, but it's divided in half extreme cold, blue, extreme record heat in the south, all red. You know, it's, it's funny, like sometimes ideas will just sort of fall into your lap if you're, uh, you know, as a creative, I'm always aware and I'm listening and trying to keep an open mind to, to all things.
Jeff Koterba: And so, yes, first of all, weather is, I always remember for the supermarket, I'm always talking to people. I'm saying, what? You know, at the gro, you know, the person checking out the, you know, my groceries, I. I bet you're glad that we can at least talk about weather. And they're like, yes, it's the one thing we can all talk about.
Jeff Koterba: And it is mostly still the one thing we can talk about unless you get into climate change. And then that's a whole other, other thing. But yeah, you know, I, I, this, this was happening, you know, with this we, this extreme weather and I'm looking at a weather map and it said, oh man, it, the country's like divided and then you think visually blue for cold, red for, for uh, you know, hot and you know, Democrats and Republicans.
Jeff Koterba: It just seemed like a perfect visual. A gag, uh, for me.
Daryl Cagle: Well, it's an example of one of your, your moderate cartoons and editors do like these cartoons that criticize the left and the right equally
Jeff Koterba: well. Yeah. And, and another thing, uh, you know, I've always prided myself in in my work is I don't wanna be predictable.
Jeff Koterba: I know some cartoonists on both sides of the aisle, pretty much know where they're gonna land. Again, great people, great cartoonists, but I, it's, it's kind of predictable and I, I want people toknow, you know, when, when I'm, when I, I was working at the local newspaper, um, you know, I did a lot of local cartoons too, but I, I do that now.
Jeff Koterba: I want you to know, if you're reading my work, you not, you're not sure where I'm gonna come from on this, and it's not because I'm not, you know, uh, I have a core set of values. I believe in honesty and kindness and, uh, you know, doing the right. And from that core set of values that where I, I work and, but sometimes I wanna mix it up and I wanna lighten it up.
Jeff Koterba: I don't wanna just do hard hitting cartoons about serious things every day. I want to, you know, talk about stuff that's kind of light and stuff that people can engage in. And then the next time, bam, I'll come back with a hard hitting one and maybe my hope is that they'll maybe take me a little bit more seriously and give me a few more seconds of their time.
Jeff Koterba: Cause they'll say, wow, that last one, I, I hear this all the time. Uh, Daryl. In fact, I just had a comment, I think it was on Instagram this morning. Someone said, you know what, I, I, I don't, uh, I loved most of your work. I didn't care for this particular one on gun control, but I really appreciate most of your work, and I appreciate that.
Jeff Koterba: It's honest. Even if you disagree,
Daryl Cagle: well, you have a soft sell. It's a way to get some ideas into editors that are resistant to printing any kind of opinion and do that very well. I'm very impressed with you.
Daryl Cagle: taking aim and saying, "I'm not buying it". That's very cute.
Jeff Koterba: Daryl, thanks.
Daryl Cagle: This is just one of those alert to the headlines, cartoons. It's Valentine's Day and this is what's in the news.
Jeff Koterba: Well, and you know, I, I drew that because then there those other flying objects, UFOs, balloons, who knows what there ended up being, but that was happening that weekend.
Jeff Koterba: Uh, and so I drew this, uh, as quickly as I could over the weekend, even though I knew that it wouldn't be distributed for syndication until Monday, but I wanted to get it out there into the world because I sense that maybe someone else would do, you know, a Valentine's related thing. And I, I saw a few others later, but as far as I know, I was the first one to do it.
Jeff Koterba: And it's also the first time I ever drew a Mylar balloon, so pretty happy.
Daryl Cagle: Okay, here's mom and the, the kid has his classified documents he's brought to home from school and mom says, "And you're certain there's no homework in your backpack." And the kid says, "I'm certain, but I did find these" classified documents.
Daryl Cagle: You know those when, when everybody was finding the classified documents in Pence's house? In Biden's House said that we're hearing about how many billion classified documents there are, we got a lot of cartoons about how classified documents are everywhere, and they were really quite popular cartoons. Uh, that's something the editors wanted to see.
