WEBVTT 00:00:00.568 --> 00:00:04.228 Hi, I'm Daryl Cagle, and today we're talking about crooks, bad editors, AI, 00:00:05.117 --> 00:00:09.338 and plagiarists, and all things that are killing our editorial cartoon profession 00:00:09.638 --> 00:00:11.808 even faster than newspapers are dying. 00:00:11.808 --> 00:00:12.597 So let's take a look. 00:00:12.597 --> 00:00:15.248 I've got all kinds of provocative examples. 00:00:15.288 --> 00:00:16.478 This is a well-known one. 00:00:16.478 --> 00:00:19.248 This is the cartoon that got The New York Times to say that they would 00:00:19.248 --> 00:00:21.627 never print editorial cartoons again. 00:00:21.808 --> 00:00:25.648 This is by a Portuguese cartoonist, Antonio Antunes, 00:00:25.718 --> 00:00:29.277 and it ran in the international edition of The New York Times. 00:00:29.277 --> 00:00:32.518 It caused our cartoonist, Patrick Chappatte, to lose his regular 00:00:32.518 --> 00:00:35.367 job drawing for the international edition of The New York Times. 00:00:35.407 --> 00:00:41.278 The Times claims that this cartoon was approved by a junior editor in the middle 00:00:41.278 --> 00:00:43.958 of the night at their Hong Kong bureau. 00:00:43.997 --> 00:00:48.948 When newspapers print cartoons that are objectionable, they often don't blame the 00:00:48.948 --> 00:00:50.798 editor, but just blame the cartoonist. 00:00:50.798 --> 00:00:53.137 Here, The New York Times is blaming all cartoons. 00:00:53.367 --> 00:00:57.237 I think cartoons are just so provocative that The New York Times can't stand 00:00:57.238 --> 00:00:59.367 them by any artist in any form. 00:00:59.367 --> 00:01:03.627 So cartoonist Patrick Chappatte gets kicked out because another cartoonist 00:01:03.628 --> 00:01:06.578 drew a cartoon that they didn't like that he had nothing to do with. 00:01:06.708 --> 00:01:08.727 So what's up with this cartoon? 00:01:08.778 --> 00:01:10.757 I'm the guy that kills the cartoons for the syndicate. 00:01:10.818 --> 00:01:13.638 We're fine with cartoons that criticize Israel, that criticize Netanyahu, 00:01:14.758 --> 00:01:19.517 but there are certain tropes that are offensive that we want to avoid. 00:01:19.617 --> 00:01:23.117 And we get a lot of that from the foreign cartoonists because cartoonists like to 00:01:23.117 --> 00:01:29.068 draw Nazis, and cartoonists are generally insensitive to all of these tropes that 00:01:29.068 --> 00:01:33.467 are antisemitic and, uh, just ground where cartoonists should no longer tread. 00:01:33.497 --> 00:01:38.167 We have to be a little more careful about this because of the history of cartoons 00:01:38.168 --> 00:01:42.738 in this area, and that, that, that job falls to me at the syndicate level. 00:01:42.837 --> 00:01:46.628 But here, The New York Times, which should have killed this cartoon and 00:01:46.637 --> 00:01:50.597 should have done a better job of having an editor judge it, they're going 00:01:50.637 --> 00:01:53.797 crazy by banning all cartoons forever. 00:01:54.028 --> 00:01:56.818 You know, it's unfair to cartoonists who didn't draw this cartoon. 00:01:57.207 --> 00:02:00.507 Now, here is a cartoon that I drew that has some similarities 00:02:00.507 --> 00:02:02.167 that didn't get any complaints. 00:02:02.308 --> 00:02:05.467 This was a few years earlier in the Obama administration, 00:02:05.467 --> 00:02:07.747 and I drew Netanyahu as a dog. 00:02:07.787 --> 00:02:12.087 I drew, uh, a Star of David around his dog collar, like you 00:02:12.087 --> 00:02:13.357 saw in the previous cartoon. 00:02:13.962 --> 00:02:14.661 All right. 00:02:14.732 --> 00:02:17.031 But, you know, this seems to be kind of similar. 00:02:17.221 --> 00:02:21.802 It doesn't have the trope about Jews being the bosses of the world leaders, 00:02:22.122 --> 00:02:25.631 but, you know, it does have them kind of taking advantage of a world leader. 00:02:25.631 --> 00:02:29.481 Anyway, I thought this was similar, didn't get in any trouble, which shows 00:02:29.531 --> 00:02:34.371 that these are not real clear lines that you can draw as to what's going to cause 00:02:34.402 --> 00:02:36.462 trouble and what needs to be killed. 00:02:36.781 --> 00:02:40.262 So I thought I would take my own lumps and show you that one. 00:02:40.311 --> 00:02:42.572 Here's another one that caused a bunch of trouble for us. 00:02:42.621 --> 00:02:45.691 This is by Monte Wolverton, our Cagle cartoonist. 00:02:45.781 --> 00:02:50.541 This ran in The Philadelphia Inquirer and caused quite a hubbub in Philadelphia. 00:02:50.541 --> 00:02:55.601 The newspaper apologized for running the cartoon, and they printed an editorial and 00:02:55.611 --> 00:03:00.501 had, uh, a lot of debate on social media about this, and the media covered it. 00:03:00.541 --> 00:03:04.861 Fox News had stories, "Liberal Cartoonist Draws Antisemitic 00:03:04.911 --> 00:03:07.051 Cartoon." It was quite the hubbub. 00:03:07.172 --> 00:03:12.141 Well, I didn't catch this one before it came up, and we did have our prohibition 00:03:12.141 --> 00:03:15.892 against Star of David without an Israeli flag on it, so I should have 00:03:15.911 --> 00:03:17.191 caught this and killed it earlier. 00:03:17.191 --> 00:03:22.602 But I caught it a few minutes in, and Monte made this change, which 00:03:22.622 --> 00:03:24.601 is kind of an insignificant change. 00:03:24.611 --> 00:03:29.811 Anyway, this first cartoon made the rounds in the media, and Monte and I 00:03:29.942 --> 00:03:33.902 have to acknowledge that any boot is a Nazi boot, so this is violating our 00:03:33.902 --> 00:03:39.891 policy in two areas, the not a flag and the Nazi reference for any Jews 00:03:39.902 --> 00:03:42.331 or any Israeli metaphor cartoons. 00:03:42.421 --> 00:03:44.761 So this one got an apology from the artist. 00:03:44.762 --> 00:03:47.761 The newspaper ran the apology very big, and that was the 00:03:47.762 --> 00:03:49.311 end of the hubbub on this one. 00:03:49.561 --> 00:03:53.991 This is an example of a kind of cartoon that we get all the time. 00:03:53.991 --> 00:03:56.571 I would say we've probably gotten a dozen of these. 00:03:56.591 --> 00:04:01.652 This is, again, by, uh, Antonio Antunes from Portugal, and it's, uh, one of 00:04:01.681 --> 00:04:07.981 those antisemitic tropes that you see recurring, the Jews killed Christ trope. 00:04:07.991 --> 00:04:09.571 They call them blood libels. 00:04:09.711 --> 00:04:13.081 And we would not allow this, but this wasn't our cartoon. 00:04:13.082 --> 00:04:15.761 Here's another one from Aris, a Cuban cartoonist. 00:04:15.781 --> 00:04:20.631 There are ideas that we just get over and over and over again, and we're 00:04:20.631 --> 00:04:25.921 constantly killing cartoons that, for us, cross the line into being antisemitic. 00:04:26.041 --> 00:04:30.962 So this is, I guess, the number one area of what I kill after sexual, 00:04:30.962 --> 00:04:32.762 explicit, and obscene cartoons. 00:04:32.991 --> 00:04:37.081 This is another area where we have, uh, problems these days. 00:04:37.111 --> 00:04:42.791 This is the cartoon that got cartoonist Michael de Adder fired from his job. 00:04:43.181 --> 00:04:46.802 He was a cartoonist for the Halifax group of newspapers in Canada. 