Daryl Cagle: Hi, I'm Daryl Cagle and this is the CagleCast where
we're all about political cartoons.
And today our topic is Trump and Taylor Swift.
that's right.
They're, they're together.
And we're going to show Trump cartoons and Taylor Swift cartoons,
but that's just because nobody watches if we don't have Trump.
so we've got a little bit of great Trump, and then we're
going to go to Taylor Swift.
And I like Taylor Swift.
Political cartoonists criticize, President Trump, and so does Taylor Swift.
And Taylor Swift is a pro choice feminist.
She supports LGTBQ rights and gun control.
She voted for Biden Harris in the last election.
She's very effective in getting the vote out from her legions of Swifties.
And, she's all for the removal of Confederate statues in Tennessee, where
these monuments to Racist traitors are ubiquitous and I like all of that.
So, I'm a Swifty myself for political cartoonist reasons..
So today we have three brilliant political cartoonists and one columnist.
Our columnist is Jace Graves.
He's a nationally syndicated humor columnist who we
syndicate at Cagle Cartoons.
He's great.
His columns run everywhere.
He's won a bunch of awards, and he's also a university professor and closet
Swifty with three Swifty daughters.
Great to have you here, Jace.
Jase Graves: Thank you.
Go Taylor Swift.
Daryl Cagle: Okay, Jeff Koterba, who drew this lovely Taylor Swift cartoon,
is possibly our most popular cartoonist.
He's drawn for over 30 years for the top newspaper in Nebraska, which shall go
unnamed, His cartoons have flown around the world on the space shuttle Discovery,
and Jeff has been struck by lightning.
It's great to have you here, Jeff.
Jeff Koterba: Thank you very much, Daryl, and I'm a Swifty.
Daryl Cagle: You're a Swifty, and this is a very nice Swifty cartoon.
Tell us about this one.
Jeff Koterba: Well, this was inspired, uh, by the Dolly Parton, halftime performance.
Rick McKee: I think he just wanted to draw Dolly in, her bare midriff and shorts.
Jeff Koterba: I just I think I think Dolly is really cool, you know?
And so, uh, yeah, I just wanted to reflect You know, we, we draw
cartoons about so many awful, terrible things going on in this world.
And so it's nice to embrace something more upbeat and pleasant.
So that's what, what inspired this one.
Jase Graves: Dolly Parton has had a huge resurgence, even among young people.
All my daughters are fans of Dolly.
Her song Jolene shows up on Tik Tok videos.
they know her as well as they know Taylor.
Daryl Cagle: And here is your most recent Trump cartoon, Jeff.
You've got, Trump in his golf cart and Biden on his bike, being
chased by indictments and polls.
It's the race so far.
That's great, Jeff.
Taylor Jones: Thanks.
Thanks.
Rick McKee: I like that.
Daryl Cagle: And with this cartoon, you fulfilled your
Trump obligation on this podcast.
Rick McKee was the cartoonist for decades for the Augusta Chronicle in Georgia.
He draws the comic Pluggers and we've syndicated Rick for 20 years.
It is great to have you here, Rick.
Good to be here.
Rick, here is your Taylor Swift cartoon.
You've got the media talking to Uncle Sam under a avalanche.
And he says, how do you feel about Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift?
Yeah, I'm also, uh,
Rick McKee: I wouldn't say a Swifty, but I'm a recent convert
to, a fan understanding, you know, the appeal of Taylor Swift.
My son, Jacob actually worked on the Taylor Swift movie.
He was the colorist on that.
so, you know, I've seen the Taylor Swift movie with all the screaming
little girls, so that was fun.
But, this particular cartoon, I think this was done at the height of sort
of the frenzy over the summer and it seemed like the media was completely
focused on her, other than a lot of these other things that were going on.
Daryl Cagle: And I guess all those other things are more weighty.
Rick McKee: They're more weighty, yes.
They have, they have crushed Uncle Sam.
Daryl Cagle: Yes, and here is your, Trump and Hitler cartoon.
Trump saying, Immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country.
And Hitler says, I like this guy.
Rick McKee: Yeah, I haven't really drawn Hitler in hell, burning in
hell before, so I thought that would be a good opportunity.
Daryl Cagle: I am still, noticing the trend that when, you draw Hitler,
your cartoon does not get printed.
And, editors just don't like Hitler.
Um, cartoonists love to draw Hitler.
And there's all this talk about Trump and Hitler now with all
of these, uh, Hitler references.
Vermin and blood and stuff.
It makes it frustrating to be a cartoonist.
Taylor Jones: It's astonishing to me, Daryl, that, newspapers seem
hell bent on going in the opposite direction of what people are discussing.
and, and having some fear of, of all kinds of Hitler images.
it's sad.
Rick McKee: Well, editors are so terrified of losing any more
subscribers, uh, that they have brought upon themselves and, they've driven
newspapers absolutely into the ground.
And so, they avoid weightier topics like this.
Taylor Jones: It's not working.
Jeff Koterba: I have to defend editors in general because I think that
they're tired and I think that they're overworked and probably underpaid.