Jeff Koterba: Well, and it's funny too, because at first it was just Trump and then like you said, uh, well then Pence of course, and Biden, and then suddenly, oh, suddenly now it's something we can kind of agree on it maybe that. You know, maybe they shouldn't be classified documents, or if they are, maybe we need to figure out a different, a different system.
Jeff Koterba: With this one, I wanted to, uh, I drawn a couple others on the topic, but I want, I wanted to bring this home like I sometimes do that I will sometimes draw the politician, him or herself in a situation, you know, official, you know, in the White House or something like that. But I also like to occasionally bring it home, like what is so.
Jeff Koterba: A parent can relate to, oh, well a parent can relate to her kid coming home with a messy backpack and forgetting, forgetting the homework. So I wanted to just, you know, tie it together with something that was already relatable, sort of like the weather.
Daryl Cagle: I should also say, Jeff, we're seeing editorial cartoons printed smaller and smaller and mm-hmm A lot of cartoonists Hang on to very rendered styles that don't reproduce very well. And here you've got bright primary colors and thick outlines. And this will reduce really well just talking as the editor. Um, we get comments like that from editors. Uh, one comment we get that just kind of surprises me is that, uh, they don't like all those brown tones we wanna see primary colors, because "We're paying for color on the editorial page!"
Jeff Koterba: I, I did not know that. Daryl Cagle: Your cartoons are, uh, designed very well for the way that they're abused in print, and, uh, there's also a, an element of your success with editors.
Jeff Koterba: Well, I'll tell you, Daryl, my work has evolved over the years. When I started my job at the local, at the newspaper shall remain nameless.
Jeff Koterba: I was so grateful for this job that had taken me nine years to get, I gave them every line, I felt it was my obligation to give them as many lines and then at some point I realized, well no, you know, actually little creative white space goes a long way. And I become extremely, cause I love drawing detail. But yeah, so I'm, I'm really allowing myself the freedom of using, you know, using white space.
Daryl Cagle: Cartoonists have kind of gained this, uh, reputation for crosshatching.
Daryl Cagle: When people think of editorial cartoonists, they think of a wide rectangle that's just full of all this fine crosshatching and, uh,
Jeff Koterba: I'm a recovering, I'm a recovering cross hatcher something.
Daryl Cagle: I think. I remember seeing some of your oldies that were very crosshatchy
Jeff Koterba: They were very crosshatchy.
Daryl Cagle: Well, you know, those were, those were the days when they were printed bigger.
Daryl Cagle: You could get away with the crosshatchy.
Jeff Koterba: And you didn't have color as an option.
Daryl Cagle: Yeah. Now color's mandatory. So here we've got, uh, Trump in his golf cart and Biden and his bike they're both piled high with the classified documents. They're being stopped at a classified document check on the road, uh, the road to 2024 by the FBI.
Daryl Cagle: This is cute. It's another one of, those classified documents are everywhere cartoons.
Daryl Cagle: Trump is much worse on the classified documents issue.
Jeff Koterba: Well, he has more, he does have more classified documents in his golf court, and you will notice that he's in a little closer to the, uh, the, the line.
Daryl Cagle: Oh, were you thinking about that? Making him this closer to the line?
Jeff Koterba: Of-course, He's not quite running over the FBI agent, but you know.
Daryl Cagle: That's funny. So he's just a couple inches and, uh, a few boxes worse. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Here you've got, uh, uncle Sam and the red ceiling is coming down at his head while at the same time politics is sawing a hole in the floor that he's about to drop through.
Daryl Cagle: And he says, "As if it's not bad enough, we're up against the debt ceiling". The debt, big red debt ceiling. This is cute. This is also not bashing either left or right. It's the whole, everybody suffers from the debt ceiling.
Jeff Koterba: Yep, yep. And I, yeah, I just enjoy drawing it because it's, you know, it's, it, it, it's the, I always think of the old Batman episodes when the, the walls are sort of like squeezing together and I'm picturing the ceiling getting, you know, lower, lower if I've drawn a saw on the floor, uh, cartoon.
Jeff Koterba: It's been decades, but it was fun to draw.
