Troubletown

New me

2012-01-13T16:23:00.001-08:00

New me, originally uploaded by Lloyd Dangle.

I drew this on the iPad, saved it to my photos, emailed it to Flickr, then shared it to blogger. Easy. It took longer to post than it did to draw.

First 2012 Dose of Dangle

2012-01-13T10:56:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Well shit, it’s been a while since I wrote a Dose. I deleted a few starts. Ever since the end of the Troubletown comic strip I’ve been having a crisis of identity. 2011 was a year of tremendous change for me. Who the hell am I now? I always used to blog and tweet and Face to promote Troubletown. Being a cartoonist is like throwing bombs while hiding behind a wall. Just being Lloyd Dangle the Cartoonist is a bit unsettling. Maybe I should save it for my therapist.

It’s the middle of January already and I haven’t shared any of my recent exploits, my fabulous holidays, or anything. Well, let me get caught up. November and December were so chock full of work I barely came up for air. Down in Silicon Valley filming those whiteboard animations that everybody loves for the top secret internal use of big corporations. I’m not even allowed to mention their names. Confidentiality is very important, which makes it hard to build my portfolio. I can’t show anything! Potential clients just have to go by my stellar reputation. All the work took a toll on my writing, I just finally did a little work on the novel this week. The internal critic is enjoying great power over me at the moment. I have to beat him into submission before I can get back to work. Next week work should bury me again. I’ve overbooked myself, so if everything comes through I’ll be juggling like a maniac.

Over the holidays we went up to Lake Tahoe where there was no snow. Thank God I was relieved of having to ski. My body isn’t wracked with pain and the family saved a fortune on lift tickets. December 24 we went to the beach and put out a blanket in the sand. Strange. Last year at the same time there was ten feet of snow.

My good friend Simms Taback died. He was a wonderful children’s book illustrator and one of the sweetest and most decent guys I’ve ever met. He was one of the Graphic Artist Guild’s founders and the driving force behind the Guild’s Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines––that’s how I met him. When I was president of the Guild it was a rough time for the organization and the people on my executive committee were bailing and resigning left and right. Everything had fallen apart, we were out of money and we’d lost our latest executive director to a brain tumor. I hired a lawyer to come in as a short term executive director to tear the place apart and figure out what had been going on––and help get us either out of debt or into bankruptcy. I had to go to the office in New York on my own dime in the middle of the winter to help sort things out and Simms drove down from his home near Woodstock to help. He taught me the yiddish word “fakakta” to describe our situation, crazy and fucked up. We drove uptown in a freezing rain and had dinner at a place near Gramercy Park. The guy was warm and funny and, well, supportive at a time when I really needed it. He was so generous he even wrote me a check to help cover my costs, which I’m embarrassed to say, I took. So long Simms, it was a joy and privilege to know you!

My other buddy, Lee, suffered a stroke at the end of November, at the tender age of 44. Now he’s up in Vallejo at the Kaiser rehab center. I’ve been up to see him. It’s lonely and boring to be in the hospital, but Lee’s making great progress. Another friend, Kim, had a stroke earlier in the year. She’s doing well too for someone who had a stroke. All of this makes me worry about my own health. I’m on an aspirin regimen now because I know my arteries are full of cholesteral and the fat from all the ice cream and bacon I've consumed. I have a wife and kid to think about you know.

I hate new years resolutions. I don’t partake. But way before new years I resolved to get into better shape. Twenty plus years of inactivity hunched over a drawing board has taken its toll on me. My body is misshapen. Now that I have the physically demanding job of standing up and drawing for hours on end I have to improve my physique. Iggy Pop is my inspiration––always has been––but Karthik and I saw him play with the faux Stooges in December and he’s in pretty good shape for 64––to say the least. He still jumps around like a muscle on a stick. My dad is 92 and still stage diving so I figure I’ve got a few years to go. The only problem is that, unlike the Stooge, who traded drugs for weightlifting, I hate to exercise.

On the Fly

2011-12-16T12:04:00.001-08:00

Untitled #244, originally uploaded by Lloyd Dangle.

< Doodling on my iPad while I wait for a flight. No need for paper!

Relax They're Just Hippies

2011-11-29T14:41:00.000-08:00

Silly Short with Das Racist

2011-11-26T11:16:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving Dose of Dangle

2011-11-26T09:10:00.000-08:00

It's Thanksgiving school break of course and that means that Spongebob has been on non-stop around here when Oscar isn't playing Minecraft. At least Hae and I took him to the Berkeley Art Museum to see the Kurt Schwitters show. He thought it was dumb that the guy just glued stuff down but he enjoyed playing on the giant undulating sculpture installation. Climbing was allowed.

