Hi everybody.
I'm Daryl Cagle and this is the Caglecast where we're all about
political cartoons and we have two excellent cartoonists with us.
Graham McKay and, Taylor Jones.
And, we're going to talk about China and China cartoons, and we're gonna go through
the work of Luo Jie, who's the, English language China Daily newspaper, cartoonist
that we syndicate here at Cagle Cartoons.
And we have, for the last, uh, 23 years And, I think that will be very
interesting to see the Chinese view on things and we'll just, spend most
of this podcast talking about Lu JI'S cartoons and, whether that, surprises
us or whether we've come to, have the same kind of attitude as he does.
Well this is one of yours, Graham.
I think it's a nice one.
Yeah.
This is actually, from years ago from the first incarnation
of the Donald Trump years.
and, we all know what's happened in the second term.
So like so many, editorial cartoons that I drew in the first
term, they apply to the second.
And I like,
uh, how the cannonball breaks America.
That's, that's cute.
Yep.
Yeah, I've, I've seen other people draw like missiles and various other things.
And, it's the same kind of deal.
You know, you're, you're damaging, you know, the, consumer in the United
States or in Canada, in our case, uh, with tariffs, tho those are the ones
who are paying this tax basically.
and that's the, the confused thing with Donald Trump.
He, he seems to think that it's these countries that are the recipients of
tariffs that are paying, but it's not.
it's the American consumer.
Taylor, this is one of yours.
Well, this is an illustration, not so much a cartoon.
This was for Hoover Digest.
And, but I did this a number of years ago, but obviously, uh, with rare
Earth in the news and China having a sort of corner on the market.
And that's what this was about.
Really nice.
the.
A little Chinese inscription, in the top left means something,
but I forget what it means.
And uh, here you have Xi and Pooh, he was depicted as Pooh on the internet,
and that got to be a thing for a while.
And it was banned throughout China.
They deleted on things and all the cartoonists were
drawing him as Winnie the Pooh.
So this, one of the things I
think that'll be interesting when we go through Luo Jie is that, uh, Chinese
cartoonists never draw their president.
Right.
And I think that's, a measure of democracy around the world or
free press around the world Sure.
Is that in just about every country where there is not a free press, cartoonists
are not allowed to draw the president.
Uh, you never saw Fidel Castro drawn in Cuba.
Um, our car, our two cartoonists in Singapore saying they can
draw anything they want as long as it's not about Singapore.
Yeah.
it's just, it's kind of a, a universal measure of freedom of the press
for sure.
I, I wonder too, Daryl, if there's a, West versus East and Middle East, uh,
sort of culture thing to it as well.
that it's, never been that way.
You know, it's
all those Middle East countries, they can't draw their presidents.
Right.
So it's, it's nothing new for them.
So, it's almost like it's a, you can't draw Mohammed.
I mean, I think it's a, it's an ingenious, I mean, it's, it's
interesting to see that though.
I mean, because we are so here in the West, it's, it's almost like
it's an, an everyday thing where you draw either Donald Trump or we're
drawing the Prime Minister of Canada.
It's, it's just an unusual thing, like to think, to do some kind
of editorial cartoon without some kind of depiction of the leader.
It's, it's just a very odd thing, and I find that, well, you know, all
through the Cold War in the, the East Bloc countries, they would, they would
create characters like Little Kings or little generals that you knew were the
president, but were not the president.
Mm-hmm.
They developed their own strange language.
Daryl, you think that Trump's coming after us before, uh, you know, sometime
during his term that, depictions, editorial depictions by cartoonists
of Trump are not gonna be news?
Seems you, you tell us that editors don't seem to want anything to do with Trump.
Uh, when it comes to cartoons,
we introduced a No Trump alternate front page for our website.
We were getting so many complaints from editors about
all you have is Trump cartoons.
well that's kind of, you know, it's sort of funny in a way because,
because Trump, has made himself uh so dominant in the news.
How can there not be Trump?
a newspaper full of Trump?
Yeah.
Trump things.
Trump cartoons.
Trump editorials.
It's, he's impossible to escape.
I suppose if you draw him, you know, with nice abs and, you
know, big muscles like certain editorial cartoonists do in America.
I'm not gonna name names, but that seems to be, uh, appropriate.
And, and certainly that, that poor artist in Colorado who depicted him in such a
way in that portrait that, you know, Trump got, all upset about, uh, don't, don't
do, don't, uh, depict him in such a way.
But IIII think Taylor makes a very good point.
Like, are we headed that way where, you know, your president doesn't
want depictions of him and is he gonna like, crack down on it?
I, I, it's kind of weird that we're in that situation, but I
think it's, it's a valid concern.
Well, if he starts suing us, I mean, who, who, who among us is gonna be
able to afford to defend ourselves?
And, uh, you know, I, uh, not trying to be paranoid, but if I got some letter
about, Threatening me from who's this guy?
Ed Martin, who likes to, if it works for Trump, would like to send
threatening letters to everybody that lawsuits are gonna follow.
Uh, you know, I I'd certainly call you right away, Daryl.
It would be reassuring for us to have big egos, but I'm
afraid we're too insignificant to, uh Mm. Be much of a threat.
I fear you're right, Daryl,
you know, with, with, Trump being on the news.
Oh, isn't this nice?
Thank you.
Again, another illustration for Hoover Digest.
and, this is a long story, really, you know,
we gotta move fast, Taylor.
We got so much to go through.
No, I, I don't mean a long story about the illustration.
I mean it, this, this is kind of a long running thing with, China, US trade,
so you could move on to the next one.
Okay.
Well, this is a lovely drawing.
Thank you.