And I think they're so tired of hearing from the extremists, from the anger.
They don't have the bandwidth to do it.
Rick McKee: Yeah, maybe so.
Daryl Cagle: Well, we get
Jeff Koterba: Love your aluminum foil, love your aluminum foil antennae.
Rick McKee: Jeff, the reception in hell is terrible, so that's
why they had to do that.
They don't get, they don't get, they don't get cable down there.
Daryl Cagle: I thought this cartoon was wonderful, Rick.
Here you've got Trump dressed up in dictator regalia thinking, it'd be
a shame to only wear this for one
day.
Rick McKee: I had a lot of fun drawing that one, I can tell you.
Jeff Koterba: That's fun.
That's just great visual, Rick, just, it's lovely to look at.
What a beautiful drawing.
Kind of has almost like a European cartoon kind of a flair to it,
Daryl Cagle: Well, you know, European cartoonists draw a whole lot of
generals with the military regalia.
it's one of their things.
Taylor Jones: You're, the best with the bubble Trump, you know,
and making him as a bubble.
Well, I appreciate that I think what was it?
What was the term we had?
Last time boil more like a boil rather than a bubble
Rick McKee: like a boil on your butt.
Yeah, I did a you know, google image search of dictators and
uh, you know idi amin What's his name from libya all of them?
Yeah, these ridiculous Outfits on with all these medals and stuff.
I think so
Taylor Jones: Do you remember Gaddafi's, his Praetorian guard,
all women that were, you know, very stylishly militarily dressed.
Jeff Koterba: And Rick, this is a great cartoon, visually for other
reasons too, because you can see it in one image, you get the idea quickly,
your brain absorbs that it has, that he has all this ridiculous regalia.
But then if you want to spend a little bit more time with it.
And dig deep.
There's all this little detail, all these little, great ratings.
So great.
So good.
Rick McKee: he aced his cognitive exam.
I don't know if you could tell that.
Jeff Koterba: Yeah.
Cognitive exam.
And tiny hands, of course.
Jase Graves: You can see the swastika peeking out on one of the, one
Daryl Cagle: of the medals.
Yeah.
Jeff Koterba: Okay, Taylor.
Daryl Cagle: this is yours.
And we know how you love to draw birds in all your cartoons here.
You've got Taylor surrounded by birds.
She says, are you my fans too?
And they're saying we're chimney Swifts.
The original Swifties.
Oh,
Rick McKee: that's great.
Taylor Jones: Well, well, thank you.
You later on, you'll see an earlier Taylor Swift.
I did from, um.
I must have been 10 years ago, but you know, I'm not a Swiftie, but I am the
only one here named Taylor and, and, Taylor Swift and I are the same height
and, back when she was about 19 years old, we were pretty much the same build,
but she, since she's grown into being a, basically a perfect human specimen, me,
not me, you know, I'm just sort of, yeah.
Continuing to dwindle.
Rick McKee: Taylor, I find it hard to caricature attractive people.
You know, if somebody's got a unibrow or a huge nose.
But, you really captured her there and, uh.
Taylor Jones: So great.
Well, thank you.
I have a hard time doing that.
I really enjoy, caricaturing attractive.
people, the thing is what some caricatures make the mistake in trying
to find something to make an attractive person ugly, there's usually something
that you can grab on, uh, with an attractive person and especially
with attractive female and you just, you just kind of exaggerate that.
Daryl Cagle: Well, one of the things about attractive women is that their features
are all very moderate and, nothing stands out in order to define them as, as pretty.
Taylor Jones: I, disagree with that.
It's just, that's, there's, there's a sort of a, I think a, uh, kind of
a notion that if you're attractive, it's for a lack of, flaws.
And that's not really true at all.
people like that are sort of boring looking.
And to me, uh, Taylor Swift is pretty distinctive looking.
And, that, and that helped.
She's got,
she's got very thick hair, which she has those bangs, which, so, so, you know, the,
the space between her bangs and her eyes.
pretty much not there.
and so things like that all.
So,
Rick McKee: well, you captured her very well.
Taylor Jones: Well, thank you.
Daryl Cagle: Taylor, this cartoon is just great.
You've got Speaking of vermin, and Trump with all the vermin in his hair, you
know, he's saying all these Hitler things right now about the vermin on the border
coming in to poison the blood of America.
It sounds just like Mein Kampf.
. Taylor Jones: Well, one of the great things that we've all done
this is that Trump's hair allows us to do so many things with it.
Yeah.
You know, so just the idea, I had the Rat's nest idea in mind, basically as
soon as I heard when he first started using the, that particular terminology.
But, Trump's hair has been, uh, a wonderful gift for all of us.
Rick McKee: Yeah, that is fantastic.
A lot of cartoonists would have made the mistake of writing off to
the side rat's nest, you know, and you don't, you don't have to do
that because you can look at it.
Daryl Cagle: I don't, I don't think you needed to have "speaking of vermin" in it.
Taylor Jones: Probably not.
I, uh, if you want, you know, I could, uh, you could, I could unpost it
and take that off and post it again.
Jeff Koterba: I hear what you're saying, Daryl.