00:04:46.891 --> 00:04:50.941 He was also a cartoonist for two or three years for The Washington 00:04:50.941 --> 00:04:52.882 Post, along with Ann Telnaes. 00:04:52.931 --> 00:04:54.171 He's a great cartoonist. 00:04:54.171 --> 00:04:58.296 He's, he's in our group. Uh, and I think this is a great cartoon. 00:04:58.316 --> 00:05:03.766 That was a, a famous photo of a drowned refugee that was making the rounds at 00:05:03.766 --> 00:05:08.266 the time, so people recognized that and they recognized Trump's indifference 00:05:08.266 --> 00:05:09.686 and his playing golf every day. 00:05:09.686 --> 00:05:12.306 And I, I think it's a great cartoon, but it got him fired. 00:05:12.405 --> 00:05:17.207 And the problem with this cartoon, I think, was just that it was strong and 00:05:17.207 --> 00:05:20.868 it was criticizing Trump, and that's not what the newspaper group wanted, and 00:05:20.878 --> 00:05:22.948 that's what got the cartoonist fired. 00:05:23.008 --> 00:05:26.168 Here is another cartoon that caused a big hubbub for us. 00:05:26.168 --> 00:05:30.068 This is our Cagle cartoonist at the time, David Fitzsimmons, who was drawing 00:05:30.068 --> 00:05:32.128 for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. 00:05:32.178 --> 00:05:37.217 This is during the George Floyd protests, and it just shows that 00:05:37.227 --> 00:05:43.317 this George Floyd incident is nothing new and a continuation of history. 00:05:43.357 --> 00:05:48.707 This was run in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and editorial 00:05:48.708 --> 00:05:55.477 cartoons are part of state-mandated AP History testing in 11th grade. 00:05:55.537 --> 00:06:00.428 And a teacher who's required to use editorial cartoons in her lessons 00:06:00.428 --> 00:06:04.787 picked this out of the Texas newspaper and used it in her Texas classroom 00:06:04.787 --> 00:06:08.417 as part of a lesson plan where she didn't present any opinion with it. 00:06:08.438 --> 00:06:11.438 She was asking, "Well, what is the cartoon saying? What's the cartoonist's 00:06:11.447 --> 00:06:15.277 point of view?" Which is typically what you see on the AP History test. 00:06:15.438 --> 00:06:20.587 Well, this caused a conflagration in Texas, and Texas Governor Greg 00:06:20.637 --> 00:06:25.697 Abbott demanded that the teacher be fired and launched an official 00:06:25.697 --> 00:06:27.887 state investigation into the teacher. 00:06:28.008 --> 00:06:33.107 It made a lot of press, and Abbott was screaming about it for a while, and I've 00:06:33.107 --> 00:06:36.417 got to say, to the school district's credit, they didn't release the name 00:06:36.417 --> 00:06:38.457 of the teacher, which was very nice. 00:06:38.508 --> 00:06:43.408 And the Star-Telegram ran a nice article that, uh, Dave Fitzsimmons and I wrote. 00:06:43.487 --> 00:06:47.978 So I think this is a great cartoon, and I think it makes a point very effectively. 00:06:48.207 --> 00:06:52.397 This is a cartoon that I drew some years ago about an event in Mexico 00:06:52.408 --> 00:06:56.977 where there was a massacre and drug dealers killed a bunch of people, 00:06:57.008 --> 00:07:02.837 and, uh, the cartoon simply means that the violence in Mexico is bad. 00:07:02.877 --> 00:07:06.878 They're-- The biggest newspaper chain in Mexico ran my cartoon on 00:07:06.878 --> 00:07:08.867 the front page of their newspapers. 00:07:08.917 --> 00:07:12.378 Um, scandalous cartoon in the United States. 00:07:12.417 --> 00:07:17.538 This terrible American cartoonist is disrespecting the Mexican flag. 00:07:17.607 --> 00:07:22.137 And I got tons of mail from people that were angry and offended by this. 00:07:22.277 --> 00:07:27.127 The State Department in Mexico filed a formal complaint with the United States 00:07:27.137 --> 00:07:32.678 State Department about this insult, and they contacted the heads of MSNBC. 00:07:32.787 --> 00:07:35.818 I was the cartoonist for MSNBC at the time, and they 00:07:35.818 --> 00:07:37.697 complained directly to MSNBC. 00:07:37.707 --> 00:07:41.878 And to their credit, MSNBC was very nice and supportive on this and didn't 00:07:41.878 --> 00:07:43.727 apologize, didn't take the cartoon down. 00:07:43.797 --> 00:07:48.617 And I've got to say that I am not sensitive to the criticism about people 00:07:48.647 --> 00:07:54.207 being offended when their revered state symbols are not respected. 00:07:54.387 --> 00:07:58.777 Because state symbols like a flag, that's regular fodder for editorial cartoonists. 00:07:59.448 --> 00:08:03.567 We use flags in cartoons all the time, and I'm not going to worry about it. 00:08:03.637 --> 00:08:06.347 I think this was a bunch of hubbub about nothing. 00:08:06.347 --> 00:08:10.049 But this, you know, this newspaper group has tons of newspapers in all the 00:08:10.049 --> 00:08:14.960 metropolitan areas of Mexico, and boy, did I get the angry email on this one. 00:08:14.960 --> 00:08:16.310 This one was kind of crazy. 00:08:16.479 --> 00:08:21.539 So this cartoon is by our cartoonist in Slovakia, Martin Sutovec, 00:08:21.590 --> 00:08:23.380 who goes by the name Shooty. 00:08:23.429 --> 00:08:25.289 You see he signs his cartoons Shooty. 00:08:25.619 --> 00:08:27.249 That's something foreign cartoonists do. 00:08:27.309 --> 00:08:29.529 They have pen names, and that's kind of fun. 00:08:29.599 --> 00:08:30.450 I like pen names. 00:08:30.570 --> 00:08:36.439 This is Slovakia's terrible president, Fico, who is still their president. 00:08:36.549 --> 00:08:39.159 Fico, I guess, had back problems. 00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:40.139 He had a sore back. 00:08:40.139 --> 00:08:44.950 So this shows Fico going to the doctor, and the doctor says wording 00:08:44.950 --> 00:08:49.649 that essentially means, "You don't have any back problem. You can't 00:08:49.660 --> 00:08:55.379 have any back problem because you're spineless." And this offended the 00:08:55.410 --> 00:09:01.329 president of Slovakia so much that he sued Shooty and his newspaper for the 00:09:01.369 --> 00:09:05.489 emotional distress that it caused him for the insult that he has suffered. 00:09:05.529 --> 00:09:09.770 Well, around the world, one way that authoritarian governments 00:09:09.779 --> 00:09:14.709 have of punishing dissent and punishing cartoonists is lawsuits. 00:09:14.749 --> 00:09:18.090 Because lawsuits are expensive, cartoonists can't afford them unless their 00:09:18.090 --> 00:09:22.039 newspaper defends them, and then it's a way of attacking newspapers because 00:09:22.039 --> 00:09:23.889 it's expensive for the newspaper, too. 00:09:23.979 --> 00:09:28.039 This court case went all the way to the Slovakian Supreme Court. 00:09:28.099 --> 00:09:30.689 And I should mention Slovakia is an EU country. 