Daryl Cagle: Saw on the floor cartoons, that's a nice cartoonist, tropic, we rely on these things. You know, in France they call them, uh, "cliches".
Daryl Cagle: We call them metaphors. I guess I like cliche. They're not really cliches. They're are part of our cartoonist toolbox.
Jeff Koterba: If you look at the New Yorker magazine, they're probably been a million.
Jeff Koterba: Obviously overstating that a million cartoons about people on a deserted island. It just works. It just works.
Daryl Cagle: Okay. Here's Jeff Beck. This is a memorial cartoon. You know, memorial cartoons are probably the most popular things that cartoonists can do when, when somebody who is beloved dies
Daryl Cagle: the personality onto the cartoon. I said, you will get more love mail for memorial cartoons than anything else you ever do.
Jeff Koterba: That's very true. And this one who shows Jeff Beck, uh, wonderful, amazing guitar. Jeff Beck, taking a, taking a solo. And this is one of those that you might have to just see because it's such a visual, visual, uh, drawing.
Jeff Koterba: But, uh, he's sort of, you know, I was playing with this idea that he was a guitar God, and, but I didn't wanna be so on the nose to say that, and I wanted to sort of infer that, kind of, that kind of idea. And so I have him sort of, uh, standing tall, you know, the clouds kind of below him, and a star sky behind him. And there are all these notes coming off the guitar, but they're blending in with the stars, uh, sort of blending together.
Jeff Koterba: And you're right, I did get a lot of compliments. So I, you know, as a musician, I was a fan. And also, uh, I do think it's, I think it's important to take it, it's like the, the Oscars watching, you know, the Academy Awards, whatever, like they take the, they have the memorial section and I always, I may not even know what half those people, I always get, uh, I always give a little misty eyed and I think it's important to take, take a moment, you know, take a moment of silence, take a breath, take take a pause.
Jeff Koterba: Think. I think that's very important, I. The world's crazy. We need to take a, take a breath, even if it is acknowledging someone, honoring someone who's passed away.
Daryl Cagle: Well, it's very nice. And here we have Kevin McCarthy. He's whacking himself in the head with his gavel saying,"Winning" at the same time, he's kind of, uh, injuring himself.
Daryl Cagle: Tell us about this one. Well, you know,
Jeff Koterba: this, this, this is just, I, I would've drawn this. Uh, I will tell you when, you know, when I was, uh, in the past, uh, at the newspaper, I criticized again everybody from all the parties. So had this been a Democrat doing this, you know, doing everything possible, including undermining potentially his own authority to get the gavel, I would've drawn the same cartoon.
Jeff Koterba: And it just, he just kept whacking himself, playing whack-a-mole with his, his forehead just beating head against a wall kind of thing. Uh, to gain that gavel, you know, to uh, gain the authority, gain that position.
Daryl Cagle: Well, you know, our conservative cartoonists didn't draw any cartoons critical of McCarthy.
Daryl Cagle: They've drawn remarkably few cartoons of Trump because, uh, editorial cartooning is kind of a, a negative discipline. Um, it's rare that cartoonists have anything positive to say cuz positive things just don't work that well in, in cartoons. Sure. They work in memorial cartoons. You just see that
Daryl Cagle: conservative cartoonists avoid topics where, um, there's any kind of criticism of the right. And, uh, liberal cartoonists tend to avoid criticism of liberals, um mm-hmm. And you in the middle can criticize left and right, although you're just showing this us some liberal ones here.
Jeff Koterba: Well, you know, and honestly, Daryl, I, I was thinking about that.
Jeff Koterba: I mean, I think a little bit of that has to do with the culture right now or where, where we are politically. And I think coming out of the, the Trump presidency, I, I will tell you when Trump was elected president, day one, inauguration day. Did I, was I a fan of his? Did I think he was the best candidate? No, but my basic thing is when you were elected to office and you take office, it's a clean slate.
Jeff Koterba: You get, day one, because people do evolve, people change, and I wanted to give him the benefit of, of the doubt. Day one of his presidency, I, I did a cartoon, basically all the, all the people who are criticizing Trump. I said, okay, okay. Yes, yes, true, true, true, but he's now the president. Take a breath, give him a chance.