I kind of think you do need it though, just because for some
of the readers who just see that little teeny bitty nudge reminder.
Rick McKee: That's true.
There's a lot of people who are not as connected, with the news.
Taylor Jones: Well, also, and, and not to hear I'm suddenly turning
around and saying, leave it on.
But, vermin is not a word that you, when Trump started using that word,
it's not used that much anymore.
You know, pests, and of course we refer to rats or, cockroaches,
but, um, a calling them vermin.
and of course there's, there's obviously political connotations to
the word vermin, dating centuries back.
right?
Jeff Koterba: It's a powerful loaded word.
So, yeah, it's.
Taylor Jones: Well, leave it in Daryl.
Jase Graves: I agree.
It is lost on a lot of people.
A lot of my students wouldn't know what vermin meant.
it's also curious how many politicians use the word existential.
Something's an existential threat and many, many people.
I would guess have no idea what they mean when they say that.
Daryl Cagle: I should have added that Taylor Jones draws for the
Hoover Digest at Stanford University.
He was a staff cartoonist for many years for the El Nuevo
Dia newspaper in Puerto Rico.
Taylor Jones: Sort of, sort of.
Daryl Cagle: Sort of,
and you drew for many years for U.
S.
News and World Report Magazine, and, we love you, Taylor.
So here we are on the cartoons about Taylor Swift, drawn by all
of our other cartoonist friends.
And this one is by John Darkow.
He's got the two AI computers.
And, one says, We'll let them have this one.
The other one says, but it'll be the last.
That was the Time Magazine person of the year.
I guess that's going to be the last, uh, person who's a person
of the year at Time Magazine.
I love his
Rick McKee: style.
I love his little robots.
They're just so
Taylor Jones: great.
Yeah, John Darkow, even though this is a very simple sketch for him, his
pencil stuff is always just beautiful.
Daryl Cagle: I think there was a debate this year whether AI was really the
top story and, Time Magazine went with Taylor Swift because, frankly,
it's going to sell more magazines.
That's right.
And, I, I get that, but I'm okay with that because I like Taylor Swift.
Not a change.
And I don't like, I don't like AI.
Rick McKee: How about you like AI?
Daryl Cagle: Uh, me?
No, it's putting, uh, my illustrator friends out of work.
Oh, I thought you were okay with it.
Rick McKee: In the last conversations we've had, I thought you
Daryl Cagle: were Well, you know, we had, in our last podcast, we talked to,
Dutch cartoonist, Bart van Leeuwen, who uses AI in his cartoons to draw all the
ancillary characters in the background.
you, you hadn't figured that?
Rick McKee: I had not figured that.
That was a surprise to me, yeah.
Daryl Cagle: It's interesting how extensively he uses it.
He'll draw the head of a politician and let the AI do the rest of his body.
Taylor Jones: Daryl, don't you think that at some point, maybe not too
far, suddenly all these AI images will in fact be entirely accepted.
And you might well have a beautiful AI performer.
Who, uh, does appear, uh, at Time's, whatever of the year.
I think it's going to happen.
Easily,
Daryl Cagle: easily.
Well, I think the line for us is that I don't think people are going to want to
hear political opinions that come from AI.
I think they probably don't mind the drawings.
You know, Bart's drawings are just about all AI and we're fine with that.
But, I don't think we want to know a computer's opinion about things.
So, in that respect, maybe we're a little bit safe compared to the other artists.
Jeff Koterba: Some news outlets are using AI to help generate news stories.
Yeah.
I mean, high school sports stories, things like that.
I'm not saying that that's right.
Oh,
Daryl Cagle: yeah.
Sports Illustrated Magazine.
Just all AI.
That's crazy.
Taylor Jones: Uh, Daryl, uh, Rick's predecessor at the Augusta Chronicle,
Clyde Wells, he and I were out for lunch.
I was, I lived in, uh, Augusta for a time before Rick was there,
or at least I didn't know him.
And, Clyde and I went out to lunch a couple of times.
One time, we were spending the whole time, this was in the 1990s, maybe
1993, 1994, and we were talking about, computers, and, Clyde was saying,
computers will never be smarter than the, people who have to program them.
And I said, it's just a matter of time, Clyde, that science
fiction writers are right.
And I think it's just a matter of time when AI will displace us all.
Jeff Koterba: Yeah.
Or it's a matter of Time Magazine.
Rick McKee: Well, I would say, uh, don't take your, uh, technological
information from Clyde Wells.
I knew Clyde very well, and, uh, I had to, I had to do some
of his computer work for him.
So,
Taylor Jones: yeah.
I still work entirely by hand, so.
Daryl Cagle: So here we have Joe Heller and he's drawn AI as well.
Drat, someone beat us to world domination.
He's looking at Taylor Swift on Time Magazine cover.
people had this in mind.
I guess AI was a strong second to Taylor Swift.
Good cartoon.
Rick McKee: Well, I mean, like you said, AI should have been the number one story.
It should be the thing that we're all talking about.