00:09:30.759 --> 00:09:34.899 By their charter, they're supposed to have a free press, and this is an example 00:09:34.899 --> 00:09:37.110 of exactly what a free press is not. 00:09:37.289 --> 00:09:40.749 At least to their credit, not much credit, but to their credit, the 00:09:40.749 --> 00:09:45.229 Supreme Court found for the cartoonist and the newspaper in this case. 00:09:45.349 --> 00:09:50.419 But the fact that it even went beyond the, the first courts and went to the Supreme 00:09:50.419 --> 00:09:54.969 Court and cost them all that money to defend this case is terrible and why our 00:09:54.969 --> 00:09:57.180 profession is suffering around the world. 00:09:57.219 --> 00:10:02.809 The worst regimes send the cartoonists to jail or beat them or even kill them. 00:10:02.819 --> 00:10:07.519 But the moderately bad regimes, like Slovakia, sue them. 00:10:07.579 --> 00:10:12.189 Yeah, so they just can't afford to criticize the government, and it creates 00:10:12.189 --> 00:10:15.619 a situation where cartoonists have to double-think what they're saying, 00:10:15.660 --> 00:10:18.339 and it is chilling and effective. 00:10:18.560 --> 00:10:20.870 Another nail in our profession's coffin. 00:10:21.620 --> 00:10:25.630 This is a cartoonist, Adam Zyglis, a Cagle cartoonist who is the cartoonist 00:10:25.630 --> 00:10:31.250 for the Buffalo News in upstate New York, and he drew this cartoon that's 00:10:31.260 --> 00:10:33.770 critical of the Trump supporters. 00:10:33.780 --> 00:10:38.069 The MAGA guy and the MAGA holds a, a help sign, and government is the 00:10:38.069 --> 00:10:42.789 problem, not the solution, as he's being swept away in the Texas floods 00:10:42.829 --> 00:10:45.189 that FEMA didn't help him deal with. 00:10:45.269 --> 00:10:48.299 This cartoon got death threats for Adam. 00:10:48.359 --> 00:10:52.930 He and the newspaper were so troubled by so many death threats that they 00:10:52.930 --> 00:10:57.189 had to cancel some events and put more protection around Adam, and this was, uh, 00:10:57.259 --> 00:10:59.449 you know, a very, uh, disturbing event. 00:10:59.559 --> 00:11:04.359 What happens when you offend someone with a cartoon is that it's almost 00:11:04.359 --> 00:11:09.249 always a minority of readers that are extremely offended by the 00:11:09.250 --> 00:11:15.029 cartoon for whatever reason that is dear to that minority of readers. 00:11:15.079 --> 00:11:21.329 And typically, there is an organization or some organized effort to spread the 00:11:21.329 --> 00:11:25.989 word to threaten the cartoonist or to demand that the cartoonist be fired 00:11:26.050 --> 00:11:30.130 or to create so much unpleasantness for the newspaper or the cartoonist 00:11:30.189 --> 00:11:34.849 that they'll think twice about making the, the criticism or the type of 00:11:34.849 --> 00:11:38.969 statement that was so offensive to the minority group of readers. 00:11:39.029 --> 00:11:43.989 Uh, this cartoon was drawn by Mike Thompson for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. 00:11:44.020 --> 00:11:47.719 Now, you know, the Minneapolis Star Tribune had our cartoonist, Steve 00:11:47.719 --> 00:11:50.259 Sack, as their cartoonist for decades. 00:11:50.259 --> 00:11:54.139 He was a real star, and he retired for health reasons. 00:11:54.139 --> 00:11:58.880 And the newspaper, having just gone off of their beloved cartoonist, decided that 00:11:58.910 --> 00:12:02.629 they wanted to have another cartoonist who made his home at the newspaper, 00:12:02.629 --> 00:12:04.689 and which is very unusual these days. 00:12:04.689 --> 00:12:06.989 You know, cartoonists are all losing their jobs. 00:12:07.129 --> 00:12:12.922 So they held an open submissions call, and, uh, cartoonists from 00:12:12.922 --> 00:12:14.092 all over the country submitted. 00:12:14.092 --> 00:12:15.392 They got lots of submissions. 00:12:15.422 --> 00:12:19.902 They got a small group of finalists that they followed up on and held interviews. 00:12:19.902 --> 00:12:25.742 And cartoonist Mike Thompson, who, uh, drew for years for USA Today and 00:12:25.752 --> 00:12:30.371 drew in Detroit, he won the job at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and we 00:12:30.372 --> 00:12:33.352 all gave him our congratulations, and that was very exciting. 00:12:33.361 --> 00:12:34.451 It was a big deal for him. 00:12:34.632 --> 00:12:39.182 The first cartoon that he ever drew on his first day at the Star Tribune was 00:12:39.222 --> 00:12:45.241 this cartoon, and they were having a controversy about broadcasting loud Muslim 00:12:45.241 --> 00:12:50.021 call to prayer through the night, and neighbors were complaining about that. 00:12:50.052 --> 00:12:55.462 And his cartoon compares that to their noisy crime in Minneapolis. 00:12:55.502 --> 00:12:59.962 Well, what people do is they look at the Muslims at the top, and they assume 00:12:59.971 --> 00:13:04.712 that the criminals shooting their guns at night are all Muslims, and this is a 00:13:04.721 --> 00:13:07.541 racial trope of Muslims committing crimes. 00:13:07.541 --> 00:13:12.081 And it was read that way, and it was protested that way, and the Muslims 00:13:12.081 --> 00:13:16.802 were offended, and it made a big, loud hubbub, and the newspaper apologized. 00:13:16.831 --> 00:13:19.222 And that was unfortunate for Mike. 00:13:19.232 --> 00:13:25.941 It set the tone for what his short stay at the Minneapolis Star Tribune would be. 00:13:26.221 --> 00:13:31.721 He was demoted from being an employee to being freelance, and then, uh, they 00:13:31.732 --> 00:13:36.121 dropped Mike, and then they dropped their subscription to Cagle Cartoons, and 00:13:36.141 --> 00:13:38.701 they've pretty much dropped cartoons now. 00:13:38.702 --> 00:13:42.522 And they've dropped their idea that they would have a regular cartoonist, and 00:13:42.581 --> 00:13:47.361 they are no longer a cartoon-friendly newspaper as they had been with their 00:13:47.361 --> 00:13:52.691 rich tradition of editorial cartoons as with Steve Sack for so many years. 00:13:52.721 --> 00:13:56.751 And that's a big loss to our profession, and I'm sorry to see it, and I think it 00:13:56.751 --> 00:14:01.122 comes from a cartoon that I would not have killed that could be misunderstood. 00:14:01.162 --> 00:14:05.431 And that is just, uh, unfortunate and an overreaction from the 00:14:05.431 --> 00:14:09.401 paper, and I'm sorry to see the Minneapolis Star Tribune disappear. 00:14:09.901 --> 00:14:12.162 Hi, I'd like to let you all know about our new 00:14:12.201 --> 00:14:16.451 premium newsletter, which gives you all the cartoons every day. 00:14:16.631 --> 00:14:20.331 You know, we have a free newsletter that, uh, gives you, uh, the top 00:14:20.431 --> 00:14:23.362 three cartoons that are reprinted in newspapers in America every day. 00:14:23.742 --> 00:14:26.261 But this one gives you everything. 00:14:26.431 --> 00:14:30.151 And, you know, the newspapers reprint cartoons that are pretty tame. 00:14:30.451 --> 00:14:33.271 When you get everything, you get the tough, hard-hitting cartoons 00:14:33.322 --> 00:14:36.471 that, uh, it's probably preferable on the internet. 