Again, it means something up there in the top right.
I don't know what.
So Graham, here's another one, uh, that I thought was lovely.
Quickly tell us about this one.
So, as you all know, we have many Trump tariffs that have imposed on Canada.
this one, our auto sector obviously is in jeopardy with the Mexican auto sector.
he wants to bring manufacturing back to the United States.
I can understand that.
So we have to get used to the whole realignment of the, supply and everything.
And the fact that autos when they're manufactured, go across the border
like umpteen times up to 10 times when you get parts, manufactured here
and then they're put into cars, they cross the border many, many times it
actually becomes less of a American made car than a North American car.
When you factor in, there's three countries that, uh, factor into making
your average, uh, American automobile.
So what I imagine here is that he's smashing up the
Canadian made car and then.
The debris of everything.
We finally get what I think is a wonderful thing in having electric
cars made available in the end.
we cannot purchase Chinese electric cars.
You can buy electric cars now in other parts of the world
for 20,000 American dollars.
it's a wonderful thing.
They, they seem to work very well.
It's, it's kind of an ingenious way to overcome the problem with
fossil fuel generated vehicles.
We can't get them in, in Canada.
I would love to get my hands on a Chinese made EV vehicle because
one, they're affordable and two,
well, you know, we just had those huge fires here in California and we've got
more electric cars here than any place else in the world, I guess, except China.
And they have made the biggest.
Toxic.
uh, awful, awful things.
Yeah.
I guess that, uh, from their, uh, electric car corpses that
cost a bloody fortune mm-hmm.
To, for the, this team of toxic waste people to try to get rid of.
and they burn like bombs.
Yeah.
Um, I wouldn't wanna live next door.
One well.
You gotta also consider that the power that is generated to get the
electricity, to power these things too.
I, I, is, is an issue as well.
And that sometimes means coal.
It's not coal here, but you know, natural gas and other fossil fuel.
Yeah.
Here in California to charge, to run these fossil car to go the same distances.
If you bought gasoline costs about two thirds as much as the gasoline.
And so all those negatives, is that worth a third of the cost of your gasoline?
I don't see them as a value.
Well, Daryl,
this is a nice looking cartoon.
Graham, beautiful dragon.
I don't know what the hell is going on with it.
Uh, this is a recent
one.
No, no, no.
So who's this?
Paul Chang guy?
I, I need to explain.
Paul Chang was, uh, a candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada.
He, this is a recent story, actually, this is only from a few weeks ago.
Uh, and he was running in our recent federal election, uh,
under the flag of, there's our new Prime Minister, uh, Mark Carney.
and he's just been elected to a, a minority government and he had
a candidate, uh, in Toronto by the name of Paul Chang, who, if I get
the story right, I believe he was threatening his conservative opponent.
He was going to turn him in to the Chinese police.
Now we've had a thing going on in, in Canada with foreign interference, much
like what you'd had in the United States, but the revelation has been that we
actually have Chinese police stations activity happening within Canada, which
acts to report on, I guess, bad citizens of the Chinese diaspora who are in Canada.
And they threaten, they threaten lives of Chinese Canadians of newly
come migrants from China to Canada.
And they're a threatening, group of people.
So you're dealing with a, like a subculture that ha
that, that's within Canada.
And here is one Chinese candidate, you know, threatening another Chinese
candidate who happened to be Canadian.
But under this, this knowledge that, well, I'll get you with our, you know,
our former homeland security system and it's all enveloped in the whole
foreign interference problem that's been plaguing, Canada for the last few years.
In, in the last election there, there have been MPs members of Parliament
who have been threatened and it's all come out in, investigations that
we've had over the past four years.
And it seemed to be happening in the question.
That's very scary stuff.
I've heard of people being picked up New York by these Chinese police,
and it sort of makeshift police stations, right where, yeah.
Yep.
And it's, you know, foreign interference comes in many different forms.
And it's not just China, it's also India.
Here in Canada it's Iran.
And these are, this is what what comes with, with multiculturalism.
Now in our, our western populations, this is, you know,
we live in a globalized world.
And, and so these former countries of citizens in our countries, you know,
they, they act to interfere with their lives and, and they're constantly spying.
And I guess we, in Canada, the same thing with these foreign countries.
You in the United States do the same thing.
So it's something that's happened, but it seems to be more prevalent in, in a
society like the US or Canada that are more open in, into taking, foreigners.
Well, maybe Trump's kind of stamp out both multiculturalism.
Maybe you want to rethink that 51st state thing.
Uh, I think that's for a different
time
Daryl.
I don't think we need to.
Okay.
Very good.
Let's, let's just obsess ourselves.
Alright.
This is good.
This is a lovely cartoon.
Yeah,
I am, I'm, I'm actually, I work for the Hamilton Spectator, but
right now I'm in Ottawa, so I was actually at Parliament today and this
is our, our parliament buildings.
And, and this is a panda, which is, you know, chewing our peace tower, like it's
a bone, a chicken bone or something.
But this is just a, yeah, this is just a sort of like, uh, illustrate
the, the foreign interference of China into the Canadian political system.
I think it, it's sort of, it's pretty on there.
I think it's great.
Beautiful cartoon.
Thanks.
Now, that's the interesting thing, and I, I think Taylor probably agree and
he, he, there's an example of a dragon that we've used to personify China.
And, and the panda is always a nice thing, but I've also been
told that, these personifications are kind of demeaning to Chinese,
uh, people, especially the dragon.
Like it's a very cliched kind of thing.
And I've been told by one of my editors at the Toronto Star to stop using Dragon
really?
Motifs, which is interesting.
Yeah.