Jeff Koterba: I got so much hell from people from liberals who said how he's horrible. I said, everybody deserves a chance day one. And you know, and there were a couple other times when I drew cartoons that, um, I can't remember specifically what they were, but where I, I generally agreed with what Trump was suggesting.
Jeff Koterba: You would've thought the world was ending when I was hearing from the left. Having said that, when I criticized Trump, do you think the people on the far right are ever gonna say, okay, you have credibility with me because you're criticizing him right now, but you also acknowledge this other good thing that he had done?
Jeff Koterba: And I think that that's something for me personally as a cartoonist, I believe I have more credibility. Because, uh, I am not just going to do the predictable thing and I think more cartoonists, sorry to my friends, would've more credibility if every once in a while, even if you're on the far right, every once in a while, you might say, okay, do I believe that we're say for right now, what's going on with Trump? Do I believe that legally what's happening to Trump that, uh, this indictment should hold and he should go to prison? Do I, do I think that? No, but did what he did, was it, it was pretty sleazy, right? Pretty. Immoral. Even if they said something like that, that acknowledged some level of disgust for Trump's behavior, I'd say, okay, now we can actually have a conversation, but there's no conversation because they don't want to have a conversation.
Jeff Koterba: And, uh, you know, that's the, that's the frustrating thing. So, and that's my, you know, my thing, I just wanna get my, get my word out there so we can at least maybe can talk about it.
Daryl Cagle: I also noticed that there's a whole lot more of these, uh, of, of cartoons about the border crisis from the conservative cartoonists than the liberal cartoonists gets to where you just think of any cartoon that even mentions the border crisis is a conservative cartoon, just because that's their issue.
Jeff Koterba: It's a crisis. And now we can agree to disagree on how it should be handled and how it's fixed, but it's, it's a problem clearly. And with this one, we, we see, uh, instead of father time, I did this, uh, over the new year. Instead, father's Time. Amazing. I'm not,
Daryl Cagle: I'm not doing my job of describing the cartoon's.
Daryl Cagle: And you're stepping in.
Jeff Koterba: I'll, I'm gonna do it in the, I'm gonna do it in the cartoon voice that you do it. Border voice. Voice. Okay. No, Dennis. There's no dialogue. But instead it's, uh, it's, uh, a Statue of Liberty in the, in the role. Of, of, uh, Father Time, I guess, and, uh, and, uh, Baby New Year in the, in the form of a, a little girl Statue of Liberty.
Jeff Koterba: And I love to get tired of all the male dominated imagery, you know, uh, but I'll, I'll talk about that in a second. But the, the border crisis, so, um, statue of Liberty is carrying the big, um, you know, tablet and it's cracking and it's broken. It says border crisis, handing it off to the Baby New Year, Statue of Liberty.
Jeff Koterba: Um, you know, because, you know, it's just kicking the can. Our government just, whatever it is, I don't care what side of the aisle, they just kick keep kicking the can down the road. And it's so frustrating. Um, you know, and, and I just really quickly on, you know, uh, talking about male symbols and cartoons, I have experimented with trying to figure out different ways to draw Uncle Sam, why is it always Uncle Sam? And I've drawn in the past, Aunt Sam and other, you know, and other figures at, uh, Uncle Sam as a, as a little kid. Um, unfortunately, kind of going back to what you were saying about cliches, many readers sort of expect Uncle Sam to look like Uncle Sam. And it's really frustrating because I, I would really like to push those boundaries and have the cartoon understood.
Daryl Cagle: I love the cliches in this one. You're, you're having fun with the cliches. Here you've got two aliens sitting on the moon. They're reading the Crater Courier newspaper about the Artemis mission. One of them says, "Next they plan on building a lunar base." And the other one says, "Let's hope they leave their politics behind."
Daryl Cagle: This is another pox on both your house's cartoon.
Jeff Koterba: It is, and it's also an opportunity for me to draw about aliens. As you mentioned, uh, in my intro, I've had a couple of cartoons fly aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. I love all things space. I always have. I am a huge fan of the space program, and so, and I've actually had a UFO close encounter.