I talked to my dad. He's doing well, my Aunt Eileen not so well. She's been moved to the assisted living section of the retirement village where she lives. Last stop before heaven. My sister must've showed dad the picture of me in the little tent village at Occupy Oakland that Hae put on her Facebook page and he was shocked. He's a heavy viewer of financial news shows and the kind of media that has been deeply rattled by the protests. I told him that I completely agree with the Occupy movement.

The violence by our increasingly militarized police is frightening. Mayor Quan in Oakland said that the Department of Homeland Security helped coordinate the police crackdown here. It's federal. Hae says when they crack down on people peacefully congregating we might as well be living in China.

Full disclosure: I'm too much of a coward to go there when the pepper spray is flying. I'm a YouTube protestor. And I work for The Man now and help prop up the one percent with my doodling.

As you know, I have a new career, drawing for people on paper and whiteboards with markers, and my latest freelance feast continues. I've been taking on jobs three deep. Having become used the declining publishing industry sucking me down into the abyss for so long I can't believe I'm doing something now that's actually growing and gaining popularity. People in business have discovered that pictures are the way to innovation. Scribes like me are in demand at the biggest corporations. In my little niche the economy is picking up.

I've been on a media cleanse since April but now I'm beginning to ease back in. When you watch the media constantly you fail to see how strange, surreal, and propagandistic it is. Unplugging makes you feel doltish at times but generally saner and less troubled. Watching MSNBC or anything now is like taking a shot of grain alcohol after being on a diet of soup. I've been reading Wonkette for news. Taking the reentry very slowly.

My book is dead in the water again. I've been too busy to focus on it and now when I look at my pages I feel disgusted. There's a whole missing dimension to the novel that corresponds to an empty part in my soul. I've been skipping out on my writing workshops and everything. Terrible! I snuck out of the house the other night for a beer with Karthik at McNally's and he gave me a lecture about how you have to stop everything to write a novel and do nothing but immerse yourself. Otherwise you're a fool.

My Contribution to the Davis Cop Art Trove

2011-11-23T12:47:00.001-08:00

Too Perfect

2011-11-21T10:33:00.000-08:00

Photo: Ian Carmany

My Favorite Occupy Posters

2011-11-16T15:14:00.000-08:00

As you know, I am totally down with the Occupy movement. Even though I'm a corporate hack, I still want to crush the overlords and plutocrats. I've been to Occupy Oakland but in the middle of the afternoon, not at night when the cops do their ass-kicking. I have good reasons to avoid being beaten, shot, and teargassed. I'm an old guy, my body doesn't heal fast anymore, and I'm a coward.

I'm enjoying all the posters that people are making. Designers are foregoing the latest AIGA competitions to crush the corporate elite. I'm all for it. Here are my favorites. Follow the artists' links and buy some of their stuff. I love the two Soviet style ones, they're signed with a groovy little logo, but in searching and searching I couldn't find anyone taking credit for them. If anybody knows tell me so that I can provide a credit and a link.

Chris Shaw

Rich Black

Jermaine Rogers

Eric Drooker

Dose of Dangle

2011-11-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

It's been insane around the Dangle compound. I've hit the feast part of the freelancer cycle. Juggling three projects. Three live ones. All top secret. And I have a couple others in suspended animation. Turned one down. Hae is busy too, and now a bunch of no-school days are coming up! We’re in trouble.

I have three Apple products now. Hae and I got iPhones. Now I stare at Apple products all day long. My computer that I'm on from dawn to dusk, the iPad that I've been drawing and making videos on, and now the newest device. Nobody ever calls me on my cell phone unless I’m driving. Then it always rings.

Apple products are my constant companions. At first the new ones were counter intuitive, but little by little they trained me to act the way they want me to. Then the devices become friendly and operating them is second nature. I've been using Apple computers since 1988, but Steve Jobs reached more deeply into my psyche with the phone and its sleek counterparts. Most people have been pinching and squeezing and getting their fried-chicken fingers on the Apple screens for a long time now, but it's new to me.

As much as I hated it at first I couldn't live without my iPad now. If you have one, get the apps Brushes and Flip Boom. Brushes records every stroke you make in a drawing and lets you save it as a good quality video. Flip Boom is an animation app for kids but you can do fun stuff with it and save your work as video. The quality of the video is just, eh.

Now there was some useful information.

I've been to Honolulu since my last post. My pal Jesse took me on his motorcycle without a helmet, which was a little out of my comfort zone. I was at the IFVP conference. It was 90% women and there was a lot of powerful sisterly bonding going on. It was great for the men too. Ironically, every time I walked out on the street in Waikiki I was propositioned by one two or three hookers. I fit the customer profile, I guess, 50-year-old white guy in a Hawaiian shirt at a conference. It reminded me of Chester Brown's book, Paying For It, which is a must-read.