Uh, but I don't hear that from other people.
But the, he's, he's heard it from reporters that work in the
Toronto Star and, and people letter writers that stopped using dragons.
And I think, okay, well I haven't received that edict from anyone,
but, the panda bears seems to,
well,
Graham, don't you think, don't you think that, I mean, that sounds like a little
bit of silly wokeness to me, even if.
People are offended because, because, uh, the reason why is that Yeah, you can bet
that, the cliches for o the cartoonists around the world use Uncle Sam, uh Yep.
Cowboys.
Mm-hmm.
Old Ki Beavers Canada, you know,
have in Canada,
uh, maple syrup.
Yeah.
Uh, all kinds of, this is, we all rely on that.
I don't know how, I don't know how we can do our jobs if we don't have our cliches.
It's just the way it is.
And, uh, no, we don't have to like it, but there it is.
I don, I, I think people are trying to look at racist things.
I don't, I don't fully see it, but I'm, I'm thinking, you
know, people have to complain.
So I was doing the state Department.
I guess some people take it more serious department speaking tour in China,
and they would send me to colleges.
And I went to this, one college and, I explained to them that, we
have different symbols for China.
we use dragons and we use panda bears and we can use the Great Wall of China
and we can use that guy who's standing in front of the tank with his hand
up in Tiananmen Square and so, um, I thought, well, you know, that's a
provocative thing to say in a college.
And, and the, the students started squirming.
This one in the front started squirming the most.
And, he put his hand up and he had a question.
And I said, well, all right.
And I said, you have a question?
And he says, what kind of dragon.
That's a true story.
And your answer.
I don't know what kind of dragon.
I don't know any kinds of dragons.
This is a great concept.
Your cartoon here.
Darryl Chinese.
Oh, well thank you.
This is the rare Earths and this one is, Mao taking it out on George Washington.
it's what they do.
They devalue their currency.
They make their stuff sell best.
Uh, this is, they've been eating up all those dollars, but they're
not tasting so good anymore.
That's good.
That's a good composition too.
This is the South China Sea.
I draw lots of China.
China's in the news all the time.
Here's Trump.
And he's nice.
China.
So, so nice.
Bad China.
Bad, but nice, nice, bad.
Nice.
That's kind of what our relationship is with Trump.
It is.
I, I don't get that about him.
Like he, he's, he, he goes on about how horrible they are and then he's making
peace or not peace deals, but trade deals,
and he talks about how nice they are and nice conversation.
He's a good friend of his, you know?
Yeah.
Well let, um, oh, and also I was hacked by Chinese hackers, so
this was my self portrait when I was hacked by Chinese hackers.
I had a white beard then.
You remember that?
And,
That's the lovely thing about the dragons is that they, they have
that like wavy kind of thing.
It's not like some of these other dragons you see where it's a big Yeah,
I like the wavy thing, dinosaur body.
So I drew this cartoon 20 years ago.
I too, it's got the couple and the kids are smooching, the wife says, yes.
The boys saw that Brokeback Mountain movie and they're playing cowboys.
So 20 years ago now, like 18 years ago, I went on speaking tour in China.
And again, you know, talking to the colleges and you know, they don't
respond like an American audience does.
You, you never know when they're gonna laugh and why they laugh or they'll
sit stoically through all the places where you think they should laugh.
I'd do it like a PowerPoint presentation you know, they would laugh randomly and
I would, there was a kid in the front row, I ask him, why are they laughing?
And he'd say, you drew a pig.
Pigs are funny.
I, I, I adjusted my presentation and put in more pigs.
Anyway, I got to this Brokeback Mountain cartoon and it goes up on
the screen and everybody in the class, like a touchdown at a football game,
their arms go up and they go, yeah.
Ah,
it was, it was crazy.
It would, and it was loud.
And I thought, what the hell?
and I asked this same kid in the front, um, why are they doing that?
And he says, movie by Chinese director.
Well, that's right.
You know, I think that's kind of crazy.
There's something scary about China.
I, I don't suppose this is gonna be broadcast in China, is it?
Why not?
Okay, I'm getting into the Luo Jie cartoons, and what we'll do is we'll just,
skim through them and, you tell me what they bring to mind and what you think.
Mm-hmm.
And, I think Luo Jie's a an excellent cartoonist, but he is definitely, a
foreign cartoonist to American eyes.
And, how dare he use Uncle Sam there?
Well, you know, they think of Uncle Sam differently around the world.
For us, Uncle Sam is an every man.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but, uh, around the world, he is all America, including the government
and what people think as though that's all one thing in one personality.
Um, well,
what do you expect?
We have parades with Uncle Sam's on stilts.
So the, the image gets around now,
So you see Uncle Sam, whoa.
That's a great love there.
It's a good cartoon.
oh,
you know, I, I can see American cartoonists is drawing this kind
of thing, addicted to spending on one thing or another, or, um,
drugs.
And again, this is, I think this is, uh, typical of cartoons around the world.
Yeah well.
Well, poor Uncle Sam, injecting drugs, that's,
yes.
Government's addicted to spending.
Addicted to war.
Addicted to this.
Addicted to that.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, well, I've, I've seen a couple dozen of those.
We are kind of an addictive country.
You know, there's no, no.
Well, you're, I, I like what he's done here with the military industrial complex.
'cause it is, uh, an addiction that we've become addicted to in Canada and we've
contributed to, but we're cut off now.
It's like, like we're, we're thinking about buying F 30 fives from the us right?
But you gotta be nice to us.
If you're gonna, if you expect us to buy F 30 fives, well why are you
throwing all these tariffs on us?
Right.