Jase Graves: As a college instructor, we are really struggling with AI
and, and trying to figure out how to teach students to use AI because
we assume they will be using it when they get into the professional
world, but also not to cheat with it.
And it's a fine line, but it's a huge topic in higher education, as
all of you can probably imagine.
Daryl Cagle: Well, here we have Dave Whamond, and Dave Whamond
has drawn Taylor Swift, named Time Magazine's Person of the Year.
Also, NFL MVP, uh, as she's holding her big, NFL trophy, it's, I gather
that on the sports channels, uh, whenever there's a football game, the
top goes to Taylor Swift sitting in the stands watching the football game.
Rick McKee: Oh, yes.
And, I follow, SportsCenter on Instagram, and all they
post, ESPN SportsCenter.
Well, not all of a post, but for a while there, it was just
relentless Taylor Swift stuff.
And, you know, the sports people who follow that are
like, okay, enough, please.
. Jase Graves: I was just gonna say, I think the Chiefs and the NFL owe a great debt
to Taylor Swift right now, , think of all of the new fans that she's created,
all the people that are watching that would never have watched before, just to
see if they could get a glimpse at her.
Daryl Cagle: That's going to happen with our podcast today.
Jeff Koterba: There's a, a shop in Kansas city, a little boutique, a
really cool t shirt shop I've been to, in a quiet little neighborhood
and, they got all of this, merch.
And Taylor's hands, and this shop is blowing up.
Forbes has written about them now.
it's incredible just what she's done for this one little
t-shirt shop in Kansas City.
I also, I love this drawing.
I love the elongated neck.
and even though, Taylor, I love your drawing of.
It's totally different take.
Dave's take is different, but, they're both great in their own way, and
it's a great, to me, it's a great example of how you can have two
different artists take on a face.
It looks like them, but it's so different.
It's great.
Taylor Jones: Whamond has given her kind of a, a Modigliani look.
Rick McKee: I'm really, I really like what he's done with The fabric and
the shirt, the folds and the light and the dark and all that sort of stuff.
When, you know, Kelce messes up and she decides to break up with
him and write about him in a song.
Then all, you know, she's gonna it be
Taylor Jones: Song of the year.
Rick McKee: She's gonna unleash all hell of her Swifties on the Kansas City
Chiefs and, uh, and all of that will
Jeff Koterba: go away.
, they're getting married.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with it.
They're getting married.
Okay.
Well, you know,
Taylor Jones: they seem like, I mean, mean for what it's worth, they
seem like, uh, they, they, um, he's an, he's an entertaining fellow.
Um, you know, Mr.
Kelce.
And, uh, yeah, and so I don't know, maybe they, maybe they found the perfect match,
you know, at least by Hollywood standards.
Jase Graves: I think she's 34, maybe, and I think she may be ready to start thinking
kids and marriage and the whole deal.
Daryl Cagle: We do talk about.
But, Taylor Swift, like we are old men talking about Taylor Swift.
Rick McKee: She needs to be in the kitchen, barefoot, making him a sandwich.
I'm just
Taylor Jones: gonna
Think of your audience, Daryl.
Jase Graves: Can you imagine Travis Kelce telling her to go make him a sandwich?
Daryl Cagle: So here's Time's Person of the Year from Bob Englehart.
he writes, guess who?
And he draws only her smile.
Her smile is distinctive, but this is also one of those, I got away without
having to draw caricature cartoons.
Rick McKee: I think Bob probably had the same issue I have with
drawing attractive people.
So he said.
I'm going to draw a smile.
Jase Graves: But they all catch the teeth.
The teeth
Jeff Koterba: That's clever.
Taylor Jones: give it away.
You can tell it's her smile,
Daryl Cagle: Her teeth are distinctive and cute.
usually you think teeth should just be not noticeable.
Jase Graves: The thing about Taylor Swift is that she, she's beautiful,
of course, but to me, she's like someone you might know, a really
beautiful person you might know.
She's not impossibly perfect and she knows that.
I watched the Miss Americana documentary on Netflix and she's aware of her
imperfections and she's very real.
I think that's one thing that draws people to her.
Rick McKee: this is just a great cartoon right here.
I, I love it.
Daryl Cagle: This was from Pat Bagley with, uh Travis Kelce about to pour
the Gatorade on, Taylor Swift, who has just won, the person of the year.
that's awesome.
Rick McKee: And, you know, it's the, and the thing about it is that a lot
that a lot of people don't understand, it's funnier that he didn't draw dumping
the Gatorade on her, that he left that for the imagination of the reader.
To interpret sort of that kinetic moment when he does that.
Taylor Jones: Are you imagining that right now, Rick?
Rick McKee: I am.
I am.
Jeff Koterba: I just, I love the drawing of Kelce.
I mean, those arms, the legs, the movement.
Pat just has this looseness to his drawings.
but yet there's so much form there.
Just from, you know, great idea.
Visually, just wonderful drawing.
Daryl Cagle: And the love language is cute, too.
Because they're both speaking in their own language.
by what they're doing here.
Jeff Koterba: You're
100 percent right, Daryl.
That's, yep, that's great.