00:14:36.761 --> 00:14:38.948 So give it a try. 00:14:38.997 --> 00:14:44.448 You know, the, the price is, uh, uh, flexible because we appreciate it as 00:14:44.448 --> 00:14:47.557 a donation to the cartoonists, and the cartoonists appreciate your support. 00:14:48.028 --> 00:14:51.007 And, uh, I, I hope you'll, uh, take a look. 00:14:51.458 --> 00:14:54.408 Another problem that we have with cartoonists, cartoons that I 00:14:54.418 --> 00:14:58.767 choose to kill, is the left and the right don't agree on what's true. 00:14:58.848 --> 00:15:01.978 From my perspective as a liberal cartoonist, I have that problem 00:15:01.978 --> 00:15:05.497 more with cartoons from the right, and this is an example of that. 00:15:05.537 --> 00:15:10.228 You know, cartoonists can present an idea as being a true fact in 00:15:10.228 --> 00:15:14.527 a cartoon, depending on how they organize and present that idea. 00:15:14.538 --> 00:15:18.467 So this was during COVID, and the man's watching the TV, presumably 00:15:18.467 --> 00:15:22.547 the news, where it says, "Studies show ivermectin is highly effective 00:15:22.547 --> 00:15:26.997 against COVID-19 and potentially could have saved millions of lives." 00:15:27.038 --> 00:15:32.787 The crazy cow says, "Popcorn?" And the man says, "How is it you media morons spent 00:15:32.797 --> 00:15:39.178 months feeding us bull that it was just horse paste?" Well, actually, ivermectin 00:15:39.217 --> 00:15:43.138 is a medication for deworming horses. 00:15:43.228 --> 00:15:48.538 And the right, along with President Trump, picked this up as a COVID cure 00:15:48.538 --> 00:15:52.308 during the height of all the COVID madness, and it was no cure at all, 00:15:52.338 --> 00:15:54.597 but it became a left-right issue. 00:15:54.647 --> 00:16:00.167 And I had to decide on issues of fact like this, whether to kill cartoons 00:16:00.188 --> 00:16:04.218 when half our audience, the audience on the right, believes that something's 00:16:04.218 --> 00:16:06.338 a fact and it is, in fact, not a fact. 00:16:06.397 --> 00:16:11.618 And I decided that I need to draw the line where a falsehood that's believed 00:16:11.678 --> 00:16:18.478 by the right or the left, if it can cause harm to people in some way that I can 00:16:18.478 --> 00:16:21.298 discern, then I'm going to kill the cartoon. 00:16:21.298 --> 00:16:25.317 And I killed this cartoon, and I killed other ivermectin cartoons to the 00:16:25.317 --> 00:16:27.567 dismay of our conservative cartoonists. 00:16:27.948 --> 00:16:33.017 And I killed cartoons blaming Dominion Voting Systems for throwing the 00:16:33.018 --> 00:16:37.717 election between Trump and Biden, and just because it wasn't true and it 00:16:37.717 --> 00:16:39.937 was unfair to Dominion Voting Systems. 00:16:39.977 --> 00:16:45.737 And, you know, our cartoonists believed very fervently that Venezuela had been 00:16:45.748 --> 00:16:50.438 creating crooked voting machines that fraudulently threw the election, and 00:16:50.447 --> 00:16:53.858 that just wasn't true, and I wasn't going to have it presented as true even 00:16:53.858 --> 00:16:58.808 in cartoons where you're not presenting facts, but you can say things in such a 00:16:58.808 --> 00:17:00.917 way as you seem to be presenting facts. 00:17:00.928 --> 00:17:02.507 So this is one of my rules. 00:17:02.508 --> 00:17:07.387 I have to draw the line between truth and not truth when truth is 00:17:07.398 --> 00:17:12.768 not common to all newspapers and all readers, and that's what I do. 00:17:12.768 --> 00:17:14.907 I'm the guy who kills the cartoons. 00:17:14.977 --> 00:17:18.667 Okay, this cartoon by cartoonist Sandy Huffaker, this is an old one. 00:17:18.667 --> 00:17:20.677 This was during the Iraq War and President Bush. 00:17:20.718 --> 00:17:24.837 This cartoon got us more death threats than any other cartoon we've ever 00:17:24.837 --> 00:17:29.228 had, and these were directed at me, so this was, you know, a little more 00:17:29.228 --> 00:17:33.878 disturbing to me than the usual, uh, hubbub that we have about cartoons. 00:17:33.947 --> 00:17:37.457 So you've got the American soldier who's in Iraq, and he says, 00:17:37.457 --> 00:17:39.527 "Anything in there about gratitude?" 00:17:39.527 --> 00:17:43.467 At the time, the argument was, "Well, they got rid of that evil Saddam 00:17:43.468 --> 00:17:48.287 Hussein, but nobody seems grateful for that." And the Iraqi, who is 00:17:48.317 --> 00:17:52.387 not drawn in a very flattering way, is reading the Quran for Dummies. 00:17:52.387 --> 00:17:59.148 Well, this was offensive to, uh, a very motivated minority of readers, and this 00:17:59.148 --> 00:18:05.907 group called CAIR, C-A-I-R, Council on American-Islamic Relations, put out a 00:18:05.967 --> 00:18:11.477 call to their membership to email me because they perceived that I was the 00:18:11.527 --> 00:18:15.517 person who could fire the cartoonist, demanding that I fire the cartoonist. 00:18:15.567 --> 00:18:20.367 And I got literally thousands of emails, more than 10,000, uh, emails 00:18:20.377 --> 00:18:21.937 demanding that I fire the cartoonist. 00:18:21.978 --> 00:18:27.207 And of those emails, I would say about 600 were in the form of death 00:18:27.207 --> 00:18:31.727 threats, "Fire the cartoonist or else." And not specific death threats 00:18:31.728 --> 00:18:35.727 like, "I know where you live," but, uh, you know, "You're going to die." 00:18:36.032 --> 00:18:36.912 kind of death threats. 00:18:36.922 --> 00:18:40.162 So this was, uh, you know, this is, this is scary stuff. 00:18:40.202 --> 00:18:41.802 Um, what can I say? 00:18:41.802 --> 00:18:45.282 I didn't draw the cartoon, but as the guy who's perceived to 00:18:45.282 --> 00:18:49.622 be able to fire cartoonists that offend, I often draw the fire. 00:18:49.672 --> 00:18:51.491 So here's another one of those. 00:18:51.871 --> 00:18:58.482 This is a cartoon by Sean Delonas, and this is depicting Trump and Netanyahu. 00:18:58.511 --> 00:19:04.162 And Sean described this as, uh, being a kind of a Dante's Inferno 00:19:05.144 --> 00:19:10.784 Hieronymus Bosch kind of takeoff with Trump and Israel and Lindsey Graham 00:19:10.794 --> 00:19:13.544 there, and Ted Cruz and Pete Hegseth. 00:19:13.914 --> 00:19:18.293 Anyway, this group called Pens into Swords, they have about a 00:19:18.294 --> 00:19:23.724 half a dozen WhatsApp groups, each with more than 10,000 subscribers. 00:19:23.984 --> 00:19:29.714 And they put out a form letter that they want the people in these groups to forward 00:19:29.813 --> 00:19:36.493 to me to demand that I fire the cartoonist who drew such an antisemitic cartoon. 00:19:36.824 --> 00:19:40.474 Now, I should say, this doesn't, this doesn't hit the tripwires 00:19:40.723 --> 00:19:43.143 for us of what is antisemitic. 00:19:43.444 --> 00:19:47.284 You see the, the blood money at the top of the tree, which is 00:19:47.284 --> 00:19:49.843 a, another antisemitic trope. 00:19:49.843 --> 00:19:54.364 Uh, but mostly these Pens into Swords people focused on Netanyahu's 00:19:54.743 --> 00:19:59.213 nose being an antisemitic trope, Jews having big noses. 