Geoffie’s been on me about collaborating again. He wants to buy up some real estate in Michigan and create a media empire, I’m not sure exactly how they’re related. He says that the tax credits are there for people to make movies in the mitten state. He can find investors. When he calls he free associates about the things he’s interested in and asks me to take notes. He never records any of his ideas because it would slow him down. He can’t understand why I don’t drop everything and start working on our collaboration. Am I really happy in what I’m doing, he asks. I did a comic strip for so many years that was so negative. Isn’t it time for me to do something positive?

We've been having lots of little earthquakes out here in northern California. Kinda scary. It motivated Hae to buy some designer survival backpacks with pouches of water and brick-like ready-to-eat meals. I'm happy she did it because it's something I've been meaning to do for nineteen years. Now we have security.

40-Second Autobiography

2011-11-11T14:37:00.000-08:00

Actually I'm doing an online course with Alphachimp University and this was our first assignment.

That's My Town

2011-10-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween

2011-10-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

This was a movie I made with the buggy iPad app Flip Boom.

Sitcom

2011-10-16T14:54:00.000-07:00

Angry Ed

2011-10-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

My first video drawn on the Ipad.

Today's Sketch: Big Ass Scout

2011-10-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to Oscar's boy scout Rocket Jamboree where the kids blast their homemade rockets up into the sky. It was more awesome than the Blue Angels. I saw one boy scout who was huge.

Your Occasional Dose of Dangle

2011-10-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

It’s been pretty crazy around here since my last dose. Hae, Oscar and I went to Chicago and Wisconsin to see family. Her parents played Amazing Grace for us on harmonica and digital clarinet and her mom made us kalbi for lunch. Her brother Henry had us over to their new house and made a pho. It took all day and was delicious. Henry and his wife, Tracy, have a dog and a bunch of pet birds. Oscar had fun sticking his finger in the cages to see if the birds would bite him. They did.

Hae also attended her high school reunion where the women were all stunning and the men were bald and fat. The midwest depresses Hae and me if we stay there too long so it was good that we got in and got out quick. It’s the gray skies and endless suburban blandness that gets to us. We spent one night in downtown Chicago, though, so we had a little jolt of city and it was great. We took an architectural tour on a river boat. Then it was on to see my dad. He’s still chugging along at ninety-one. His sister lives in Milwaukee and he’s always driving there to see her, especially lately because her heath has been bad. I wish he wasn’t driving. I suggested that he hire someone, but he’s pretty cheap and that’s probably pretty costly.

We had the big opening for my show at the Cartoon Art Museum. It was awesome. Thanks for coming if you did, or shame on you if you didn’t. The show is up until January 22, so come to San Francisco and make your Troubletown commitment.

I was feeling really rusty work-wise when I came back from Chicago and spent a couple days in the studio not getting much done. Then I hit my stride and really cranked for the next couple days. I’m almost finished with that big year-long no-deadline project but the revisions keep coming. And I did an info graphic. Rush job. Tons of revisions. No time to work on the novel and after a few days away from it I have a hard time getting started again.

We got a laugh here at the Dangle studio over the new Airborne packaging. Yes, they finally got rid of my art and replaced it with some that was done in Illustrator and looks it. I’m not complaining, just marveling at corporate decision making. The new packages resemble everything else in the drug store aisle.

I upgraded my operating system to Snow Leopard. Fingers crossed, so far everything seems to work. I’m definitely not upgrading to Lion, I read that it sucks, no disrespect to Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace. I finally found an app I like for the Ipad. Sketchbook Pro. It’s a drawing program that actually works well and is very responsive to the stylus, not like Brushes, the program a lot of people like. I don’t like drawing with my finger because I can’t see the line underneath it. Besides, if I’m eating fried chicken the screen gets all greasy. Somehow I’m going to make money using the Ipad, dammit.

Your Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-09-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve missed a couple of doses because I’ve been busy...and lazy.

Last Stop Troubletown, my retrospective at the Cartoon Art Museum is up! The earlier information was wrong, though, there’s no opening on October 6. The opening is October 1st, the same night as the Alternative Press Expo party. That means that the galleries will be packed with beautiful young people and sheepish bent-over cartoonists. I won’t know anybody. So please come by and keep me company. I’ll be the fifty-year-old guy in the corner with eyes like dark pits.