Daryl Cagle: Here we have John Darkow again and, Darkow and, Taylor walking away
from us with the backs of their heads.
And I, I love cartoons that caricature people from the backs of their heads.
And, it says, remember Chiefs Nation, Taylor is an Eagles fan.
And she thinks it's a trap.
this one, I guess, is so in the weeds that I don't really get it.
Maybe she's an Eagles fan.
You know what's going on here?
Rick McKee: You know, I'm not a pro football fan, so I
thought maybe it was local for.
Darkow.
Daryl Cagle: Darkow's in Missouri.
Yeah, I don't know.
Jase Graves: She's from Pennsylvania.
That's right.
Taylor Jones: Yeah, so I get Eagles fan.
You know, I thought she was from Tennessee.
I think she lives in Tennessee.
But she's from Pennsylvania.
Jase Graves: That's right.
The documentary I watched, she indicated that she was from Pennsylvania.
But this cartoon, to me, they look a little older than they are.
They almost look Middle age in this.
Taylor Jones: I agree.
Jase Graves: Like they're a married couple.
Rick McKee: My daughter lives in Nashville now, and I've gone
to visit her a couple of times.
And it's the funniest thing.
This was.a couple of years ago before she's, she was big, but she had not
blown up like she has now and I was at the, Country Music Hall of Fame and they
have the Taylor Swift Education Center in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
And I thought, that's awesome.
Jase Graves: That's like an oxymoron.
Rick McKee: It's like the Ben Stiller school for kids who don't read good
or whatever that was, I thought.
I guess, they learned songwriting in that thing.
I guess she teaches.
To like underprivileged kids, which is fun and a good thing.
Jase Graves: I really shouldn't joke about education and Taylor Swift
because she writes all her stuff.
She's a genius as far as her musical abilities and her songwriting abilities.
I guess I didn't realize she wrote everything until I watched that
documentary, but it's pretty amazing.
And she works really hard.
Jeff Koterba: She's such a proponent for creativity.
and, the creative process and what she has done to fight back against the
recording industry, for me, even if I don't listen to all of her music,
you know, I'm not going to be playing her music necessarily if I hear it, I
like it, I enjoy it, but I'm a Swiftie in the way that she's so outspoken,
against the big guys and as cartoonists, as artists, I've certainly had my
struggles fighting to keep my rights and publishing rights and so on.
I really respect and appreciate what she has done speaking
out on behalf of creatives.
Jase Graves: I really didn't listen to her music at all until about three years ago.
And, you know, my girls were teenagers and they would have friends
over in the backyard in the pool and they would be playing music.
And, you know, occasionally I would have to go out or I would hear it
inside and I would hear this music.
You know.
I asked my daughter, who is this?
And she's like, Oh dad, that's Taylor Swift.
And I said, really, this is good.
So I got on Spotify and I started listening and I
really like most of her songs.
And this year, um, at the end of the year, I don't know if any of you are on
Spotify, but they come out with sort of your year in review on Spotify and they
tell you who you listen to the most.
And Taylor Swift was my number two, uh, artists that I listened to.
Jeff Koterba: Well, now we want to know who number one was.
Jase Graves: Uh, Ben Rector was my number one.
I love Ben Rector.
Daryl Cagle: So here we have Joe Heller and it's the new daddy daughter time as
Taylor Swift's on at the Chiefs game.
Dad loves football and daughter loves Taylor Swift, and, they both think, please
just don't ask me to explain it to you.
. Um, good.
I guess this is, uh, this is how, Taylor Swift crosses over into the old men.
are, are any of you guys football fans?
Oh, yeah, I was a college
Rick McKee: football fan
Taylor Jones: I actually detest football.
Oh, okay I was a very scrawny kid and when we would like neighborhood pickup
they were like touch football games They never treated me as something to touch.
I was to be tackled to the ground, you know, by great
big kids in the neighborhood.
To me, football's been a game that's been kind of a bully's game.
But, uh, you know, I'm not saying that Travis Darkow is a
Jeff Koterba: bully.
I've always been a Chiefs fan because we're, in Omaha, we're
just a couple of hours away from Kansas City, so that has always
been our adopted hometown, uh, team.
Rick McKee: But speaking of fans, though, I mean, one of the things that
I really appreciate about Taylor Swift that, while I don't listen to a lot of
her music, I certainly respect her as a person, is how she treats her fans.
And, uh, she gives them everything she's got.
And, if there's somebody, in trouble at the concert or whatever, I mean,
she pretty much stops everything.
And, she really reaches out literally and figuratively to her fans.
I think that's just great the way she, obviously is a nice,
kind person who appreciates.
The fact that they've put her where she
Daryl Cagle: is.
So Jeff, here is one of yours and it's kind of wordy.
You want to read it to us?
Jeff Koterba: Yeah.
It's a girl saying, what if Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce get married?
She runs for president and wins and he becomes first gentleman.
And I'm just saying, well.
First, nothing would surprise me anymore, uh, which is how I feel
about everything in this world.
And second, that actually sounds nice.
And this is just another example.