Jeff Koterba: That's a whole other story, but, oh, did
Daryl Cagle: they, did they do the, the probe and everything?
Jeff Koterba: I don't know. Thanks.
Jeff Koterba: The great wonderful Jeff McNally editorial cartoonist, uh, who also created the comic strip, Shoe, once told me, You know, I was like trying to get some, like, starting out, I was trying to ask him for some advice and he said, oh, you know, he would say, "So I, I just read Popular Mechanics magazine and I'll see a picture of an old truck and or whatever.
Jeff Koterba: I just, you know, he sais, "I just wanna draw a truck that day." He was like, "What's the topic? I don't know. I wanna draw a truck. I'll figure out a way to work it in." So
Daryl Cagle: That's fun. Here you've got Uncle Sam, who's quite male here, uh, running after giant inflation, uh, Turkey at the Macy's Day Parade, that says this year's Thanksgiving Day parade.
Daryl Cagle: That's cute.
Jeff Koterba: You know it's a giant inflatable Turkey. Yeah. We'll, inflation and it's getting bigger and, uh, Uncle Sam, as a pilgrim. Cartoonish pilgrim with this, with this little hatchet.
Daryl Cagle: And of course, the holiday cartoons are what the editors really want.
Daryl Cagle: We see that coming up on every holiday. They just, uh, push out all the other cartoons. If you don't draw Thanksgiving, your cartoon won't get printed. And, uh, also you're not hitting the left or the right here. There's no, uh, real opinion except inflation bad.
Jeff Koterba: I mean, there are those who would in, who would, uh, blame.
Jeff Koterba: Biden, um, which I think is a little bit unfair because inflation has impacted the entire world. However, he is the president and it's happening on his watch, and I have drawn other cartoons on Biden and inflation in other topics.
Daryl Cagle: Here you've got Elon Musk riding the Twitter bird. He's wearing his space suit.
Daryl Cagle: It's going around in crazy direction, and the bird says, "So where exactly are we going?" Because it's not clear that he's. In any direction with Twitter. Twitter seems like a mess, doesn't it? It
Jeff Koterba: It does. Daryl and you may be the first person ever to put an actual voice to the Twitter bird. Uh, Twitter bird had a voice, he would sound like that.
Daryl Cagle: This blue check business. It's like they've gone mad. All right. Here you've got a Halloween cartoon, and I should say you rock with editors with all of these holiday cartoons, and the mom is holding a elephant and a donkey, uh, mask for the kid who, uh, switches masks when he comes to every place. And the mom says, "So the mask you wear depends on the campaign yard signs?"
Daryl Cagle: And the kid says, "Yep. If they think I'm on their side, more candy for me. Right?"
Daryl Cagle: It's a plan. Its also equal left and right.
Jeff Koterba: It is. These were a little, little full of outfit. iHeart my party. So, Uh, I love how all my, uh, all my characters. I'm a Midwesterner at heart. I love all my characters. Sound like they're from, you know, Brooklyn or something.
Daryl Cagle: Here you've got Russian Bear with this big broken teeth. Uh, that's another nice, uh, cliche.
Jeff Koterba: Very good. Getting a big, big growl and, uh, yeah. Teeth are crumbling out here.
Daryl Cagle: You've got, uh, fellas sitting on the grass looking up at the, the big yellow moon and he thinks, "I forgot how much I missed daydreaming about Artemis one."
Daryl Cagle: Artemis One, of course was the previous lunar ...
Jeff Koterba: Yeah. Now we're looking at Art Artemis Two. In fact, I'm working on a cartoon about that very thing. Uh, Artemis One was the unmanned one, and Artemis Two is go around the moon as a test and ...
Jeff Koterba: Unmanned, but it did have, uh, a crash test dummy.
Daryl Cagle: Oh, Here you've got the donkey, elephant, eagle. Looking up at the red versus blue fireworks saying, still holding out hope for a splash of purple. Again, pox on both your houses, pointing out the divide
Jeff Koterba: And, and nostalgic too. Daryl, I, I mean, I can get nostalgic for the holidays for the 4th of July, and I like to think when I'm at a for a fireworks display.