Last week I did an info graphic for a company. It’s top secret so I guess I can’t post it here. Corporations are so paranoid! I’ve done a few info graphics in my life but I must admit I was sweating it. It’s not a normal thing for me. It was cartoony and the client liked it. So far, fingers crossed. Hopefully they will not have an abrupt change of mind and send me down the road of endless revisions. I finished that monster job I’ve been working on for the past year--sent in the final files! But then they added six more pages. I suppose it’s a lot better than working in a coal mine.

I’m going to see the in-laws and my dad and sister out in the Midwest at the end of the week. I don’t think I’ll make it into Chicago or Madison or Milwaukee, but thoroughly visit our creaky seniors at their suburban homes. Hae is having her thirtieth high school reunion so she has some dinners and events to attend. She isn’t taking me along. I think I’m an embarrassment to her. I don’t know why though, I still have a lot of hair. Either that or maybe she wants to hit on some of her old boyfriends.

Geoffie called. He’s going to try to come to my opening but my guess is he won’t make it. He’s doing okay these days. He has an apartment. Hasn’t been in jail at all recently. He’s working on his lawsuit against the State of Michigan (or is it Washtenaw County?) for violating his civil rights when they beat him up in jail and broke his jaw. If anybody knows a good civil rights attorney send me the name. There aren’t many civil rights attorneys to be found apparently. He said he’s exercising and lost a few pounds. He’s got type 2 diabetes that he feels is stress induced from the situation with the ex, so he’s taking some steps to care for himself. He said that he’s got eight fully formed ideas for movies he wants to make. He just needs me to collaborate. He always tries to make me feel like I’m holding him back.

Hae is wearing a pedometer and trying to walk ten thousand steps a day. So now she’s walking over to the drugstore and leaving the car in the driveway. I’ve never known her to do that. Me, I’ve been drinking a lot of beer and walking up to Pete’s coffee for a cup of poison on some mornings. Even though there are now dozens of coffee shops around here where one can go to show off one's tattoos they’re all crowded with people writing on their laptops. Novels? Screenplays? Who knows? I actually quit coffee--but I still drink it sometimes.

I only grilled meat twice this summer. I did my ribs two weeks ago for a neighborhood barbeque and last night I made Barbados style chicken. I love to barbeque.

Read TC Boyle’s East is East and some others. Saw In Bruges, Lars and the Real Girl, Tropic Thunder, hmmm, what else? I watched How to Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog and broke down all the scenes. It’s interesting to do that. One of these days I’m going to write a screenplay. But I need Geoffie’s help.

2011-09-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

Hey, the show at the Cartoon Art Museum is up!

Please note:

The opening will not be on October 6. It will be on October 1, same night as the Alternative Press Expo party, which means the place will be full of young hipsters.

More Dangle Than You Want to Know

2011-09-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

My vision of hell is a job where the client keeps giving me revisions and more revisions and no matter how many things I fix they just keep coming, each one more meaningless and capricious than the last. A client, code-named Silver Salamander, has come along with a new project that promises to be one of these. This client is insane. But I need the money.

School started for young Oscar but this week every day is a “minimum day,” which means that I’ve got to pick him up at 1:25. It seems like I’m getting about one hour of work in a day. My studio is three inches deep in revisions from a current project. I’ve had to come up with an elaborate file naming system to keep track of them all.

I’m in two writing workshops now, probably too much, but each is valuable in its own way. One involves reading your pieces aloud which is very helpful to me. Don’t know why.

I’m very bad at giving feedback to other writers though and it makes me feel guilty. Some of my fellow workshoppers are amazing at dissecting a piece of writing and figuring out how to improve the prose and structure. My comments tend to be more like, “me like this.” I give nothing of value.

More information than you want to know

I had the Roto-Rooter job done to my ham-sized prostate last week. They went in with a laser and vaporized it. Star Wars: the Phantom Prostate. I’m not going to tell you how they got inside, it would cause too much psychic pain to my male readers. My recovery is going well.

I was in the hospital overnight and the guy on the other side of a curtain, Williams, had shoulder surgery that got infected while he was in the hospital. He was also on dialysis and had just had emergency surgery for a boil on his ass. He was all messed up and I could tell from his voice that he was in a lot of pain. He had a great sense of humor though and we joked around. When I told him how they got in to zap my ham he said, “I’ll bet you were glad you were out for that. I wish I had been out when you told me about it.” I hope Williams is okay.

Dysfunction of the Dangles

Got a call from my sister today. She’s concerned about my dad’s mental condition. She and dad have a lot to deal with these days. Aunt Eileen has been in the intensive care unit of her nursing home after having a fall and a bunch of related problems. She gets bouts of tri-geminal neuralgia that cause excruciating pain and when she takes the medication she becomes zombie-like. Now they say she’s ready to return to her apartment but she needs 24-hour care for at least two weeks to determine if she can care for herself.