I, again, I draw so many cartoons about really heavy, heavy, dark, awful stuff
and I just feel like as a cartoonist.
I want to mix it up.
I think that readers Like to have it mixed up a little bit You can't just have it
serious serious serious all the time And I think that that draws readers in to
then maybe pay a little bit more attention to when you do heavy, dark cartoons.
So I'm always looking for an opportunity to do something uplifting and positive.
And, you know, from this podcast, you might think, well, that's all
I do, but that isn't the case.
and I also like to just sometimes take a step back where, you know,
from just drawing a politician or a newsmaker, take a step back and draw
a cartoon about where people live.
People who are doing what people are doing when they're maybe
reading a cartoon or hanging out.
And so, you know, I just want to take a step back and capture just a little
slice of life for just just a moment.
Just give people a little breath Before we move on to all the crap.
Jase Graves: I agree, Jeff.
I would say two thirds of the fan mail I get for my columns refer to
the fact that it's so refreshing to read something that's not.
Politics or it's not so dark.
It's so refreshing to be able to read something to laugh
at or to make me feel good.
So I think people do appreciate that.
Daryl Cagle: This one is from Steve Nease in Canada!
And you've got the two Swifty daughters swinging their Kansas City Chiefs pennants
and Dad says since when are they Kansas City Chiefs fans and mom says since they
might catch a glimpse of Taylor Swift
Rick McKee: you notice they're wearing a 1989 jerseys All
Jeff Koterba: Yeah, that's great.
Daryl Cagle: Oh the jersey is great
Jeff Koterba: Well, yeah, 1989.
It's a
Daryl Cagle: reference
Rick McKee: to her album.
Her
Daryl Cagle: album.
Oh, I see.
Very good.
That's clever.
That's great.
The first one was born in 19 and the second one is Taylor Swift born in 89.
Very clever.
All right, here is Rivers drawing an old man throwing the dog a bone in
the style of the Kansas City Chiefs.
And it says, to all those folks who might not be a rich and famous
power couple like Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, but act like they are.
This is kind of, uh, like a Jerry Von Amerongen In the
Neighborhood cartoon, I guess.
Taylor Jones: I love his dog.
I love the figure.
Although I suppose he could have made it 89 on his jersey.
Yeah.
Jeff Koterba: Well, I'm sure Rivers will soon draw a Biden cartoon with 89 on
him for his age or something like that.
Daryl Cagle: Okay.
So here we have another Dave Whamond cartoon and it's the guy at the spaceship
with the aliens and the guy says, Are you here to share your secrets and help us
solve all the crises facing humankind, like how to survive climate change?
The aliens say.
No, we're here to ask with all the crises facing humankind, why are you all
focused on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce?
Jeff Koterba: Nice alien voice, Daryl.
Yeah,
Rick McKee: I think this one probably goes back to probably around the time
that I did mine, where it seemed like there was a lot of Terrible things
going on, and that was, you know, even Saturday Night Live did a skit on it,
just sort of a non stop Taylor Swift
Daryl Cagle: coverage.
Here we have Adam Zyglas and, Swifty with all of her fans, including the NFL
executives who are thinking dollars.
Rick McKee: That's great.
Good cartoon.
Yeah, that's a good Taylor Swift, too.
Yep,
Taylor Jones: it is.
Jase Graves: Yeah, there have been several news articles that have talked
about how much she's done for the economy in general, with her tour.
Taylor Jones: Yeah, I got the thinking that, you know, the next economic
downturn, when it finally happens, might be called the, the Taylor recession,
Jase Graves: you know?
Daryl Cagle: That's right.
This one is from Gatis Sluka in Latvia, and he's got Zelinsky in Ukraine
talking to the room, I guess, full of legislators who are all looking at
the iPad and watching Taylor Swift.
That's great.
Boy, Zelinsky, this is, you know, this is as much about Zelinsky not interesting us
so much as it is Taylor interesting us.
Yeah, both.
Great,
Jeff Koterba: great cartoon and great use of get us to such a great job with no
or few words and his use of color here.
You're focused on both screens.
Everything else is great out really
Rick McKee: brilliant.
I was going to say that about color and I probably would not
have had the restraint to do that.
Um, what he did there because I, you know, I tend to like, Oh, everything's
got to be in color, you know?
So let me just color every single person in this crowd.
Um, Well, Rick, I
Jeff Koterba: have a question for you as a cartoonist who, like, uh, all of
us, we started out, in black and white in newspapers, and when color became
available, I know I kind of went nuts with it for a while, and then after a
while, I had to, as you said, I had to try to show some restraint because just
because I have it available doesn't mean I get to use it all the time,
Taylor Jones: but when I, uh, a lot of the work I did for the newspaper
in Puerto Rico was under uh, Sort of ridiculous deadline pressure, in part
because I had to sort of translate stuff from English to Spanish, etc.
But, they wanted them in color, and I wanted to do them in color, but
a lot of them, I only did them in partial color, other than grayscale.
And I think some of that just turned out the best.
It does have a way of directing you to the points you want
to make, you know, visually.
Yeah.
Taylor,
Jeff Koterba: did that affect your idea process having to
work so quickly on a deadline?