Jeff Koterba: And all those patriotic songs are playing and I'm tearing up singing along next to somebody who I may disagree with. But in that moment, it doesn't matter. In that moment, we are all Americans and we're all just, uh, gazing up at these beautiful fireworks. So there's nostalgia and also maybe a little bit of hope.
Jeff Koterba: I try to have a little bit of hope all at all times. It's kind of hard to do sometimes, but I.
Daryl Cagle: Very good. Now you're sounding more moderate than you did in the beginning. Okay. Here you've got Trump. He's throwing his plate with the ketchup against the constitution. Well, so much for moderate.
Jeff Koterba: Well, I am saying that I'm operating out of, from a journalistic stance, and if someone deserves criticism and deserves for me to poke fun at them, I'm going to do it.
Jeff Koterba: It doesn't matter from which side of the aisle they come. It doesn't matter if it's, uh, liberal or conservative or independent or some other, third or fourth, whatever. It doesn't matter. If they're doing something that's wrong in my eyes, if, if, if I am discerning the truth, capital T as I see it, then that's my standard.
Jeff Koterba: That's my gold standard. That's my, my light house, so to speak. I operate
Daryl Cagle: from that as it should be. Very good. So here you've got the Supreme Court of the United States with a big pipe extruding the sewage. And the political plumber drives by and says that's way worse than a leak. Of course, they had that leak of their abortion decision that came out early.
Jeff Koterba: Yeah, and it's, it's a, it's a column in the Supreme Court building. I, I wanted, you know, Grecian columns or whatever curved out and turned into a, and into a drain pipe. And I would say that wherever you are on, on that issue, leaking from the Supreme Court, uh, that's not cool.
Daryl Cagle: Here is Governor DeSantis the cat grabbing Mickey Mouse with a "Visit Florida" on his shirt and DeSantis really has gone crazy with this attacking Disney business.
Jeff Koterba: It's Disney. It's Disney. You know, a jillion dollar industry little cartoon mouse. Well,
Daryl Cagle: that is true here you've got the donkey and Biden going up in the big inflation balloon, marked 2022, and the donkey says, :Maybe this isn't the best way to hit the campaign trail."
Jeff Koterba: You see it's an aerial of view. You're sort of up, bird's eye view looking, uh, sort of downish, uh, the balloon and where Biden, and then beneath them you can see farmland.
Jeff Koterba: So it's middle America, maybe it's Iowa, I don't know Nebraska, but. Whether it was it's Biden's fault, whether he can do anything about it, he's the guy in charge. And it,
Daryl Cagle: Well, I would call this a very conservative cartoon. You're blaming inflation on Biden and you go both ways. Yep. Here you've got the eagle, political divisiveness on him, and he says that eagle divided cannot fly.
Daryl Cagle: It's another, uh, this is wing versus wing. The right wing in the left wing, and he is, uh, pox on both your houses again. Editors like these equal treatment cartoons.
Jeff Koterba: Super hard to draw an eagle with its wings sort of wrapped around. That took a while.
Daryl Cagle: I think this is your most popular cartoon that you ever drew with us.
Daryl Cagle: You've got the lady in the car. This is as Covid is going away from the consciousness so much, and she sees Covid in the rear view mirror. We've got her mask hanging on the mirror. It says year three on the freeway side, and she's saying, "Please stay the rear view mirror. Please stay in."
Jeff Koterba: Yeah. You see this, this giant COVIDy cartoonish COVID thing in the Yeah, in the horizon. Sort of like a rising sun or some ominous object. Yes. In the rear view mirror. She's in the rear view mirror. Yeah, exactly.
Daryl Cagle: This, I can't overemphasize how popular this was. This may have been the most popular cartoon of the year in terms of papers that reprinted it.
Jeff Koterba: Certainly. I almost didn't do it.
Jeff Koterba: It's funny, Daryl, and same thing with the last one with the. Eagle with, with the wings. Like sometimes I come up with these ideas and it's like, that's a great idea, but ooh, I gotta draw that. That's kind of complicated. When this idea came to me, wait a minute, I'm gonna have a lady in a car, there's a man hanging.