Dad, my sister, and Aunt Eileen have been working together to determine the best course of action, except problems always arise. Aunt Eileen is stubborn and half out of her mind. One minute she agrees to something, then the next she’s against it. Dad is crippled by anxiety, passive aggression, and doesn’t believe in voicemail. My sister has a demanding job as a school social worker and doesn’t have all day to talk to nursing agencies, other social workers, and Medicare to work out all the details. My dad sits around watching Fox all day so he could, in theory, take on some of the burden, but every time he gets involved he manages to get everything screwed up. Me, I’m out here in California doing revisions, writing, and having surgeries so I’m no help at all.

Happy Labor Day!

Last Stop Ttown Press Release!

2011-08-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release: August 30, 2011
Contact: Andrew Farago, 415-227-8666, ext. 309
Images available on request

Last Stop: Troubletown
Cartoon Art Museum Exhibition: September 17, 2011 – January 01, 2012
Alternative Press Expo party with guest Lloyd Dangle Saturday, October 1
Opening reception Thursday, October 6

San Francisco, CA: For over 22 years, cartoonist Lloyd Dangle entertained, educated, and occasionally outraged audiences worldwide through his weekly comic strip Troubletown. Dangle retired the feature in April 2011, and the Cartoon Art Museum is pleased to present Last Stop: Troubletown, a comprehensive retrospective featuring the first and last Troubletown strips—and 22 years of highlights in between.

About Lloyd Dangle

Lloyd Dangle grew up in Michigan and, after attending the University of Michigan school of art, tossed his BFA out the window to draw cartoons for Michael Moore’s muckraking newspaper the Michigan Voice.

He moved to New York City during the go-go 80’s and worked for magazines, including the Village Voice which was in its heyday. Dangle landed a cartoon feature at upscale Manhattan, Inc. Magazine, lampooning the high living antics of Wall Street’s youthful elite (some things are timeless). After landlord larceny caused Dangle’s apartment building to literally collapse, he moved to San Francisco and earned his underground hipster cred, befriending Robert and Aline Crumb and appearing in their classic depressive übercomic, Weirdo.

Dangle is an multi-disciplined writer, designer, and artist whose works, over the past 20 years, have appeared in over 100 magazines and newspapers of every type, from the crusty corporate mainstream, to the altruistic not-for-profit, to the loftiest academic journals, to the bleeding, subcommercial gutter. He is now universally regarded as a big-money marketing genius for his branding of Airborne, the world's number one cold remedy, and one of the fastest selling products in retail history (according to Airborne's own data). His weekly comic strip, Troubletown, was first published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian in 1988 and has grown to become a widely-syndicated cartoon feature in alternative newsweeklies and lefty political magazines. He has published several books and exhibited his work in the United States and abroad.

Lloyd Dangle lives in Oakland, California with his wife, the powerfully-successful and attractive graphic designer and fine artist, Hae Yuon Kim, and their handsome and overachieving son, Oscar.

Praise for Troubletown

“Say it ain't so, Lloyd! Troubletown has stood alone for 22 years as the only political cartoon with a real sense of humor. Troubletown—and all of Lloyd's work, really—delivers its commentary and satirical jab with a finely honed jokester voice. After all, isn't laughing at corrupt and powerful targets what hurts them the most?

“Some political cartoons make me feel like I'm being lectured to. Lloyd Dangle, on the other hand, entertains me while I'm being lectured to. He makes his point, but I come away chuckling--at his punchline AND its intended victim. Here's hoping Lloyd's wit and wisdom will be entertaining and lecturing for another 22 years!”

-Bill Griffith, Zippy the Pinhead

“Lloyd Dangle is one of my all-time favorite political cartoonists. I've long admired Troubletown's offbeat sensibility, its unique way of wringing humor and silliness out of these, well, troubling times. It's a classic alternative comic, one that deserves its rightful place in history.”

-Jen Sorensen, Slowpoke

Another Dose of Dangle

2011-08-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

Death defying cliff jumpers at Indian Falls

I’ve missed a couple weeks of Doses, partly due to vacation, yes, more vacation for Dangle, and partly due to the way things go.

I’ve been writing like mad. I’m so over comics, but I’m more creative than ever. I had my own writing workshop up at Oakland Feather River Camp up in the mountains. I wrote all morning every day and broke some new ground on my book. Some really weird stuff bubbled up from my unconscious that was very vivid and powerful. Of course it puts more kinks in the plot and structure that I have no idea how to fix, but that’s another issue.

