This Week's Troubletown Cartoon: Nature Poem

I just got back from a week in the wilderness. No phone, no email, no washing dishes. All I did was write in a notebook and sketch by a crayfish hole (sketches to come). The only way I found out about Michael Jackson was that I overheard a girl on her cell phone talking about it with a friend! And yes, a bear really did eat our plastic cooler pak once, only I'm remembering it from years ago.

Super Special Early Cartoon: Obamaoratory

Hey folks, I'm getting out of town for a week to fill up my creative reservoir. And no, not with alcohol, but with good, clean mountain air unless there's a grass fire. Since we're all friends here I'll give you the super-early preview of next week's cartoon. Cheers! Ps: Don't abuse your privilege!

Today's Sketch: Mahmoud and Bambi

Today's Sketch: The Ayatollah

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has a goofy smirk that shows he has a light side; makes him look like a mischievous old codger who's about to tell a dirty joke. Not like Ayatollah Khomeini, what a dick! That guy never smiled. I don't know what Ronald Reagan saw in him. The Gipper had him out to the ranch to ride horses together. My read says that this Ayatollah is not that kind of guy. But of course I predicted Giuliani for president. This Ayatollah could pull a Tianammen Square any day now, but something in the eyes tells me he won't do it. I think he'll tell Ahmadinejad to take a long walk on a short pier.

ps: The Disney notebook is of inferior quality. The pages keep falling out.

This Week's Socialistic Troubletown Cartoon

Dangle Art for the Holidays

It's June, so on the licensing calendar it's time for Valentines Day! Let's make millions together. I've been doing Santas and snowmen too.

This Week's Troubletown Cartoon: Why are Bankers Such Liars?

Here's this week's cartoon. I wanted to talk about the shadow surplus of foreclosed homes that the banks are keeping off the market. Houses are selling so poorly that banks will often take half of their, already way marked-down, prices. Releasing all of the foreclosed properties into the market would drive the real estate market down dramatically, further screwing the economy. I didn't manage to get all that in, but it would've been too hard to explain in a funny way, so I just went for whacking banks for all of their lying. It's bizarre how these companies will cook the books to make themselves look solvent and prosperous. The financial industry spent 30 million to get the accounting rules changed so that they could park their foreclosed homes and place their own, imaginary value on the property. Nice. Time to start learning how to short stocks in the housing sector. There's no recovery coming. As people continue to lose jobs there are likely two more waves of foreclosure crises coming.

So, I had a couple of decent hooks to build a cartoon on this week, but I don't know if I did it. Up until 5 am this morning I had no ideas at all. I never know if anyone will get it.

Bonus, here's last week's cartoon colored in!

The Vegas Sketches Never Stop!

I keep digging up more sketches. With my Fujitsu ScanSnap S300M I just load 'em in and let 'em fly. Now, don't get me wrong. I love ass and cupcakes as much as any man, but in Vegas every sign has a giant half-naked buttocks on it. You come around a corner and POW! another ass, bigger than life! I remember one summer in New York City there was a billboard ad in all the subway stations of a half-naked woman actually bathing in a giant margarita with her legs up in the air sticking out of the glass. Vegas takes that sentiment and just pumps up the ass-volume 200 percent. Everywhere you go you're on an escalator or moving walkway behind a pair of Americans weighing 1200 pounds combined and drinking frozen daiquiries out of three-foot tall souvenir cocktail bongs. You avert your eyes from the seven-foot ass-width in front of you but everywhere you look it's ass, ass, and more ass. Christ, I'm glad to be back in Oakland where the ass is served in regular portions.

New Brands from Dangle

Inspired by Vegas I've been cranking out new licensing sensations. All you need to do is make a list of heavily-used words in the licensing vernacular, combine them together in a new way, add the letter "z" wherever an "s" should go, and you're there! Check 'em out. Remember, they're all trademarked!

Licensing Expo Sketch Dump

Day two with those two damn spotlight beams converging on my eyeballs.







































My sketchbook ran out so I had to go in search of a new one. The best I could do was one with lines and, of course, branded with Bambi.
















Dr. Krinkles with some serious animated TV show suits.


















Bits of overheard discussion















Tacos and Tequila ads showed two girls with unbuttoned ultra-short jean cutoffs, which could possibly lead some people to wonder about the pubic hair content in the food. Just a thought.











Dr. Krinkles tried to institute a no photo- graphy policy in their booth after they had a couple of Chinese manu- facturers trying to shoot pictures of their characters.










Carrot Top performed at the Luxor. I never knew he was a comedian, I thought he was just a guy with red hair. Well, you learn something new when in Vegas.









Vegas mugs and finally mugs in the Vegas airport.

LIcensing Day Three

Man, there's nobody at the Licensing Show today. An enormous tumbleweed just blew past my exhibitor booth. Where is everybody? This is the part of the show where the exhibitors stand around jawboning with each other and commiserating over the sorry traffic flow. We just discovered that Sam's cousin, the actress Alicia Silverstone, is a friend of Gomez Bueno's. So Sam was very excited to have Gomez pass along a note, because Gomez is likely to see her at a party on Saturday in Malibu. Hmmm...Such a small world! Gomez is friends with lots of famous people. Whoosh! There goes another tumbleweed. I decided that it might liven up the booth to put some candy in my bowl today instead of the Airborne samples. Switch things up a bit. Now I'm just wolfing down chocolate like a mental patient.

Today I'm getting some important work done as I sit here immobilized. I picked up copies of the License Global Show Daily. I'm going through the magazine finding every powerful licensing word I can, like turbo, cutie, moxie, pixie, epoxy, etc. Next I'm jumbling them together to make up new brands. I figure this is as good a way as any to discover the next gigantic licensing sensation. I mean Lazytown, Balloonatiks, Rainbow Brite, Babymouse, Hukjam Gummies, Winx, Waybuloo, and Fancy Nancy are big licensing news today. I can come up with stuff like that! Sketches to follow.