00:19:59.254 --> 00:20:02.224 But, uh, I, you know, I, I don't see it. 00:20:02.353 --> 00:20:06.893 Uh, his nose looks kind of like any cartoonist would draw his nose. 00:20:06.944 --> 00:20:10.664 So I got quite a lot of these demand emails, a lot of them 00:20:10.664 --> 00:20:12.114 just forwarding the form letter. 00:20:12.404 --> 00:20:16.693 And what's interesting about what this Pens into Swords does is that they'll pick 00:20:16.773 --> 00:20:22.483 a bunch of CC email addresses for people that they think will be especially annoyed 00:20:22.533 --> 00:20:27.724 by getting copied on the thousands of emails that are demanding something of me. 00:20:27.724 --> 00:20:31.974 So they had people on the list like the editor of The New Yorker, editors of 00:20:32.014 --> 00:20:38.013 popular big newspapers, other syndicates, so that they would all get bombarded 00:20:38.014 --> 00:20:40.183 with the, the same emails that I get. 00:20:40.483 --> 00:20:43.724 And I understand this group does a, a number of these kind 00:20:43.724 --> 00:20:45.423 of emails on different topics. 00:20:45.424 --> 00:20:50.873 Mostly, I think, punishing BDS organizations that boycott Israel. 00:20:50.964 --> 00:20:55.053 They don't like the boycotting Israel companies, and they want them to feel 00:20:55.094 --> 00:20:59.534 the unpleasantness of all of these carbon copies to people that are also 00:20:59.564 --> 00:21:01.253 annoyed by getting all these emails. 00:21:01.333 --> 00:21:03.233 So that's the story of this one. 00:21:03.314 --> 00:21:08.024 And this, you know, this one had some stuff in it that I think 00:21:08.024 --> 00:21:09.373 was getting close to the line. 00:21:09.424 --> 00:21:13.353 In particular, the one that bothered me was the blood money at the top. 00:21:13.533 --> 00:21:18.533 But I didn't think it went so far as to be something that I should 00:21:18.533 --> 00:21:20.764 kill, so I let this one pass. 00:21:20.833 --> 00:21:23.920 But, you know, it's not a—it's not a clear line. 00:21:23.970 --> 00:21:28.020 This is another one that we had trouble with Sean Delonas on. 00:21:28.090 --> 00:21:31.560 He's got the street gangsters, uh, holding up the couple. 00:21:31.790 --> 00:21:32.710 The man says, 00:21:32.860 --> 00:21:36.640 "Now, honey, I believe they prefer to be called Dreamers or 00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:42.550 future Democrats." Sean is a conservative and, uh, this is a cartoon that, uh, 00:21:42.550 --> 00:21:47.880 offended people and they bombarded the newspaper, the Albuquerque Journal, with 00:21:47.910 --> 00:21:53.410 email and the Journal was troubled by that and they wrote, uh, an apology editorial 00:21:53.460 --> 00:21:56.660 and, uh, this one went on for a while. 00:21:56.710 --> 00:22:02.120 The cartoonist did not apologize in this case, and, um, it, uh, faded away. 00:22:02.330 --> 00:22:03.860 This is a very interesting cartoon. 00:22:03.930 --> 00:22:08.960 This is a rough draft for a cartoon that Ann Telnaes drew for The Washington Post. 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:13.810 And, you know, she had to present this to the editor there for approval, which 00:22:13.810 --> 00:22:15.600 is something that some newspapers do. 00:22:15.600 --> 00:22:18.010 They don't let the cartoonists just draw whatever they want. 00:22:18.040 --> 00:22:21.670 They have the cartoonists get them approved, and this one was not approved. 00:22:21.710 --> 00:22:26.080 And at this time, there was controversy about The Washington Post moving to 00:22:26.080 --> 00:22:32.320 the right and kissing up to Trump, and that is disturbing and has caused 00:22:32.320 --> 00:22:36.379 a drop in readership and a drop in credibility for The Washington Post. 00:22:36.390 --> 00:22:40.839 So here she's showing Jeff Bezos, The Washington Post publisher, and 00:22:40.849 --> 00:22:46.949 I guess that's the publisher of the LA Times and Mark Zuckerberg and the 00:22:47.279 --> 00:22:52.799 ChatGPT CEO presenting their money and their tribute to Trump, along with 00:22:52.849 --> 00:22:55.149 Disney, represented by Mickey Mouse. 00:22:55.179 --> 00:22:56.899 And I think it's a great cartoon. 00:22:56.909 --> 00:22:57.919 The editor killed it. 00:22:57.979 --> 00:23:00.489 And there's an issue that cartoonists have. 00:23:00.529 --> 00:23:04.440 You know, "Draw whatever you want," they'll say, "but don't draw the 00:23:04.440 --> 00:23:08.209 publisher's pal that he plays golf with." There are lines you don't 00:23:08.209 --> 00:23:12.209 cross because that's where the newspaper's bread and butter is. 00:23:12.259 --> 00:23:17.759 And in this case, that should not be where the newspaper's bread and butter is, and 00:23:17.789 --> 00:23:19.989 this was a, a good statement for her. 00:23:20.389 --> 00:23:24.480 The Washington Post editor said that they killed it because they've covered this 00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:27.889 topic before, which is a nonsense reason. 00:23:27.969 --> 00:23:31.899 Anyway, Ann took this as an opportunity to resign. 00:23:31.899 --> 00:23:37.449 I call it an opportunity because she made a very effective argument, and 00:23:37.449 --> 00:23:40.179 this really carried a lot of press. 00:23:40.229 --> 00:23:45.009 And this has got to be about the most effective cartoonist resignation 00:23:45.139 --> 00:23:47.659 that I can think of ever happening. 00:23:47.709 --> 00:23:52.839 I'm very impressed with her for this, and she, she won the Pulitzer Prize this 00:23:52.839 --> 00:23:58.149 year, I think largely because people appreciated her making this statement 00:23:58.149 --> 00:24:03.259 with her resignation and making it so professionally and effectively. 00:24:03.379 --> 00:24:05.690 So kudos to Ann for this. 00:24:05.849 --> 00:24:08.399 I'm just very impressed with this, so, uh, very good. 00:24:08.429 --> 00:24:13.179 This is another example of kind of the same syndrome of the, who's 00:24:13.179 --> 00:24:14.609 the publisher having golf with. 00:24:14.969 --> 00:24:19.659 I was the cartoonist for Gannett's Honolulu Advertiser newspaper. 00:24:20.139 --> 00:24:24.180 And at that time, there was an incident with a, a submarine. 00:24:24.519 --> 00:24:28.710 They had guest celebrities driving the submarine, and they were letting them 00:24:28.739 --> 00:24:32.883 have a joyride, and they could make the submarine go up real fast and pop 00:24:32.923 --> 00:24:37.323 out of the water and pop back down, and that was exciting, like a carnival ride. 00:24:37.353 --> 00:24:40.383 So what happened was they were not being careful with this. 00:24:40.403 --> 00:24:46.113 They hit a school boat teaching Japanese school children how to be fishermen, 00:24:46.153 --> 00:24:50.853 and killed a bunch of Japanese students, and it was a terrible tragedy. 00:24:50.963 --> 00:24:54.363 I drew cartoons that were critical of the Navy. 00:24:54.393 --> 00:24:56.223 Here's celebrities driving the boat. 00:24:56.283 --> 00:24:59.323 And, uh, the newspaper, uh, killed my cartoons. 