I wish I could write as effectively here at home but I’m constantly getting waylaid. I should probably turn off the computer and internet. I’ve been having to knock off work at 2:30 each day to pick up Oscar from science camp and take him swimming too. It’s the end of summer and finally hot so we’ve got to get our water play in.

More Troubletown History
The other thing that’s been going on is that I’ve been sifting through twenty-two years of Troubletown cartoons to pick the ones for my show at the Cartoon Art Museum. There’s over a thousand cartoons on the floor of my studio. Andrew, the curator, offered to have some interns help me with the restoration of the cartoons that are falling apart but I just couldn’t hand them over. I did it all myself and it was sort of meditative but mostly a giant pain in the ass.

More Glue Issues
I asked my friend Karthik, a collage artist, what glue he uses because the UHU sticks were just so fat and clumsy. He said get the PH balanced special glue they sell at Blick’s that’s formulated to last centuries and brush it on very thinly. I started using it, but then my other friend, Lee, a big comics collector said, never use the PH balanced special glue because the paper’s porosity soaks it up and then the paper becomes wavy. Wavy cartoons are the worst, he said, he wouldn’t buy them. Well, it’s too late now, unless maybe I weigh them down with an anvil or something.

Show Details So Far
Hey, the show starts September 17th, goes straight through Alternative Press Expo (there’ll be a party that Saturday) and the reception will be on October 6. Mark your calendars! More info to come.

Next week I go in for surgery. As anybody who has ever drank beer with me in a bar knows, my prostate is the size of a Christmas ham, so I am going to have it fixed. One scene in my novel involves a surgery so this will be excellent research. If I go into cardiac arrest and die on the operating table, as happens to fifty year olds who have eaten pork ribs and ice cream all their lives, please buy my cartoon originals to support my poor little wife and child.

Daredevils

Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-08-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

A panel from the comics job

Oscar went up to Lake Tahoe with Ben and Clyde so Hae and I had the whole weekend to ourselves for the first time in I think about ten years. We went wild. Happy hours and movies and all sorts of illicit activity. Sunday we went to see my favorite band the Sons of Emperor Norton at a bar in Hayward.

Actually we spent part of Saturday trying to tackle the horrendous squalor that was Oscar’s room. I started with the intention of throwing away about fifty percent of the crap in there, but Hae went through and carefully sorted every bit of it like the perfectionist she is. In the end we only threw out two garbage bags full and moved three or four boxes of old books and clothes and stuff out into the living room where it will sit until we figure out what to do with it. We really have to make Oscar start taking care of his room and pulling his weight around here before it’s too late. I’m afraid our lax parenting (especially mine) is turning him into a spoiled brat. Talk about attitude!

But then we rewarded ourselves by playing. We threw our vegetarianism out the window and ate some pork at the Oakland hipster hangout, Mua. Delicious. We went to see Midnight in Paris at an actual movie theater and it was pretty good. Then we went to see Super 8 the next night, which turned out to be one of those formulaic monster movies. We ate popcorn from a giant shopping bag-sized bag and shared one of those cups of soda that holds about two gallons. Between the two of us we drank less than a gallon of it. The mall was full of teenagers on Saturday night, just hanging out eating pizza with their braces and zit-covered faces. It won’t be long before our son is one of them. Jesus Christ that’s scary!

There is finally light at the end of the tunnel with the big comic strip job I’ve been complaining about––for which I was already paid at the end of 2010. I cranked all week and made great headway. Because of the lack of monetary incentive I have no desire to do the work whatsoever. I’m running on pure professionalism here, folks, pure professionalism. I’ve got at least a half dozen proposals out there for new work, graphic recording and jobs making those RSA-style whiteboard videos for scientists and universities. They are fun to do except that in order to keep your shoulder out of camera range you have to draw in an odd stance with your arm extended way out to the right. Try drawing that way, it’s very awkward. I sure hope these jobs come through and things pick up in the fall. I’m enjoying summer but I’d enjoy it more if I had some gigs on the calendar for September. It’s the freelance dilemma.

I’ve been too busy to work on the book and I have to workshop some pages by this weekend. I’ve been so stuck lately and out of touch with my creative unconscious. I’ll write some pages this week.

Update on Oscar’s room cleaning. When he came home he was pissed. We destroyed his fort that he had worked so hard on. That’ll be a subject for him and his therapist someday.

I just won an award from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for this cover illustration I did for Tucson Weekly! Actually I shared it with Jim Nitzel who was my editor. Click it to see it bigger.

Please Give Some Money

2011-07-31T13:48:00.000-07:00

No, it's not for me this time. My son's public school needs cash to keep two artists in residence. Check out the cute video I made. Please donate a few bucks if you feel like helping keep art in an Oakland school.