So, you know, I think Trump has forgotten that the military industrial
complex has been very good for the economy of the United States.
And, I think he's killing it right now.
He's killing the military industrial complex.
And it's gonna, well, you know what really hurt the us
Senator Mitch McConnell before he stepped down, uh.
As Republican leader kept pointing out that all the weapons that
Ukraine was buying from us were keeping our arms manufacturers very
happy and a lot of people employed and a lot of money was being made.
Yeah.
the, the complaint is also made that we don't contribute to NATO.
And I agree with Mr. Trump.
We don't, but when we do contribute, we're, we're also contributing to the
military industrial complex because
they,
the Americans won't take us purchasing from Europe or any other country.
It's always through the United States.
So, you know, we contribute in that way even though we're below the 2% threshold
Here he drew a Canada a cartoon yes.
This is almost a Steve Sack looking, uh, Uncle Sam.
It is.
Poor maple leaf.
I thought this one was nice.
Yeah, well done.
also.
It's, can we go back on that one?
That, that's the rocket.
The rocket is, is launching to the ground.
I see.
Okay.
It's not, that's a not gonna work good.
It's a, it's not better work.
That's a good, it's a, it's, I mean, it took me a while
to figure out, but it's good.
Mm-hmm.
I agree.
Uh, boy, the Chinese have a lot of uh, uh, presence in the universities.
I would imagine that's something that Trump's going after next.
Yes.
He already is..
You know,
Graham, you gotta consider as you list your complaints against Trump
from the Canadian point of view, that half of America didn't vote for Trump,
including about 95% of the cartoonists.
And, you know, we are worse off from all this than the Canadians are, I think.
No, and I, I think a lot of Americans were looking back to the first
term and thinking, well, he said a lot of that, the same stuff that
he said before the second term.
And he wasn't really serious, but he really is serious this time and,
and we are about to be really hurt.
And I don't think if we were to rewind the tape and, and, and tell Americans
are, do you really want, like your president be to be talking about
making Canada the 51st, first state?
I, I don't think Americans would've gone for that.
Even the ones who are voting for Trump.
Well, there's that, there's that US News and World Report.
I guess it's not called that.
It's just US News Reporter who back in 2016, she said that, the left
and the press separately are, are
they should be taking Trump seriously, not literally.
And I think that's still, although maybe now it's both.
You gotta take literally and seriously.
Yeah, it, it's certainly up from a first term, let's just say.
But, um, who knows, who knows where we'll be a year from now.
It's scary actually.
Yeah, sure.
Likes the Uncle Sam.
Huh?
Well, uh, you know, uncle Sam really is prevalent around the world and,
also Superman seems to be almost as much a symbol of America and, uh,
and the Statue of Liberty.
Of course.
Statue of Liberty.
Yes.
well, although Statue of Liberty has a little sense of liberty to it, that's a
little bit different than this is America.
Mm-hmm.
But there's also McDonald's and it's interesting to me because we'll get
cartoons that will have, uh, golden arches in them that, is supposed to be
America, in some out of context thing.
and it won't make us any sense to Americans.
I mean to Americans.
Yeah.
McDonald's is hamburgers that are too expensive and kind of annoying.
I mean, it doesn't mean America to us.
These cartoons make no sense at all, but.
We get the foreign cartoonists sending us these that just, uh, well,
I have to, I have to explain that
at the same time it's been a big thing around the world when, for instance,
the first McDonald's opens up in China, the first McDonald's opens up in Russia.
it's kind of understandable that it has become a, a different kind
of symbol to, a lot of people, not to mention foreign cartoonists,
that it does represent America.
Well, you can understand it, but at the same time have to explain to them that
no American editors are gonna print that because even they don't get it.
So I'm gonna make sure I sort of understand This one here, he's got
the, the rattlesnake with a Klan hat.
And, um, I get but the Klan, but the snake is wrapped around.
appears to be Chinese.
So, and then with Trump as the, as the snake charmer is, is,
have I got that right, Daryl?
Yes.
And, uh, she's charming, you know, around the world.
They really love Klan hats.
And actually American cartoonists love Klan hats too.
And if you draw a Klan hat, your cartoon will not get printed editors.
They just don't print Klan hats.
Even when the news is, the, the Klan in, Virginia, they don't want the Klan hats.
and, but the cartoonists, love Klan hats, they love blood, they love bodily fluids,
they love lots of Nazi paraphernalia.
Mm-hmm.
And, that doesn't get printed.
And well do,
you can, may I ask, do you put Klan hats in your cartoons?
Daryl or Taylor even?
I mean,
I, I, I, yes, I have.
I have.
It can be very, uh, very con, very provocative.
Let's say
I've, I've done a lot of s that haven't been published.
I, I remember I, I put a clan hat on one of our former conservative
leaders, and I got all kinds of trouble for that, all kinds of trouble.
And this is going back 20 years ago, and I, I've, it affected me so much that
I, I, I'm very sparing that and blood, I don't like putting blood in my cartoons.
Um, and Klan hats are another thing that I'm very careful about
not doing unless I really have to.
Over the years, I'm nu a number of times I've been asked to
kind of clean up the blood
by editors.
Okay.
Not so much.
You gotta get, you know, so I have to white it out.
Yeah.
Interesting.
We do get a lot of blood in cartoons and they just, they,
again, they don't get printed,
does any blood.
It's not something
that
sometimes the tincture of blood is absolutely necessary.
Does that, does that mix it as well, Daryl?
I.
Yes.
A little bit of blood.
Uh, you got a sword.
There's a little bit of blood on the sword.
They're not gonna have it.
You know, sometimes I think that your editor, the editors
are the last prudes in America.