Sorry to interrupt, but did, did it, do you find that when you have more time that
maybe you kind of wish you had a limited
Taylor Jones: deadline?
Oh, yeah.
I get pretty lazy if there's too much time.
you know, I'd be sweating bullets if you were trying to meet that really
tight deadline, you really feel sort of spent, but also really good.
You know, you'd really, I just sort of, ah, it's wonderful after it was
done as well as being exhausted, But at the same time, yeah, if I have
enough time, I immediately start procrastinating it almost seems to, I
mean, it's laziness, but almost seems it forces me to apply pressure later.
How about yourself?
Rick McKee: I initially resisted doing color and, uh, I thought it took away
from the seriousness of the cartoons.
And, you know, all the cartoonists that I admired and respected
like McNally and Oliphant.
Jim Boardman and Don Wright and all these guys, they didn't use color.
They didn't have to have color.
And they certainly didn't have to have color in their daily deadline.
And, you know, later I just embraced it and, you just have
to figure out how to get it done.
Taylor Jones: Well, didn't Oliphant, uh, avoided it for, uh, the longest time.
And maybe still does.
Rick McKee: Uh, yeah, I don't think he's drawing
Jeff Koterba: anymore
he's not.
Yeah, he's not right now.
Okay.
I
Taylor Jones: mean, but I mean, he's he's he wasn't interested.
Rick McKee: No, he never did color.
Jeff Koterba: Well, he he did colors.
You have a you have a Oliphant book in your bookshelf there, Rick and he
certainly watercolored the cover of that
Taylor Jones: covers the cover.
He did do the cover.
Yeah, that's the end and in fact, if I'm not uh uh well, this is too much
professional talk, I suppose, but if I remember, I must have read or
listened to some interview with him.
And he decided, sometime, I think the 1980s to even, you know, like
so many cartoonists, then they would use that board that you you
brush it and have the gray scale,
Jeff Koterba: DuoShade
Taylor Jones: and oh, DuoShade.
And he just decided everything's going to be strictly pen and ink.
No, nothing like that.
Well, it's interesting, Taylor, because I recently, I was in Charlottesville,
Virginia for the Democracy 360, conference, and they gave us a special
tour behind the scenes of the, Oliphant Collection, which he's donated to the
university, and they pulled out several of his, I, I grew up loving his work,
huge inspiration, never actually got to see any of his work in person, and he
had, they had some of the early DuoShade cartoons, as many of us have used, and all
of that DuoShade faded, and then you could see where he just went with, like you
just said, black and white, pen and ink.
Daryl Cagle: So Taylor, here you have yourself with Taylor Swift and you're
writing, uh, you know, actually we should use your voice for this one, Taylor.
Taylor Jones: You know, I read the other day that 73 percent of
Taylors are morbidly underweight.
And then Taylor saying, Suckiest party ever.
Or she's texting that to a friend.
I
Daryl Cagle: don't remember her being skinny.
Oh yeah, she was very slender.
She always looked good.
Taylor Jones: Wait a minute, wait a minute.
Just because she was slender doesn't mean she didn't look good.
But the point is, She was slender enough that I could exaggerate that
for the sake of the caricature.
And
Rick McKee: because
Daryl Cagle: she, she's one of the 27% that is not, or morbidly
Taylor Jones: underweight.
No, she's, she, no, she is a, I'm the one who's in trouble, comes to weight.
but she used to be an ectomorph.
She is now a mesomorph.
Jase Graves: She did.
And she was aware of that.
I keep going back to this documentary I watched, but she does talk about
how she went through an eating disorder period where she was really
worried about the way she looked, her body shape, she wasn't eating.
And then she had this revelation that normal people eat
Daryl Cagle: So here's Jimmy Margulies and he's got the news on the guy
in the news says Putin withdraws from Ukraine before Republicans
give up the fight against Obamacare and Iran renounces nuclear program.
And the guy watching TV sees Apple bows to stars demand and he says
Taylor Swift sure had a busy day.
I'm impressed with her standing up to these big behemoth companies and,
you know, Apple bowed to her demand to get paid for their, three month free,
subscriptions they were giving out.
They did that the next day and they did it for all of the artists.
I think that's great.
Taylor Jones: You know, Daryl, I think that Biden could improve his standing in
the polls in economics if he were to name Taylor Swift to his, council of economic
advisors and and you know, I mean i'm that's I'm not really being facetious.
I think you should make her as running mate.
Well, that's, that's even better.
Yeah.
She's old and she'll be old enough next
Jase Graves: year.
One of the things that's kept her going is that she is re releasing, all of her
previous recordings as Taylor's versions, because she lost, I don't understand
all the ins and outs of it, but it.
The, the story goes like she lost the rights somehow to her previous recording.
So she's
Jeff Koterba: rerecorded the masters, the masters,
Jase Graves: right.
And re releasing the albums as in all the, the kids, my girl's age are eagerly
anticipating the next Taylor's version album, which was already released
several years ago, because usually
Daryl Cagle: she's on the news.
