newyorkette

(Click on the image to get the full-sized cartoon and be on Jesus & Mo’s own website.)

Peace on Earth!
...or should I say POE, OPE, EOP…? Can you guess what I’m alluding to?Dr. Strangelove is playing at Symphony Space tonight as part of a three-films for $10 special marathon!

Previous J & M on newyorkette: Jesus & Mo spread the joy

^{(This is just a fragment of one of my favorite Maakies. Please see his website, maakies.com, for more, or click on the links below!)}

From comic #m593, ” New Scuptures & A Wachtelian Moment.” To see the entire “New Sculptures, which holds the solution for making modern sculpture more palatable to the man on the street, ” click here. If it doesn’t work (you’ll know it if you get the “Inhuman Monsters!” guy), click the following link and scroll down to the bottom, and find the link that says “#m593 New Scuptures & A Wachtelian Moment,” about three lines up: Maakies Archives.

It was love at first sight for me, and a nice segué from my “breast week” into next week. Not sure what next week will bring. In the meantime, here’s a very striking Bernini sculpture, his “Anima Damnata.” (Maybe he’s screaming “Italia” while watching the World Cup.)

^{(All images by Pancho, borrowed from El Museo della Satira et della caricatura)}

Pancho draws political cartoons for Le Monde, the daily semi-conservative French newspaper, as well as Le Canard Enchainé, the French independent (no advertising!) newspaper (it’s name literally means “The Enchained Duck.”).
He’s been described as French, Ecuadorian, Mexican, you name it. He was actually born in Caracas, Venezuela, and raised in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Drawing since he was un niño, he describes himself as a little bit of everything: caricaturist, illustrator, editorialist. He’s provided drawings for the Herald Tribune, The Guardian, Lire, Le Matin, Le Nouvel Observateur, and continues providing one drawing a week to Le Monde, as well as to the Duck in Chains.

I discovered him while living in Paris. I’d always noticed him superficially on the covers of Le Monde because of his well-placed pencil lines, but the day I really discovered him was when I saw a cartoon (which I wish I could find online for you) of his, showing the two French heads of state (President and Prime Minister) sitting at a tiny dinner table with the German leader, who is tying on his napkin, preparing to tuck into dinner.

“I am SO hungry tonight!”, says the German leader.

The two French leaders turn to each other and snidely comment:
“Tonight?”

It was all I needed to understand the tension between France and Germany with regard to Europe at the time.

It was hard to find his cartoons online, and I wondered if he exercises strict control over their copyright. Or perhaps only those who get his nationality right are allowed to reproduce his work for nonprofit? I’ll soon know if I’ve offended. For now, let me point you to the only website I found that had several of his cartoons available for viewing, which I will translate for you below.

I found an interestingly rough “rush” transcript of an interview conducted by CNN in 2003 about the war and asking if the pen is mightier than the sword is available here: CNN.

And if you can read Spanish, check out this piece on “Uruguayans in the World” which profiles Pancho (his whole name is Pancho Graells): Uruguayos para el mundo: Humor uruguayo en la información de Le Monde. A fellow Uruguayan, singer Pajaro Canzani, who lives in Paris, once offered to introduce me to Pancho, but alas, I had to move back to New York before I had the chance.

Below are some of his cartoons, with translations.

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If you have seen any Pancho cartoons you’d like a translation for, feel free to ask!

^{(I hope it’s okay with Quino, but I translated it myself. A scan of the original can be seen at my Flikr site, here.)}

Mafalda is a Spanish language comic strip I found in Spain, in my friend Sybilla’s bathroom. Mafalda book after Mafalda book were piled in front of the toilet. Since I was so stressed living in Madrid and not being paid for my handbag and toy designing (because I was an illegal alien, and no one knew how to pay me without getting in trouble), I spent a lot of time in that toilet. The strip above is a scan of the original, which I think I tore out of one of Sybilla’s books. (Which I can’t believe I did, it’s not very typical of me, but perhaps I found it so inspirational that I thought she’d forgive me.) It’s been taped to every fridge I’ve had for the last fifteen years.

Mafalda had originally been created by Quino (whose full name is Joaquín Salvador Lavado, Quino being a nickname for Joaquín), as part of an ad campaign for household appliances that got killed. He decided to keep the character of Mafalda, which began appearing in Argentina’s weekly newspaper, “Primero Plano,” before becoming popular in Europe, particularly Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Germany. Mafalda has always been outspoken and questioned the world rather lucidly, making observations about politics and world events without being precocious or cynical. She’s simply curious and impressionable.

For example, see Wikipedia for more on Mafalda, including a panel where Mafalda says, in true Mafalda style: “We’re screwed! It turns out that if we don’t start changing the world, the world will end up changing us!” (I’ve re-translated the translation to suit my ear.)