Yeah, I think you're right.
I, I tend to put blood on hand sometimes for the old saying, oh, you got blood
on bloody hands kind of expression.
You know, you got blood on your hands from this and that.
Easy, easy sort of expression.
I think that's doable, right?
Can't do.
Well, I've done it, but I do recognize that when I do it,
it's not gonna get reprinted.
Wow.
Even bloody hands.
I think
bloody hands, any blood.
Okay.
Uh, cartoonists also love to draw people peeing and dogs peeing and puddles of pee.
It
happens every day.
Daryl, multiple times day.
Well, we love pinocchios.
I like this cartoon.
This is a, this is a new twist on Pinocchio.
I like it.
Lu G does a whole lot of Pinocchios.
Well.
Oh, there's another one that Have you got, uh, Mr Money bags from Monopoly game?
Yeah.
Uncle Penny bags.
Yeah.
He's kind of a symbol for America.
Yeah.
For wealth, right?
Yeah.
Yes, for wealth.
The ruling class, the bourgeoisie.
We do lots of cavemen as well.
, uh,
the old shadow, uh, cliche here.
Nice.
Yeah,
it's funny 'cause he can't, you know, China's got a lot of debt, but
I guess he can't, he can't do that.
Can he have China?
He doesn't draw anything critical of China.
I'm just including, his cartoons about the USA, but he does a lot on, uh,
Taiwan and Hong Kong when they were, uh, protesting, I thought were pretty
disturbing and very Chinese point of point of view that I guess you should expect.
Oh, well, you know what, when, when China becomes the number one economy
and maybe the number one military power, it's gonna seem, I. Pretty strange
if they're still, if, if Luo Jie and any other Chinese cartoonist that
the, it's all still gonna be anti-US.
You, you know, where it's one thing for the United States to be the most
powerful country in the world and have cartoonists in, in other parts of the
world where they can't make fun of their own leaders, their own country.
But it's another thing if they're on top, it's gonna be very strange.
Yeah.
Good.
Uh, good.
Boomerang cartoon,
when I was doing the speaking tours in China, state Department
told me, , the audience would get the point by just seeing your
drawings of, of Bush and Obama.
that, well, we've never seen a drawing of Xi.
and I think they did get that point.
It was kind of shocking.
A bunch of them, uh, would ask me, uh, do you feel safe going back to
America after having drawn these things?
So he's critical of, of Taiwan as well.
Like that past that last one that you had that looks, that looked
like one that was critical of,
I, I didn't, but in the Taiwan and Hong Kong cartoons, uh, I just
put in, China's view of America.
We have a theme,
the speared bats or something that he really likes.
Well, you know, Americans do a heck of a lot of, uh, clubs and cavemen as well.
Uh, Darryl, do you have any, do you have any, I mean, you, do you have any sense
from Luo Jie that his cartoons are, are appreciated by readers of the China Daily?
Uh, where do they find, I mean, do they, is he like a star?
I mean, I mean, the China Daily is probably the biggest
newspaper in the world, isn't it?
Uh, it's one of the biggest English language ones.
Uh, but they, you know, China's pretty colossal.
They've got a number of other bigger newspapers in Chinese language, and
there are a number of cartoonists in China, although I don't know
of any other English language.
Cartoonists in China.
Mm-hmm.
And a lot of the cartoons to my eye are kind of, uh, not making much
sense, and Luo Jie understands, uh, Western kind of, cartoon construction
I like, uh, just technically I like how he's drawn this.
And of course I like, I like the cartoon.
We, there, there are so many.
I'm, I'm sure we've, I've drawn cartoons and, and perhaps both
of you have too, where, mm-hmm.
Where statues are being pulled down.
Mm-hmm.
Whether it's Confederate statues or of course the, the Saddam Hussein that when
his statue was hold down in Baghdad,
become a standard now.
Yeah.
Well, I, I can sympathize with a lot of these cartoons, uh, from my point of view.
because he's, he's criticizing.
In the same way that we, Canadians are criticizing the Trump administration.
Right.
So, but at the same time, I'm also on the American side because, you
know, China's a communist country and they've been horrible for human rights.
And we've been embroiled in our own problems with, with China.
But a lot of the, stuff here, it resonates with me, but he's also,
he's a bit of a propagandist for, for the Chinese regime, which I have a,
i I struggle with looking at some of
this stuff.
I think that's, well, you know, he's, he's essentially a spokesman for
the Chinese regime because Right.
I think that's the newspaper's owned by the government and it's
a spokesperson for the government.
Well, it's, um, I hate to tell, I mean, I, I admire the work, but he's
a propagandist some of the guys that you have as propagandists for the Trump
administration here, and you, you have a few of them here in in the us Yes.
So where do you, where do you draw
the line on Propagandists?
Um, if you went to work for, a, conservative paper and you're
doing Ben Garrison kind of cartoons, are you a propagandist?
I mean, that's what that newspaper will print.
If you print, if you drew something else, your newspaper wouldn't want that.
Well, they're missing the point.
They're missing the general point that we're supposed to go after.
The, the most powerful and the most powerful happens to be the
guy that Mr. Garrison champions.
So he's not exactly a satirist in that way.
He's a propagandist.
Right.
And same with this, the, the, this fellow that we have from, from
the People's Republic of China.
So I,
I can speak to that a little bit from my work with Hoover Digest because, now.
It's a very, and, and Hoover Digest is done.
The ma the publication folded over this last issue and I was their
sole illustrator for 26 years.
And now I had a great deal of fun.
Skewering Barack Obama and Joe Biden, uh, very end of Bill Clinton's term with them.