Jeff Koterba: Cause that's something we can all relate to. If we didn't do it ourselves, we saw it on rear view mirror. But in the rear view mirror, there's a giant COVIDy thing, but then there's a. It sounded really complicated to myself, like, I'm gonna break this down and make it simple. It, you know, pretty proud of how it turned out. So I ...
Daryl Cagle: it is complicated. And also here you've got the half of the composition is the dashboard of the car. E e
Jeff Koterba: e. Exactly. And I had to do it exactly how to do it that way to get all those elements in. Uh, you're sort of, you're sort of like in the, you're a backseat driver. You're sort of sitting in the back, sort of looking over.
Jeff Koterba: Over her shoulder. Yeah. I had to, I had to do that because to get the highway sign in, you know, if I drew it straight on from right, right behind her, the, the mask would be blocking the highway sign or something. So it, it, it took, it took a little bit.
Daryl Cagle: This one takes some, takes some planning. Here you've got the skier doing, uh, slalom around the COVID balls at the Olympics.
Jeff Koterba: COVID balls. Yeah, very good. This one of, maybe one of my favorites is kind of weaving in and around. Pretty happy with how the snow turned. And you know, I remember when, when Covid, the Coronavirus, when it first happened, we were like, first of all, I'll hope this doesn't last more than a couple weeks. And then it then also was like, well, how do we draw it?
Jeff Koterba: And then, you know, those first images of what a COVIDy ball thing looked like were just ugly. And at some point, you know, and it was like, Ooh, it's too gross to even draw about or to draw the thing. And then at some point we sort of lightened up and we found this cartoonish symbol, thank goodness, because I ended up drawing about it.
Jeff Koterba: I actually had the world's far as I know, the world's first exhibits of cartoons about the pandemic. I had a hundred cartoons and that wasn't even all ones I had drew.
Daryl Cagle: Oh, I've gotta say, that was a lovely exhibition. You sent me some photographs of it. Wow, that looked great.
Jeff Koterba: Thanks. Thanks. So we put it in the, in the shape of a maze of round maze.
Jeff Koterba: So it sort of felt like, you know, you were in, you know, a maze with the pandemic. But I was actually grateful because of all the other crappy things that happened on the pandemic at least. Oh, I had this little cartoony ball COVID thing I can put into cartoons. At least that
Daryl Cagle: Thank goodness. So here we've got the Museum of Current Events.
Daryl Cagle: Ed, you've got a big random looking line, red line in the people watching it, they're saying, Clearly it's a gerrymandered district." Lady says. "Or COVID guidelines" Another lady says, "Looks like the stock market." This is true. Another, uh, moderate, neither left nor right cartoon. That I am sure did very well.
Jeff Koterba: Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, again, I just, you know, I sort of enjoyed the idea that that, you know, there might be two people looking at this at the same time, who, vehemently disagree on all sorts of things, but might be able to look at this, maybe even chuckle at it.
Daryl Cagle: This is a, we can agree to disagree cartoon.
Jeff Koterba: It's Dr. Putinsteeen. Oh, I'm kidding. I drew this before the invasion of, of Ukraine.
Jeff Koterba: And, uh, proud of the drawing. It's kind of weird sometimes when you're proud of a drawing that's about a really serious, uh, topic. Um, and I've actually been hit by lightning, so I was pretty happy with the lightning bolt. But that aside the seriousness of this, I was disturbed Daryl. I guess I shouldn't have been shocked, but it was disturbing that I received hate mail comments when people, who were pro Putin, who didn't see any problem with Russia invading Ukraine or buying into all the lies. I, what, what, and I also, and, and you can remind me if this is accurate. I think that a lot of newspapers weren't yet quite sure about whether they weren't running a lot of cartoons on the topic at first, unless it was very clear.
Daryl Cagle: Theo never have run a lot. In fact, it's rare for newspapers to anything about foreign issues at all. They're introspective on American issues and to my frustration and many of the cartoonists who wanna draw about Ukraine,
Jeff Koterba: because it's important and, and how anyone thinks that this issue isn't of importance worldwide is, they have their head in the sand.
Daryl Cagle: It is a lovely cartoon. Thanks. And I think that is our last one.
