Central Coast Born Daryl Cagle Creates American Editorial Cartoons

[00:00:00]There's a good chance you've seen Daryl Cagle's editorial cartoons in print and on TV, but what you might not know is that he grew up in Montecito and attended UCSB and he's helped fellow cartoonists along the way. Cagle shared his story with NewsChannel reporter Tracy Lehr.

[00:00:17]>> Usually I think the best ideas come from when you're watching the news and you get mad. You know, we draw a zillion President Trumps, probably more than anybody that's ever been drawn. He's got the the yellow hair, he's got the orange bronze around his face, he's got a blue suit and a red tie. The red tie is unusually long. Sometimes it goes down on the ground or wraps around his feet.

[00:00:40]Um and uh it's just wonderful that a character can evolve like that.

[00:00:47]Here's uh Trump facing off with California. It was Trump at a time that he was facing off with Mexico.

[00:00:54]Here's Trump killing PBS. And of course these guys all live in my brain. Drawn them so many times.

[00:01:00]>> I love the Muppets. The first half of my career I worked for the Muppets and I always dreamed of being a a political cartoonist and so I I hoped for that and I I got uh I I drew a comic uh syndicated comic and uh the newspaper in Hawaii picked it up and they called me up and they said, "Daryl, how'd you like to be a local cartoonist in Hawaii?" And I said, "Yeah, I want to do that." And um so I did. I was uh drawing weekly editorial cartoons in Hawaii for about 6 years.

[00:01:35]When I was a cartoonist in Hawaii, um that was in the '90s and they were the first state to have a vote on gay marriage. Um they actually voted it down. And so I drew this I was uh cartoonist for newspaper called the MidWeek and there in this, you know, full page. And it's Bert and Ernie, you know, I was drawing for Sesame Street. I draw lots of Bert and Ernie.

[00:02:00]And they are flying to Hawaii to get gay married. At the Muppets, we knew they were gay. So, this was surprising to people and it outraged Baptists. They were just absolutely furious. And they surrounded the newspaper offices of the MidWeek and they're holding signs and they're chanting. They're chanting, "Send out the cartoonist. Send out the cartoonist." Um then I had an opportunity to switch to the daily newspaper in in Hawaii which let me draw um uh world and national events and uh from that I went to um Slate and MSNBC and they um they were a nice opportunity for me too and uh grew the audience. I got a bunch of uh other cartoonists uh to work with me and I started a syndicate. So, now I represent about 100 political cartoonists from all around the world to hundreds of newspapers mostly in the United States. This is the toughest time ever to try to get into political cartoons, but um you know, we get lots of unsolicited submissions.

[00:03:11]People really want to do it. We've got a website um cagle.com. We have all the cartoonists and they can look at everything. And uh we give them lots of strong cartoons, but we observe that it's the not strong cartoons that get printed. Newspapers are becoming more timid.

[00:03:28]>> So, the best cartoons have no words and all I was looking to do here is make a statement that the violence in Mexico is terrible and uh make it visually compelling.

[00:03:37]>> This was on like 15 newspapers.

[00:03:40]Just like this.

[00:03:41]>> They are calling it desecration of their flag.

[00:03:45]>> The mail I've been getting from readers has been pretty evenly split. Some of them think the cartoon portrays their feelings and half of them think it's uh insulting. I do have a lot more respect for religion than I do for nationalist symbols. And it's the job of an editorial cartoonist to criticize nations and governments.

[00:04:04]>> Three branches of government. You know, when you explain what a gag is, it's just not very funny.

[00:04:09]This is the drought in California.

[00:04:12]You know, the point of cartoons is that you see them immediately visually and they don't they shouldn't require explanation. Editorial cartoons are a great American art form and I love it.