Uh, but I had to go easier on George W. Bush and, I didn't like doing that.
it was certainly true as well with Trump, although with the Hoover Institution,
which publishes the, which published the Hoover Digest, they were a really kind
of mixed feelings about Trump, because Trump, the traditional Hoover institution
outlook is being Reaganomics, Milton Friedman, that kind of economics and of
course NeoCon conservative foreign policy.
Mm-hmm.
And Trump is very much.
challenged both of those notions and the Hoover Institution, uh, tried,
um, dancing around all of that.
But I, I'll tell you, Daryl, there are a lot of Trump pieces
I drew for Hoover Digest that I've not posted with you because,
well, you know, the classic story you hear from editorial cartoonists is that
they got in trouble for drawing the guy who's a friend of the publisher that he
plays golf with, everybody that has a job is working under somebody's thumb.
You know, now with our, our syndicate, we don't tell people what to draw,
but very definitely, if they don't.
Draw what editors want and their stuff doesn't get published anywhere.
Their cartoon has failed.
by the measure of, wanting to communicate with your audience, you got no audience.
we're all under some kind of a thumb.
That's true.
I mean, by the way, I think, I think there's, there's partisanship that I, I
have a big problem with sometimes and I, I, I see it more in the United States.
You're either a Democrat or a Republican and it shows, and I, I get that, but
it's also, it's just, it's going against the guy who's in control of our, and
it doesn't matter whether a Republican or a, do you think Graham do Democrat?
They both, they both become corrupt in, in time and, and.
You know, it, it happened, you know, Biden, you know, he
became a little bit corrupt.
Trump obviously is very corrupt, but they all, they all become bad
eventually, and it's up to us to like, you know, draw, draw it all out.
Graham, do you think that, do you think that Canada benefits in
the, at least to some degree, by having a parliamentary democracy?
Because you can have, I, I understand.
Well, you can have smaller parties that have actual representation in, parliament.
Now I understand that this most recent Canadian election, the green, the, the
party, the block Quebecois declined.
The, um, green party declined
the ndp.
Most importantly, the, the, the, was it the new liberals?
Is that what it's called?
It's called the New Democratic Party,
new
Democrats.
And, and so in a way, maybe right now Canada's becoming more polarized as is
Absolutely.
As the US is, but, but I think for instance.
you wonder if you go back to, say, way back, and forgive me, Daryl, for making
historical reference that's, that's not related to this, but in 2000, if,
during that election Ralph Nader's Green Party had been able to win votes in an
American Parliament and then Gore and Nader could have formed a government,
I, that might have been a better thing.
but I I, I would think Graham, that that Canada is better off with a parliament.
I wish we had a parliamentary democracy.
Yeah.
Well there's, there's the pros and the cons basically.
Uh, but, uh, you would've had a completely different.
Uh, outcome.
If Ralph Nader's votes were counted in that election, then you would've
had a Gore coalition, I guess.
Right?
Exactly.
In the parliamentary system, you wouldn't have had, George W. Bush and Right.
You know, it is a disenfranchising thing in, in a lot of senses here
with the United States, I assume a lot of people just don't get their
vote counted and it's for third parties, it's just a wasted vote.
And, the same can be said in Canada, though.
I mean, if I vote the Green Party, it's like it's fitted away and
I end up being a conservative or a liberal member of Parliament.
It's like, I just, so what the popular vote is?
Just the popular vote and it just goes to, you know, yeah.
The, the history books, who cares?
You know, here's another Biden looking Uncle Sam.
Yeah.
You know, I, I, I have to say that a lot of Luo Jie's work is
technically really well done.
Yeah.
this is one of them, but a great, many of the cartoons here, they one ways back
with the windmill, just the way he had the donkey and the, uh, knight, uh, I
guess the kind of Don Quixote, hanging from the, what do you call them, the fins,
the sails of the, uh, of the windmill.
Very, very well done.
You know, Daryl, that's part of the thing maybe about Lord G'S cartoons being
that they are somewhat propagandistic.
You know, uh,
maybe propagandistic by definition, because his employer newspaper
is the government itself.
And, uh, cartoonists who work for American newspapers, their
employer newspaper has freedom of the press and they own the press.
Uh mm-hmm.
Freedom of the press only belongs to the person that owns the press.
So, um, well,
but that's another reason why we're not, you know, we're not, um, getting all
excited about these, about these cartoons.
Well, from what I know from other repressive regimes, I, I, I know
quite a few Cuban artists, they don't tend to do anything really political.
They tend to be very social, but very cutting in a way that you can't.
You can't even do a lot of the, the, the content that you get in, in some of these,
um, Cuban papers, but they're more social commentaries than political commentaries
because the, they're just used to having the same regime over and over and
there's nothing good to say about them.
So they go after, you know, morals and that sort of thing that I think
are resonate more with readers than, than these somewhat propagandist, I
hate to say this because I, he's a colleague and everything, but, but
they tend to come off a little bit too from the, Chinese, uh, government and.
You
propaganda humor isn't very funny.
No, it's not.
You know, it's like, it's, it's, it's like Fox News humor isn't very funny.
It's not, no, it's not satire.
We've got two, uh, two Cuban cartoonists in Cagle Cartoons.
Mm-hmm.
Angel Bogan, who's the cartoonist in Mexico City and
Simanca a cartoonist in Brazil.
Mm-hmm.
And they're both brilliant cartoonists.
They're Cubans?
And they're, yeah.
And they're both, part of this, uh, Cuban cartoonist diaspora through South
America that is, uh, they all know each other and they're buddies and, they
have this common shared excellence.