This Week's Dose of Dangle

2011-07-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend we drove out to Antioch to try to get some summer heat since it was pretty chilly and windy here in Oakland. It gets really hot in Antioch but it was only about eighty with a nice breeze, so it was perfect, almost exactly like Hawaii, except it was Antioch, California. Oscar’s buddy Matthew came along and first we went to Contra Loma regional park. In the giant pool there they have a rule that you must pass a swimming test in order to go into the deep end. Oscar, cocky and overconfident as always, jumped in for his test. His crawl is unorthodox. It’s laughably strange, his arms coming up out of the water in long, loopy arcs that fail to propel him. He didn’t pass the test. The lifeguard said he couldn’t tell what the hell Oscar was doing. It was a heavy blow to Oscar’s ego and a stab to his self-esteem. Then he found a more lenient lifeguard and passed on his second try. The verdict: Oscar needs more lessons. I sat in the shade and read my book, Visit from the Goon Squad, and breathed lighter fluid fumes from nearby barbeques. Then we went to Prewett Park where they have a couple of water slides and several pools and they play blaring ’80s hits over the loudspeakers. Oscar and his pal went down a hundred times or so. Hae and I went down the water slides a few times too. We’re so fat that we bottomed out on the inner tube.

I’ve been going into the studio every day and working on various projects, but I have changed. The isolation I thrived on for so many years is driving me nuts. I walk around the streets but it’s just not doing it for me. If you’re not a weirdo and you want to meet for coffee in Oakland sometime send me an email. Right now I’m working on an insufferably long project with no end in sight. I must remember to always demand a deadline. If I really plow forward and work on it day and night I might be able to finish it in a week. I will, by god, I will.

The other thing going on in the studio is twenty-two years of Troubletown cartoons are stacked up in piles. I’m going through them to find forty good ones for the show at the Cartoon Art Museum. Like I wrote in a previous post, for most of the twenty-two years I used rubber cement to hold together my cartoons with their many paste-ups. My originals are essentially collages. In the early years the rubber cement must’ve been better quality because those are sticking together, but starting around ’93 all the cartoons are yellowed and falling apart. Maybe they changed the formula to make it less deadly and it ruined the adhesive quality. I opened up an envelope of comics and the pieces came falling down like autumn leaves. Little drawings and bits of lettering. Nobody could ever put them back together. Oh well, at least I have ten thousand unsold copies of my books in storage! The cartoons exist in print!

I’ve made some changes over at lloyddangle.com. My pal, Pat Broderick, designed some wonderful new stuff. Take a look at it if you’re interested. I’m changing the focus of my “professional” site to promote graphic recording, the corporate hackery I’m doing now and enjoying.

Hae and I can never figure out who put which movies on the queue at Netflix. She accuses me of loading it up with real stinkers. We watched O Lucky Man, a musical written and starred in by a young Malcom McDowell. Very strange film. We saw Cautiva, very depressing (but excellent) Argentinean film. I watched Louis Black’s Stark Raving Black. I always thought he was funny but he couldn’t pull off a comedy show as a headliner. He’s better in small bits. Then I also watched a Korean gangster shoot ‘em up called The Man from Nowhere. It was gritty with a funny overwrought ending when the good guy and the kidnapped girl are reunited. Took Oscar to see Cars 2 in 3D. I liked it better than Cars 1. Somebody informed me that Iggy Pop recorded a jazz album so as a stalwart fan of the Ig I went to iTunes and listened to the free snippets they give you. Oh, god it sounded awful! It was the worst thing I’d heard since the Bob Dylan Christmas album!

Today's Sketch: Iggy Pop Performing Tunes from the Jazz Album

2011-07-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

Conversation with the Man

2011-07-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

I never answer the phone if the caller ID doesn’t identify a number or a person, but some no-name caller was ringing my phone several times a day so I finally picked it up.

“Hello, I’m calling from the police drug enforcement bureau, how are you today?”

“I’m okay.”

“Great. Do you know why I’m calling?”

“No.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well I’m calling because the war on drugs is in a crucial situation now with all the meth out there. I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Yeah?”

“And we’d like to give you a sticker that shows that you are with us in the fight against drugs.”

“Listen, I...”

“I’m calling today to ask, if we were to send you an envelope in the mail with one of these stickers, would you be able to make a contribution?”

“How would you know where to send it?”

“Don't worry. We know where you live.”

“Uh, money is pretty tight around here, Let me talk it over with my wife.”

“That’s true for everybody these days, but if we were to send you one of these stickers do you think you could dig deep and keep the kids off drugs?”

“We’re really having to limit how many donations we...”