00:24:59.323 --> 00:25:02.383 I probably drew a dozen of these about that incident. 00:25:02.383 --> 00:25:06.023 It was a big, uh, local story as well as a, a world story. 00:25:06.073 --> 00:25:07.653 It's a terrible tragedy. 00:25:07.693 --> 00:25:10.163 But, um, nope, the newspaper wouldn't have it. 00:25:10.183 --> 00:25:12.423 The newspaper had a relationship with the Navy. 00:25:12.913 --> 00:25:16.483 They said, "This is a Navy town, and we're not going to draw these cartoons that 00:25:16.483 --> 00:25:18.853 are so harsh and critical of the Navy." 00:25:18.923 --> 00:25:21.803 Well, I had just started my syndicate at that time. 00:25:21.803 --> 00:25:23.023 This was year 2000. 00:25:23.053 --> 00:25:27.243 My cartoons were being reprinted in other newspapers, and these cartoons 00:25:27.273 --> 00:25:30.773 about this submarine thing, which was a national story, were, were very 00:25:30.773 --> 00:25:35.303 widely reprinted, I think much to the consternation of the Honolulu Advertiser. 00:25:35.373 --> 00:25:43.753 This is Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma, Myanmar, and when she was the president 00:25:43.753 --> 00:25:49.823 or prime minister, she went from being a Nobel Prize-winning hero to being 00:25:49.823 --> 00:25:52.533 just terrible to the Rohingya minority. 00:25:52.753 --> 00:25:57.804 And I saw that as an evolution, and she was… You know, she was just among 00:25:57.833 --> 00:26:03.693 the people that were the, the worst detractors of this Muslim minority in 00:26:03.703 --> 00:26:07.563 Myanmar, forcing them out of the country, abusing them, burning their towns, 00:26:07.603 --> 00:26:09.993 and that changed my opinion of her. 00:26:09.994 --> 00:26:13.203 I, I certainly don't see her as a hero anymore. 00:26:13.213 --> 00:26:17.343 Now she's in prison again, and I think draws plenty of sympathy, and 00:26:17.353 --> 00:26:20.503 she shouldn't be in prison, but she certainly was bad in my opinion. 00:26:20.523 --> 00:26:25.623 Well, I learned how the people in Myanmar, the majority of them, 00:26:25.643 --> 00:26:30.723 really, really hate those Rohingyas, and I got some interesting cartoon 00:26:30.723 --> 00:26:33.503 commentary back on this on social media. 00:26:33.503 --> 00:26:38.563 This is me, the evolution of Daryl Cagle, with me turning into a pig. 00:26:38.623 --> 00:26:41.683 I gather pigs are not well-respected in Burma. 00:26:41.754 --> 00:26:46.863 Here is Aung San Suu Kyi walking along on top of my heads. 00:26:46.924 --> 00:26:50.973 It's very significant to them, the bottom of your foot. 00:26:51.013 --> 00:26:56.093 The bottom of the foot is a big insult in Myanmar, so I got some 00:26:56.123 --> 00:26:58.053 interesting bottom-of-the-foot cartoons. 00:26:58.254 --> 00:27:00.093 This is me as a dog. 00:27:00.203 --> 00:27:05.413 Dogs are not well-respected, I have learned, in Myanmar, and this is the 00:27:05.424 --> 00:27:11.087 bottom of a dog's foot on my face, which is all the more, uh, disrespect. 00:27:11.097 --> 00:27:16.457 So lots of anger in Myanmar when you complain about Aung San Suu Kyi. 00:27:16.507 --> 00:27:18.497 So switching to plagiarism. 00:27:18.627 --> 00:27:22.207 All these problems for cartoonists, and we keep going with plagiarism. 00:27:22.217 --> 00:27:27.777 This is Jonathan Nacua, who is, I guess, is a college professor in the Philippines, 00:27:27.847 --> 00:27:29.797 and this was sent to me recently. 00:27:29.847 --> 00:27:34.527 I guess there had been a collection of his plagiarized cartoons on social 00:27:34.537 --> 00:27:37.027 media, and somebody sent this to me. 00:27:37.147 --> 00:27:40.307 But they've kind of been scrubbed, and it's hard to find more examples, 00:27:40.317 --> 00:27:43.267 although I'm told there are lots more examples, especially of his 00:27:43.267 --> 00:27:45.577 copying Dave Granlund and Rick McKee. 00:27:45.587 --> 00:27:47.277 So I would like to see some more of these. 00:27:47.277 --> 00:27:51.947 If any of you have Jonathan Nacua plagiarism samples that were passed 00:27:51.947 --> 00:27:54.057 around on social media, I'd appreciate it. 00:27:54.077 --> 00:27:58.627 He seems to be a respected college professor who teaches about editorial 00:27:58.627 --> 00:28:01.977 cartoons and has written a book about how to be an editorial cartoonist. 00:28:02.047 --> 00:28:04.187 And, you know, plagiarism is bad. 00:28:04.227 --> 00:28:05.347 Send me your samples. 00:28:05.517 --> 00:28:05.747 Thanks. 00:28:06.611 --> 00:28:11.551 Here is a cartoon I drew about people graduating but not 00:28:11.561 --> 00:28:13.381 finding jobs when they graduate. 00:28:13.411 --> 00:28:18.311 This is the plagiarized example from a cartoonist who drew for a major 00:28:18.341 --> 00:28:22.681 newspaper in Saudi Arabia, and you can see, look at the positions of 00:28:22.681 --> 00:28:24.211 the people falling off the cliff. 00:28:24.691 --> 00:28:27.181 They match the positions in my cartoon. 00:28:27.281 --> 00:28:32.171 Plagiarism around the world is really not that unusual, especially when they come to 00:28:32.171 --> 00:28:36.961 our site and look back at old cartoons and figure, "Oh, this cartoon from 10 years 00:28:36.961 --> 00:28:41.991 ago, nobody's going to notice that." This is how we feel about our taxes and how they 00:28:41.991 --> 00:28:44.651 feel about their taxes in Saudi Arabia. 00:28:44.881 --> 00:28:47.801 You know, I often draw these old couples in front of the TV. 00:28:48.211 --> 00:28:51.901 This is an old couple in front of the TV by a cartoonist for 00:28:51.961 --> 00:28:54.101 a newspaper in South Africa. 00:28:54.241 --> 00:28:58.741 Notice the bent finger from the man sitting on the couch in his underwear, and 00:28:58.761 --> 00:29:02.261 the bent finger from the man sitting on the couch in his underwear in my drawing. 00:29:02.421 --> 00:29:06.741 These, these images, they're not always traced, but they very often 00:29:06.801 --> 00:29:12.101 like to pick up all these little particular details and copy them, and 00:29:12.101 --> 00:29:13.791 it's another bane for cartoonists. 00:29:13.841 --> 00:29:15.361 I should talk about AI. 00:29:15.361 --> 00:29:20.781 AI is a threat to editorial cartooning, and this cartoon ran as an editorial 00:29:20.781 --> 00:29:23.541 cartoon in the Baltimore Sun newspaper. 00:29:23.671 --> 00:29:27.022 Big newspaper in Baltimore, serious newspaper, which has a, a rich 00:29:27.022 --> 00:29:28.821 tradition of editorial cartooning. 00:29:28.871 --> 00:29:33.131 They, uh, had our Cagle cartoonists, uh, Mike Lane, who was a cartoonist 00:29:33.131 --> 00:29:37.581 there for many years, and Kal, Kevin Kallaugher, brilliant cartoonist who 00:29:37.581 --> 00:29:41.141 also draws for The Economist in Britain. 00:29:41.221 --> 00:29:47.611 They fired Kal, and they have been running AI-generated cartoons, which I'm told 00:29:47.701 --> 00:29:52.001 are orchestrated by the publisher of the paper, who has a little editorial 00:29:52.001 --> 00:29:55.391 committee, and they sit together and they draw cartoons as a committee. 00:29:55.441 --> 00:29:56.811 They make a list of things. 