There's a bunch of great cartoonists in, in Cuba and, and odd that they
would've developed that, excellence in cartooning given that they have no place
to, uh, virtually no place to publish.
Um mm-hmm.
I think a lot of Latin American cartoonists.
Have a great graphic sense.
It's a, something that traces back to murals and their, and you know, their
graffiti is a cut above American graffiti.
They just have a way that way, I believe.
And it's much, it's much admired.
It's much in the culture.
It's much, much admired,
much.
And they're able to do it without words, which I find is quite fascinating.
Yeah, of
course.
I, you know, I wonder, I'm just talking off the top of my head here, that's
mostly what I do all the time anyway, but you figured that how many, decades
or longer, uh, did they have to kind of work in an underground kind of way?
Because of the repressive regimes?
Mm-hmm.
The fascistic regimes that ran so many, of, uh, Latin American countries.
Yeah.
You know, it really makes you think, I mean, what do we do?
Sometimes we just complain about attacks or something, and they're complaining
about, you know, so bombs going off and, and, you know, a, a whole town
being wiped out, what one town over and, and here we are complaining
about what first world problems.
Daryl, could you go back to that previous cartoon?
I think that's a fine cartoon.
That's a very, it's a little subtle, but I think it's a, it's a very good concept.
What do you think?
Well, I noticed that the depiction of, uh, China for Luo Jie is this
every man sympathetic Chinese guy who suffers from what's around him.
I didn't think he was Chinese, so forget what I just said.
Because this, every man kinda looks, just, looks like a, just like an
every, every, every man American.
But he is got dark hair.
Doesn't look, I'm, I'm, I'm probably being, uh, racist now,
but he doesn't look Chinese
does to you.
We'll, uh,
we'll send a letter.
Not looking Chinese enough.
There he is again.
Yeah.
Hmm.
No, he is not mar wearing a mouse suit or anything like that.
I mean, that would be obvious.
You know,
Americans would, would put Uncle Sam into that position.
You know, I loved, I loved, uh, elephant's Uncle Sam because he, he
was basically WC fields and, he looked a lot like WC fields and he was fat.
Not the skinny Uncle Sam that so many of us.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Well drawn.
I love the, I love the skulls in that.
Mm-hmm.
You know, they'll little, a light in it.
Drawings.
Yep.
The powerful Dollar
Disney,
they do have quite a few editorial cartoons in China.
And of course, Luo Jie draws for the government newspaper, but,
other newspapers aren't government newspapers, but their content is
just as government, newspapery as the government, newspaper ones.
There's no range of opinion.
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Um, do you have any cartoons?
Is are you gonna be featuring Luo Jie cartoons?
I guess we'll see.
That aren't about the U.S. That that, um,
no, I picked the ones that were about the U.S. The theme is
China's view of the United States.
Okay.
Sorry.
You can, you can delete that part.
We gave, we gave a little bit of our view of China.
Uh, but, uh, I think Luo Jie is very representative of, at least
the point of view you'd get from all the cartoonists in China.
They have some range of, of styles.
Of course.
I I mean they're pretty vast.
They've got a vast bunch of cartoonists.
Yeah.
And again, I mean, I could do this with beavers instead of monkeys.
I can, this is what's happening between Canada and the US right now.
Think you should do.
You should do, just like cartoon Grant.
Well, I, I might in the next three and a half years, I'm, I'll just
copy what this, this fellow is doing and I, I think they're great.
But, you know, I'll become a propagandist for Canada.
Do I?
Do I want that?
No, but I doing that anyway.
I'm doing that.
That's the problem.
This is interesting.
I kind like this one.
You might be right,
is, is Luo Jie starting to convince you of the Chinese point of view?
Taylor?
I'll tell you, I like, I really, you know, I've, I've done a lot of, uh, uh, this
one I've done a lot of, uh, waterfall, cartoons and this is a great one.
And just, just graphically great one.
Well, I see Mr. Trump is going to be signing some kind of deal in
the next month or so with China.
Uh, I bet you anything,
he hasn't signed any trade deals yet, and they're talking about how
they're gonna do 'em, but, I don't see anything happening towards that.
I think Canada, the United States and a lot of Western countries are
addicted to Chinese products and
there's
no getting away from it.
He can do whatever he wants, try to bring Chinese companies to, to, uh, America.
It's not gonna happen.
It's just not gonna
happen.
Well, you know, uh, it would really help our trade deficit if Americas
didn't spend so much on so much stuff.
Yeah.
Myself included.
Yeah.
And, uh, that would, that would probably do better than tariffs, I think,
in, uh, reducing our trade deficit.
You gotta unscramble the eggs that have been going on for, what, 25 years?
like, oh yeah.
Go to Target, go to Walmart.
I, I've been there in the US and they're all Chinese products.
Good luck.
You wanna make, you wanna produce rag rag factories in, or
you wanna make rags in the us?
Good luck.
You guys going after the semiconductors.
You should be going after what they're doing.
And I know you're doing that in New York state, and I think Biden was talking
about that when he was president, bringing these chip factories to New
York State and other states of the us.
Well, you know, I wonder and that's what they should go
after.
I mean, Trump's idea is that, uh, you know, there's gonna be so much winning.
everybody around the world is going, is gonna be winning, but we're
gonna be winning the most of all.
And I find that a little, you know, if you have a, in the middle of the,
uh, baseball season, if you got a, couple, two or three teams on a tear
and they have over, over 600 average, you're gonna have some teams with a
300 average, you can't get around it.
So I don't know how everybody can win, but the United States is
gonna be the biggest winner of all.
I just don't see how that works.
Well, you're in a trade agreement with my country.