^{Click on the image to proceed to The Perry Bible Fellowship main page.}

I’m sick today, ate something that decided to try and kill me from the inside (I hate it when that happens!). And while I also hate to point an accusing finger, the last thing I ate was McDonald’s “Asian Salad,” thinking I’d be good and save myself some money by eating on the cheap. Never again! (Plus, $4.99 for a small piece of chicken on top of iceberg lettuce isn’t really that cheap!)

Thus the late start today. Because I’m sick, I’m going to point to the sickest cartoon I’ve seen in a while. I’m particularly touched by this cartoon because I have had rodent troubles myself. (In my case it was—and still is—squirrels). This cartoon proposes the way to end such troubles in the easiest, most expeditious way: An End to Gopher Trouble.

Here’s another one that seems to be trying to tell me something, but I’m not quite sure what: God Tree.

And this last one about the monster under the bed, warms my heart: Monster and Dad.

Nicholas Gurewitch’s Perry Bible Fellowship is an alternative to the feel-good comic strip. (Don’t you hate those?) It’s a feel-stubbornly-perverted-and-delightfully-evil comic strip.

And now, I must crawl back to bed.

^{(Okay, my dear religious readers, this is your chance to look away. Please do not proceed if you aren’t allowed to look at images of Jesus or Mo(hammed). And don’t say I never did anything to help you avoid eternal suffering. Everyone else, click on the image to say hello to Jesus and Mo!)}

Me, I found Jesus and Mo in the midst of the Cartoon Riots, though I’m not sure exactly how. Not offensive enough to be included in the list of offending cartoonists, the author of Jesus and Mo asks us to take only one little leap of faith: imagine what it would be like if Jesus and Mohammed were roommates. It’s The Odd Couple prototype, brought to transcendent extremes.

The Author, as he calls himself, is to be imagined with a Mona Lisa smile as he draws them. He’s not innocent, but he’s benevolent in his bemusement and even-handed lack of judgement-passing. He’s been rather adept lately at managing to let everything take place in the mind of the reader, as in this one. Who’s to say what Mo is looking at? Maybe you’re the one with the dirty mind!

The same cartoon illustrates a point that I found was true when I began checking my own blog’s statistics. I seem to have lost the interest of my Iranian readers since I removed “sex for women” from my category list. (Oh, well!) But let’s be fair. It was also the first category link that male cartoonists clicked on when I directed them to my blog.

And what could be more simple and naïve with regard to questions of religious doubt and conviction than this cartoon?

The Author was obliged to close his comments when the Cartoon Riots brought unwelcome attention to his humble strip:

Yes, I closed the comments because people were using it as a forum to
express their hatred – not only towards me, but to each other as well.
It ran contrary to the purpose of the website which, of course, is to
spread joy

Click here to see my favorite Da Vinci Code cartoon ever.

“Drinky Crow” (above) is a suicidal alcoholic, but that’s what I like about him.

Here’s a cartoonist whose patron of the arts I’d love to be by buying this cartoon from him: “Scratching the Back of my Neck & The Editor “. Clicking on my link is a crap shoot. Sometimes you get the cartoon, sometimes it’s more like: Ha, sucka! Personally I love the machine gun-shooting maniac screaming “inhuman monsters!”, but you don’t get him every time. Try the link: you’ll get whatever you get, and you’ll like it!

I wrote him asking him for permission to link to a non-booby trapped image, but got no answer. Temperamental cartoonist? or just enjoying the holiday weekend? Knowing cartoonists (since I’m one myself), it could be all of the above, or none of the above. Maybe he’s counting trees in Corona. Maybe he’s trying on jeans at a factory in Cancun. Maybe he’s playing golf, or maybe he’s just having a life. Or getting killed… Anything’s possible with a cartoonist. It’s also possible he feels his “terms of use” are clear enough. *(UPDATE: Tony wrote me Monday morning and very kindly provided the image above.)

Anyway, perhaps if you’re more prosperous than I am at the moment you’ll find something you’d like to buy for yourself! His prices are actually quite reasonable, and worth every penny. (I just don’t have any spare pennies these days! But when I do, maybe my favorite cartoon will still be available.) Check out his original art. He’s famous for his “Drinky Crow,” as well as Billy Hazelnuts, and the ravishingly beautiful Sock Monkey books. He made a splash on Gawker, during Burklegate, and done this delightfully lighthearted SNL short!

He’s Tony Millionaire. If you like Little Nemo in Slumberland, or Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend, but are a way sicker puppy than these call for, you’ll love Tony Millionaire.

^{If Little Nemo (above image borrowed from salon.com) isn’t hard-core enough for you, try Tony Millionaire.}