00:29:56.811 --> 00:29:59.701 Notice how wordy this is and how there are lists and how there's 00:29:59.701 --> 00:30:00.861 a bunch of people in the image. 00:30:00.901 --> 00:30:05.901 This is really very similar to the kinds of cartoon ideas that 00:30:05.901 --> 00:30:08.281 I get unsolicited from readers. 00:30:08.331 --> 00:30:11.231 Cartoons that feature a whole lot of people, and a whole lot 00:30:11.231 --> 00:30:12.291 of people you'll recognize. 00:30:12.291 --> 00:30:16.411 Say, uh, "Draw an army coming from the left and an army coming over… 00:30:16.561 --> 00:30:19.062 coming from the right, and the sky is filled with helicopters." 00:30:19.271 --> 00:30:23.711 Or, "Draw a scene in hell, and Lindsey Graham's going to hell, and all the 00:30:23.711 --> 00:30:27.831 other people in hell are the other people in the Senate." And the crowd 00:30:27.831 --> 00:30:33.421 scenes and lists are the kinds of things that you get from amateur cartoonists, 00:30:33.511 --> 00:30:35.101 and that you get from a committee. 00:30:35.151 --> 00:30:39.261 You know, uh, if any of you are illustrators, you know the worst thing 00:30:39.261 --> 00:30:42.751 about an art director who has to go back and report to a committee is that 00:30:42.751 --> 00:30:46.011 everybody in the committee wants to get their thing into the illustration. 00:30:46.011 --> 00:30:49.281 You'll come back with a list of all this junk, and everything ends 00:30:49.281 --> 00:30:51.101 up being a crowd scene or a list. 00:30:51.181 --> 00:30:53.891 So it's obvious what's going on here. 00:30:53.891 --> 00:30:57.101 This is, this is the, what has come from the committee. 00:30:57.241 --> 00:30:59.201 And here's another example. 00:30:59.521 --> 00:31:06.001 Lots of labels, lots of, uh, list of junk, lots of caricatures of particular 00:31:06.001 --> 00:31:09.991 people drawn in that terrible AI style. 00:31:10.301 --> 00:31:15.771 People say, "Well, do you have an example of how AI has actually cost editorial 00:31:15.771 --> 00:31:21.041 cartoonists their jobs?" Well, here you've got Kevin Kallaugher, Kal, laid off from 00:31:21.041 --> 00:31:28.621 the Baltimore Sun and replaced by, uh, AI cartoons that are just, just terrible. 00:31:29.131 --> 00:31:35.831 Um, again, all this wordiness, all this list of junk, all of these caricatures 00:31:35.831 --> 00:31:38.401 of people, it's a horror show. 00:31:38.751 --> 00:31:42.691 And it… What's crazy to me is that somebody likes this. 00:31:42.721 --> 00:31:45.651 I mean, this editorial committee, this publisher at The Baltimore 00:31:45.651 --> 00:31:48.261 Sun likes this, and it's terrible. 00:31:48.471 --> 00:31:52.441 At Cagle Cartoons, our little syndicate, we don't allow this AI stuff. 00:31:52.541 --> 00:31:53.471 What can I say? 00:31:53.591 --> 00:31:56.211 This is one of our cartoonists, Michael de Adder. 00:31:56.251 --> 00:31:59.171 You saw that cartoon earlier that got him fired from the 00:31:59.171 --> 00:32:00.831 Halifax group of newspapers. 00:32:00.901 --> 00:32:04.721 A great cartoonist in Canada who's doing very well now. 00:32:04.791 --> 00:32:08.051 He draws for The Globe and Mail national newspaper. 00:32:08.231 --> 00:32:08.861 He's great. 00:32:09.091 --> 00:32:12.941 This is a U.S. Supreme Court cartoon and, and I think it's great. 00:32:13.011 --> 00:32:18.671 This is how the LA Progressive, one of our subscribers, uh, ran his 00:32:18.671 --> 00:32:21.181 cartoon through AI, looking like this. 00:32:21.261 --> 00:32:25.321 Actually, this, this doesn't look bad, and kind of the secret to making 00:32:25.341 --> 00:32:30.021 AI do a good cartoon is to put a good cartoon into it and ask it 00:32:30.041 --> 00:32:32.731 to render the cartoon differently. 00:32:32.751 --> 00:32:35.691 And this is another blight that cartoonists have. 00:32:35.741 --> 00:32:40.301 This is still a good cartoon, but that's only because they put it, the good cartoon 00:32:40.351 --> 00:32:43.111 in and they didn't destroy it with the AI. 00:32:43.821 --> 00:32:47.631 Here's another example, another Michael de Adder cartoon, and in 00:32:47.631 --> 00:32:52.441 the AI, in the AI version in the LA Progressive and what that looks like. 00:32:52.461 --> 00:32:56.941 It's not as good as the Michael de Adder original, but that's because 00:32:56.991 --> 00:32:58.872 it didn't make too many changes. 00:32:58.941 --> 00:32:59.961 And this is a threat to cartoonists. 00:33:00.761 --> 00:33:02.531 Here, this one is by Bill Day. 00:33:03.041 --> 00:33:04.591 Uh, it's a cute cartoon. 00:33:04.681 --> 00:33:08.751 This is the LA Progressive's version of it, and that's just terrible. 00:33:08.861 --> 00:33:10.232 This is theft. 00:33:10.302 --> 00:33:13.751 Look at how it's credited to Cagle and ChatGPT. 00:33:13.841 --> 00:33:16.611 Because they were a subscriber, we just found out about 00:33:16.611 --> 00:33:17.901 this and asked them to stop. 00:33:18.491 --> 00:33:25.321 Um, you know, there's a threat that, uh, a publication can say, "Well, I like this 00:33:25.331 --> 00:33:29.911 particular style. I want these things to be drawn in this style, and it'll 00:33:29.911 --> 00:33:33.331 look consistent and it'll look like we have a cartoonist." And they just feed 00:33:33.331 --> 00:33:35.351 the junk into it, and that's terrible. 00:33:35.941 --> 00:33:39.871 Uh, here's another Michael de Adder cartoon, a lovely cartoon, and 00:33:39.871 --> 00:33:41.591 here it is in the LA Progressive. 00:33:42.031 --> 00:33:47.271 And, uh, you know, it's still a lovely cartoon, but it's not as 00:33:47.271 --> 00:33:49.121 lovely as the original line drawing. 00:33:49.311 --> 00:33:52.651 And it's just a crime to take the cartoonist's cartoon and run 00:33:52.651 --> 00:33:55.551 it through this and, and make it into something different. 00:33:55.681 --> 00:33:58.061 Not much reason editorially. 00:33:58.061 --> 00:34:00.051 It's the same point, but ugh. 00:34:00.341 --> 00:34:05.331 This is a, a group on YouTube that takes a good cartoon, the cartoon on the left 00:34:05.381 --> 00:34:10.921 by Dave Granlund, runs it through AI, and ends up with the same cartoon, but 00:34:10.921 --> 00:34:15.171 it looks like it's drawn differently, and it's drawn by AI, and it has a consistent 00:34:15.181 --> 00:34:19.321 look, and it's a lousy look, and it's not as good as what the cartoonist did. 00:34:19.361 --> 00:34:23.171 Here you see Bob Englehart on the left and the run-through AI 00:34:23.181 --> 00:34:25.511 version for YouTube on the right. 00:34:25.611 --> 00:34:29.781 I've been sending, sending YouTube demand notices to take down their 00:34:29.841 --> 00:34:33.481 hundreds of videos which were stealing our cartoons and 00:34:33.481 --> 00:34:35.061 running them without alterations. 00:34:35.091 --> 00:34:39.831 This period of when they were doing these redrawings of our 00:34:39.831 --> 00:34:44.931 cartoons was, um, in response to the takedown notices to YouTube. 