Jeff Koterba: I appreciate the opportunity and I'm grateful to anyone who can offer, you know, support in, in any amount, uh, to help. Keep me in ink, I guess you might say. Keep drawing. I, I do think it's super important. Again, I, I really believe that the world's gone crazy.
Jeff Koterba: It probably al always has been crazy, but I really think that we are sort of in this golden age of, of, of cartooning, and it's important. It's important to laugh at ourselves. It's important to satirize and poke fun, but it's also important to support journalism. And I'm a journalist at my core. First and foremost, I am a journalist, first and artist second.
Jeff Koterba: And I say that with great pride, and I think it's just an invaluable, uh, thing, uh, in the world. We have journalists, thank God, but commentary also is, is a big part of that. And reasonable commentary, thoughtful commentary, not hate, uh, commentary that's rooted in truth, capital T as as you know, as I see it, but I'm speaking my truth as I see it, and sharing that.
Daryl Cagle: Well, there are a couple of things we're trying to do here. First with these podcasts. I'm trying to get people to get to know the cartoonists because all too often editors think of cartoons as fungible. They'll get like 20 of them a day and pick which one they want out of the 20.
Daryl Cagle: And it's, you know, fungible, like, we can get wheat from this barrel or that barrel, but it's all just wheat. No matter where you get it from, they should get to know the cartoonists. And once you know, the cartoonists, the, the cartoons make much more sense and have so much more depth. Um, I'd like for them to get to know you and also what, you know, for a long time we've done crowdfunding on Cagle.com to get people to support the site because, you know, we don't run ads on the site.
Daryl Cagle: And, and it's, it's a costly thing to maintain and, and they've been very good about that. And I decided to change it to being crowdfunding for individual cartoonists because people that get to know the cartoonists, support particular cartoonists, and they like to support their own point of view. And with times being so dire now for the profession, why not let people support what they wanna support?
Daryl Cagle: If you wanna see a moderate voice in the newspaper, support a rare, moderate cartoonist. If you're a conservative, oh, well expect you to support a conservative cartoonist. We just had Monte Wolverton, who's quite a liberal cartoonist. Monte was supported by very ardent liberal. I don't know about moderate fans.
Daryl Cagle: We're, we'll, we'll, I guess we'll find out. I'm really hopeful that you do well with this, and it really would be a tragedy to lose you from the public debate, Jeff, because you are just, you're an important voice and your work is great. And it's popular with the editors. I know it's popular with the readers and, uh, it, it's just a tragedy that our profession doesn't have an economic basis for survival when it is such an artistically successful profession.
Jeff Koterba: Well, lemme just say one thing I do, I do think that there are a lot more are independently minded people and I think there are more and more registered indepentents. Uh, so I, I sometimes wonder if this divide we keep talking about actually exists to the extent you that it, that it does. You know, I, I mean, I think we tend to hear from the extremes and loud, the loud voices, but I just, my hope that maybe this is, this is just my Midwestern "aw shucks guy" here, but my hope is that maybe a lot more of us are more reasonable, uh, and more moderately minded, independently minded than, than we might give ourselves credit for. That's my hope. That's my hope.
Daryl Cagle: Well, good luck with your crowdfunding campaign, and again, that is, Cagle.com/Koterba as you see here, no better editorial cartoonist to support than Jeff Koterba. And, uh, we're all richer for having his, uh, voice in the public debate. So thank you for being with us today, Jeff.
Jeff Koterba: Thank you so very much.
Jeff Koterba: I really appreciate it. Hey,
Daryl Cagle: Remember to, uh, subscribe to the Caglecast. Wherever you're seeing it, subscribe to the Cagle Cast, and our Cagle cast is available in both video and audio versions. So if you're just listening and you don't see the cartoons, go to Cagle.com or Apple Podcast. Or YouTube or Spotify to watch the video.
Daryl Cagle: Thank you, Jeff.
Jeff Koterba: Thanks Daryl.
Daryl Cagle: And thank you again for your support, Monte Wolverton, the last month, and for your support of Jeff Koterba in the coming month. Yeah, I will see you all soon.