And these songs all sound exactly the same as the originals.
and they're selling better than they did when they were out the first time.
Yes.
Right.
Um, and then she's sticking it to that guy Who was, keeping all of her old stuff,
and I'm just very impressed with all that.
Jase Graves: And she usually throws in a couple of new songs,
I believe, on some of those.
Daryl Cagle: Here's another Jimmy Margulies cartoon.
You've got, Taylor Swift.
Getting, a big platinum record from the big machine records who
says You've got platinum again.
You sold millions on registering to vote.
which she did.
She really, got her Swifties to go, register to vote.
And of course, they were voting, much more in the right way than than the Trumpy Way.
And I think that's great.
Jeff Koterba: That's, a cartoon from what, five years ago I think.
Wow.
Yep.
2018 it says.
Taylor Jones: Yeah.
Oh wow.
Daryl Cagle: How about that?
She had different hair.
Yes, she did.
Jase Graves: that was when she was promoting them to go
vote against Marsha Blackburn.
Is it in Tennessee Senator.
Daryl Cagle: Interesting.
Jase Graves: Taylor said she's Trump in a wig.
Daryl Cagle: Okay.
So here you have the Republican saying, stop being political.
And Taylor Swift says, voters gonna vote.
that's great.
Rick McKee: Which is, you know, play on her song.
Haters are going to hate, hate, hate, hate, whatever, whatever
Taylor Jones: it goes.
Well, here's a great, this is a great caricature of Taylor Swift.
Daryl Cagle: This is actually our last cartoon.
This one's by Pat Bagley, and he asks, Why is a celebrity couple making
some people lose their tiny minds?
And the MAGA far right Christian says, It's the devil!
And it's, voting rights number one, two, gay beer, and three, COVID immunization.
As she holds up the "Get out the vote" sign, with Travis Kelce, that kind of
just puts it all into the same picture.
Taylor Jones: This is a perfect quick caricature of, of Taylor Swift.
it's gotten her, three main things you think about her
face, all there very simply.
The eyes, the bangs, and the lips.
Rick McKee: That's a good Kelce, too.
You don't, you don't see a whole lot of
Taylor Jones: him.
Jase Graves: They managed to do it without
her teeth.
Taylor Jones: Yeah.
Daryl Cagle: I think we're seeing more Kelce than any
other football player right now.
Taylor Jones: You might have to go back to Joe Namath to have a football player
who was in, you know, who would have found his way into editorial cartoons.
Uh, I will, I don't know about Brady, maybe Brady.
Daryl Cagle: We see football cartoons as local cartoons.
and you don't see them reprinted or in syndication much, of course,
because they're about a local team.
Adam Ziegler draws Buffalo Bill's cartoons.
but they're, you know, they've disappeared largely as, local cartoonists
are no longer drawing at newspapers.
It used to be the only papers that had cartoonist jobs were the
ones that were big urban papers.
And those are the places that had football teams.
And, so there were lots of sports cartoons and then sports cartoons
just died along with the rest of the cartooning profession.
And,
Jeff Koterba: ironically, I got my start at the Kansas City
Star as a sports cartoonist.
Taylor Jones: Wow.
Well, you know that I'm the oldest one here.
And although Daryl, I remember this too.
I don't know, but Jeff, maybe this was true when you were working at
the Kansas City Star, but, big like whole page sports cartoons were
a thing, uh, 50, 60 years ago.
Daryl Cagle: I used to live in New York with, uh, Daily News had a big,
oh yeah, Bill Gallo in the Daily News, he had a great big, uh page every day.
Jase Graves: I'm still holding out hope that all this will come back.
My daughter, my oldest daughter asked for a record player for Christmas.
So, you know, if records can come back, maybe newspapers and sporting cartoons and
all those wonderful things can come back.
Taylor Jones: I just heard the other day that CDs are coming back.
I still have a CD player.
Daryl Cagle: Okay, gentlemen, do you have any last words about Taylor Swift?
We are at our last cartoon.
Jase Graves: I need tickets to the New Orleans concert in October.
So if any donors out there want to throw some my way.
This is what Ticketmaster does now.
You can't get the tickets, so they put you on a waiting list that is endless and
has no hope of ever getting to your name.
Daryl Cagle: Well, you know, it is, it's very rare that editorial
cartoonists draw favorable cartoons or cartoons about things they like.
Because we have a, negative art form.
And, so this is probably, a crazy podcast of something that's not very editorial
cartoon like for us to like Taylor Swift.
Taylor Jones: You know, mostly like, if you like stuff, it isn't funny, you know?
Jase Graves: And Taylor appears in my latest column.
So be sure and read.
The one that just came out.
It's called Haunted by the Kids of Christmas Past.
Daryl Cagle: Well, everybody, thank you for being with us today.
this concludes our CagleCast.
Remember to subscribe we appreciate it and, We will see you next time and we
will talk about things we don't like.
See you later, gentlemen.
Fantastic.
Taylor Jones: Christmas, everybody.
Same here.
Jase Graves: Merry Christmas guys.
Nice to talk.
Rick McKee: Good to chat.
Happy Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever you do.