00:34:44.991 --> 00:34:52.303 We sent probably three or 400, for, uh, three or 400 videos, and they, um, by 00:34:52.333 --> 00:34:56.043 running them through the AI and making them look different, it, uh, I think the 00:34:56.043 --> 00:35:01.333 idea was that they would be harder to identify as being stolen, and perhaps 00:35:01.333 --> 00:35:06.383 they would be testing the limits of what copyright law is, because, you know, 00:35:06.383 --> 00:35:10.983 traditionally, if something's redrawn, the, the gag is not something that 00:35:11.023 --> 00:35:12.953 might be strong enough to copyright. 00:35:12.983 --> 00:35:17.063 Perhaps there are enough differences to make it not be a copyright violation, although 00:35:17.063 --> 00:35:19.073 it's, you know, clearly plagiarism. 00:35:19.153 --> 00:35:23.493 But in this case, with this kind of stealing by crooks, this is just a 00:35:23.493 --> 00:35:28.404 process of running things through in bulk and redrawing them in order to 00:35:28.404 --> 00:35:34.663 avoid being found in an image search or, uh, having real copyright liability. 00:35:34.663 --> 00:35:37.423 And to YouTube's credit, they did take all this junk down. 00:35:37.443 --> 00:35:42.033 But that was in response to our demand notices, which they can be slow to 00:35:42.033 --> 00:35:44.283 respond to and sometimes argue with. 00:35:44.333 --> 00:35:46.663 But, you know, eventually, they did take them down. 00:35:46.783 --> 00:35:51.113 And now these same guys from Turkey are stealing from other cartoonists 00:35:51.823 --> 00:35:56.263 and other syndicates who don't take the trouble to send takedown notices, 00:35:56.353 --> 00:35:58.473 and not much we can do about it. 00:35:58.473 --> 00:36:01.623 We can only send takedown notices for our cartoonists who 00:36:01.623 --> 00:36:03.073 give us permission to do so. 00:36:03.183 --> 00:36:07.333 All you other cartoonists that the guys in Turkey are stealing from, it's up to 00:36:07.333 --> 00:36:09.223 you to send your own takedown notices. 00:36:09.244 --> 00:36:12.293 We can't do it for you, and sorry about that. 00:36:12.293 --> 00:36:13.873 So the abuse continues. 00:36:13.994 --> 00:36:17.584 This is a lovely cartoon by John Darkow, Trump and President Nixon, 00:36:17.963 --> 00:36:20.033 and here it is run through the AI. 00:36:20.073 --> 00:36:24.003 You know, actually, it's a lovely cartoon run through the AI also. 00:36:24.064 --> 00:36:27.173 That's because it was such a lovely cartoon to begin with. 00:36:27.263 --> 00:36:32.163 Now, I look at this and I think, "Oh, how much better this is than this." But 00:36:32.163 --> 00:36:34.803 if you hadn't seen the better version, you could look at this and say, "Oh, 00:36:34.813 --> 00:36:40.223 what a lovely cartoon." That is the secret for how you steal cartoons. 00:36:40.253 --> 00:36:46.093 You take the signature off, you run it through AI, and maybe somebody else drew 00:36:46.093 --> 00:36:50.903 it, and now it's going to be hard to find and hard to identify as being stolen. 00:36:51.053 --> 00:36:55.763 This is a very real threat to cartoonists, not only from, uh, people that want to 00:36:55.774 --> 00:36:59.443 use your cartoon without paying for it, without permission, or change 00:36:59.464 --> 00:37:03.663 a few words and have it say what they intend for it to say, but also 00:37:03.913 --> 00:37:08.544 because, A, some place like The LA Progressive just likes another look. 00:37:08.973 --> 00:37:11.913 And there's a bunch of different cartoonists with different styles, 00:37:11.913 --> 00:37:14.924 and perhaps they'd like for them to all be the same style. 00:37:14.953 --> 00:37:19.163 Some of it is due to preference, and, uh, it is just, uh, heartbreaking 00:37:19.233 --> 00:37:25.044 that people can look at AI cartoons and think that they like them better 00:37:25.083 --> 00:37:26.643 than what the original artist did. 00:37:26.663 --> 00:37:33.729 So here I have used AI to create a cover image for this video, and this 00:37:33.809 --> 00:37:36.459 I guess is what AI thinks I look like. 00:37:36.489 --> 00:37:41.429 And it's got the burning newspapers and stuff like this, this image behind me. 00:37:41.469 --> 00:37:45.139 And I notice on YouTube that there's a heck of a lot of 00:37:45.149 --> 00:37:46.449 covers that look like this. 00:37:46.509 --> 00:37:50.929 I thought, "Well, I'm going to try it and see if people like it better than this," which 00:37:50.929 --> 00:37:55.969 is, uh, a cartoon version for a cover for this video that I like much better. 00:37:55.969 --> 00:37:57.029 I drew that Uncle Sam. 00:37:57.109 --> 00:38:00.109 So I'm doing an A/B test for this video. 00:38:00.109 --> 00:38:03.209 We'll see which one more viewers want to click on. 00:38:03.269 --> 00:38:09.919 And if you see this as the cover image for this video, I'm disappointed because that 00:38:09.919 --> 00:38:14.769 means that the YouTube viewers clicked on this more than they clicked on this. 00:38:14.919 --> 00:38:18.559 If you want to see the results of this little experiment, hey, all you have to 00:38:18.559 --> 00:38:21.189 do, just look at what you clicked on. 00:38:21.429 --> 00:38:23.779 Thank you for listening to this long diatribe. 00:38:23.879 --> 00:38:28.509 These are all the best examples I've got of why our profession 00:38:28.509 --> 00:38:32.739 is going down the tubes and more likely to die before newspapers die. 00:38:32.819 --> 00:38:37.509 Newspaper editors are timid because as their audience grows smaller and 00:38:37.519 --> 00:38:41.919 more elderly, they are more reactive to one little email that says, 00:38:41.919 --> 00:38:43.459 "I'm canceling my subscription." 00:38:43.549 --> 00:38:46.169 Interestingly, in the past, newspapers that were liberal would 00:38:46.169 --> 00:38:49.890 run left-right cartoons, view from the left, view from the right. 00:38:50.059 --> 00:38:52.619 Conservative papers would run just conservative cartoons. 00:38:52.669 --> 00:38:54.879 But now they all run the same cartoons. 00:38:54.919 --> 00:38:59.109 They run soft little jokes that are going to offend nobody. 00:38:59.119 --> 00:39:02.990 And the cartoonists, to their credit, keep drawing strong cartoons, 00:39:03.059 --> 00:39:04.449 but they're not getting printed. 00:39:04.669 --> 00:39:07.469 It's a very frustrating world in which we live. 00:39:07.519 --> 00:39:11.079 So, hey, thank you for watching and sharing my pain. 00:39:11.169 --> 00:39:15.289 And in the comments, please leave in the comments whether you would like to see me 00:39:15.299 --> 00:39:19.789 redo this list of all these controversial cartoons with a group of three or four 00:39:19.799 --> 00:39:23.519 other cartoonists, so you can hear their comments on the controversial cartoons. 00:39:24.009 --> 00:39:27.269 I think that might be interesting, but I'd like to know if you would 00:39:27.269 --> 00:39:29.089 watch it having seen all the cartoons. 00:39:29.149 --> 00:39:30.949 Leave in the comments whether you'd like to see that. 00:39:31.549 --> 00:39:33.159 And thank you so much. 00:39:33.299 --> 00:39:36.209 Please like and subscribe, and see you with the next one.