You know, we, we signed this thing, he signed it the last time
when, in 2018 or whatever, and he said it was the best deal ever.
And now he's saying it's the worst deal ever.
Yeah.
But which is it?
And we've basically been, in the last three decades, we've been in a free trade
agreement with, with the United States.
And all of a sudden we're, we we're being told it's no good anymore to you.
And, and we've been building cars for, for decades, and now we're being told
that we're not gonna help you out.
We don't.
He goes on saying, we don't need Canada.
Well, you actually do need Canada.
You need Canada for a lot of resources and everything like that.
What are you gonna do?
You're gonna make us the, is that your plan to make Canada the 51st
state in order to get those resources?
Not, that's not the way it happens.
That's not the way it works.
and I don't think a lot of Americans are buying it, even though, you know,
Ms. Levitt keeps talking about it.
And every, and again, I said this before to you, Daryl, every time I hear him say.
it'd be nice for, for Canada to become the 51st state.
Every Canadian, there's 40 some odd million of us, wants to just punch him
in the face every time he says that.
It is just so offensive.
And he says it like every other day it seems, and it's just, it's galling and
it just makes us more anti-American.
I love America.
I, I'm married to America.
I go to America all the time.
I'm the least anti-American person, but I'm becoming more anti-American by the day
because of your president and I, and it's, um, it's sad and it's, there's a, there's
so much damage happening all the time.
Well, you're, you're, I'll tell
you, Graham, your anger and disappointment throughout this,
uh, podcast has seemed genuine.
And, and, and of course, what's so strange about it is that
wasn't true two years ago.
And, uh, it's really, or six months ago, really,
you know, uh,
by the way, do you think, do you think Trump even knows that
Canada's made of provinces?
No, that's, I've discussed this before and it's like we're, we're made up
of like 13 provinces and territories, and we're a very rich country.
We've been around for, maybe a hundred years less than than the us but we're one
of the oldest competitive Yeah, exactly.
We're one of the oldest confederations federations in, in the world.
You know, we're not like, we're also a G seven country.
We fought against, you know, tyranny back in the forties.
I know, like things have kind of gone downhill with, with Canada in the
United States, but we've also like bought into the American, economy
and, and, and we're partners with you.
But all of a sudden it just kind of ended, a few months ago.
And Trump wants, you know, he doesn't wanna have anything to do with us
and it's very offensive and, um, hopefully, We just sort of hope
that, oh, he's gonna come around.
And eventually we've got a new Prime Minister.
It was Justin Trudeau, you know, teed him off so much with his socks
and his wokey ways and everything.
And hopefully the new Prime Minister will change everything they're
gonna meet, like next week at the White House is gonna be huge news.
And, uh, we're gonna hope that things turn around, but they won't, you know, maybe
like a shouting three and a half years of,
I love that.
Well, keep in mind from our perspective here in California, we've got this
long list of Trump issues and one of them on the list is Canada.
and it's a very long list.
you know,
well, you might become part of our, our country, California.
You might, uh, come on.
We, we could use you,
I wonder if, uh, do you think if, uh, Trump were to succeed and.
Absorbing the, uh, Canada and the us.
British Columbia would become American.
Columbia.
I guess it would have to.
I, I, I think, uh, Alberta has a better chance of becoming
the, the 51st state than, yeah.
That, that thing, because as I
understand it, provinces like, well, I don't know.
Now I guess everything's changed.
But, but a few years ago, provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan, they
almost would've been happiest states.
And, uh, I mean, not really, but you know, in, in, in terms of
their political attitudes, well,
I think the, the poll said that 20% of Canadians would be happy to be
become part of to the United States, and that's, uh, that was alarming.
Most of them live in Saskatchewan and in Alberta.
I think although you have them scattered around, I mean, you'll
find them all over the place in Nova Scotia and in British Columbia.
but yeah, I, think it will be very difficult though for Alberta.
I think the interesting thing that's happening is that Quebec is the,
the normal separatist province in this country, and they've
actually become more Canadian.
They've been more, they've realized we've got a better off being in Canada than say,
in the United States because we will lose all of our cultural and linguistic rights
if we become part of Trump's America.
Yeah.
So that whole thing has swung around and that's part of the reason why,
um, uh, Mark Carney won a, a second, well, he won the first mandate, and.
It is up to Alberta and things may get kind of dicey in the next, uh, few
months, depending on how we go with our resource with, with the, the oil in,
in Alberta and everything like that.
And, um, who knows, there may be more and more rhetoric towards Alberta
becoming independent, whether it becomes more towards inclined to the
United States or becomes an independent country landlocked in North America.
Who knows?
anything can happen.
It's exciting times in Canada.
it's all because of Donald Trump.
And, you know, things are gonna get interesting.
Well, you know, we're worried.
We're worried he is gonna rename some of those great lakes.
So Lake Ontario, lake Melania become Lake Trump.
Or Lake or Lake Melania or Lake Barron or whatever.
Who knows?
Okay, gentlemen, we go back to you.
We can go back to you, Darryl.
Thank you so much.
And, uh, hey, please remember to subscribe to the Caglecast.
We really need for you to subscribe and support your cartoonists.
Go to cagle.com/subscribe and get our, free daily, cartoon newsletter.
And, come back for the next one and it'll be a good one.
Subscribe, subscribe.
Gentlemen, thank you again.
Thank you.
Nice meeting you Graham.
Good to meet you, Taylor.
I have so much editing to do on this one.
Oh, I'm
sorry.
Okay.
Alright.
Alright then.
Bye everybody.
All.
See you guys later.
See you.
Bye-bye.
And uh, thank you so much everybody.
My pleasure.