“It don’t matter how much you give but for the sticker do you think you could afford forty bucks? This money is also going to a fund for the families of slain police officers.”

“Well, go ahead and send me the materials...”

“Before we send the sticker, will you make a pledge for forty bucks?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I really need to have a pledge today.”

“Let me...”

“Can I have a pledge of forty bucks?”

“No.”

“Okay, thank you.” CLICK.

The Shocking Result of Poor Adhesives

2011-07-18T10:57:00.000-07:00

Typical Troubletown original from the nineties

Sometime in the last ten years I stopped using rubber cement and moved to UHU glue sticks. I did it mostly because I feared that inhaling the rubber cement fumes was going to give me cancer. I always do a lot of paste up on my cartoons so the glue is important. Well, lately I have been pulling out the old cartoons from the archive and I'm distressed to find that they have either fallen completely apart or they're so delicate that they crumble at the slightest touch. I could use an unpaid intern to come in and restore these cartoons with UHU. At one a week it will take them something like fifteen years, so ideally they would be about ten years old now and financially independent.

So much for my plan of living off the sales of my originals. I guess I'll have to keep working.

Your Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-07-17T14:19:00.001-07:00

My miniature tikis

I just got back to my office after two weeks in Hawaii. Yes, readers, eat your hearts out. It was great. We were on my favorite island, Kauai. I love to hang out on the beach and do nothing for days on end and it’s especially great because Oscar loves the water. I mean he really loves the water. He goes into the ocean in the morning and comes out in the late afternoon. He even asks me to bring him a drink of water out in the waves because he can’t bear to get out. You might think it’s irresponsible parenting to let him stay in the water so long, that it might be unsafe or whatever, but he’s virtually an aquatic animal. Hard pounding surf means nothing to him. Some of my friends were taking a surf lesson and the wizened old native Hawaiian surf instructor commented on my son’s swimming: “Oscar da fish.”

Since we’ve been back it’s been typical San Francisco summer, foggy, overcast, cold. I have been getting back into writing but I don’t seem able to put two words together in a coherent order.

I was asked by Andrew at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco to have a Troubletown retrospective exhibit in the fall. What an honor. The problem is that my friends at the Mercury Cafe also asked me to have a show and an “End of Troubletown” party at the same time. It’s difficult to know what to do. Would it be weird to have two shows in the same town going on at once? I’m in a conundrum. The other problem with having a retrospective is that I used the wrong adhesive on my comics for nineteen years. Rubber cement doesn’t stand the test of time. I’ve been going through the archives. The entire year of 1995 is falling apart. A lot of the comics sucked too.

Review of the iPad, continued

I took my iPad to Hawaii with me and tried to find some use for it. The email program is a mess. Two emails that I had intended to reply to simply disappeared after I read them. (E Yarber, if you're out there, thanks for your message!) After a while I got a notice that my mail server was full. On a laptop I could’ve gone in and deleted a bunch of junk mail, but the iPad only let me select one email at a time so it would’ve taken me forever to throw out enough to make a difference.

The other problem with the iPad is the apps. Apps are mini-applications that are supposed to make the iPad act a little bit like a computer, but unlike most software they are all released while still in early stages of development so they’re buggy as hell and work like shit. You are supposed to be checking the app store all the time to discover the ones that actually do what they’re supposed to without crashing your iPad. I don’t have time for that, I just want things that work reliably. If anybody has any apps that are good let me know about them.

My reaction to the iPad is one of those things that makes me feel the disconnect between me and the American people. They all love this gadget. It puts me another step behind the techno-savvy youth. I asked my friend Pete what he uses his iPad for. He loves to have it in the kitchen so he can watch a movie or listen to NPR while he chops up onions. It’s a thousand dollar radio and TV with a small screen. When I tried watching a movie on mine it kept having to reload. I guess I have to shell out for a faster connection. iPad. Anybody want to buy one slightly used?

Photo from my iPad

2011-07-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

I'm still trying to figure out what this device is good for.

Your Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-06-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

I’ve been working for a big silicon valley client on a project, no, not graphic recording, but a series of two-page comic strips. Anyway, the client is making all the wrong decisions. It started out as a series of slice of life stories about employees having interesting or unusual work-related experiences. Nice idea. But then the client decided it would be better to add some gratuitous superhero characters to the stories. Just superheroes who pop in here and there for no reason. I did one comic with the superheroes included to make the client happy and they came back and said, no, we don’t want the superheroes to be drawn like your cartoons, we want them to be drawn in the superhero style! I sat on that for a little while, wondering how to respond. Then I told them that I can’t draw in the superhero style but if they want to find somebody who can, no problem, I’ll drop the heroes into my cartoons. (obviously by this time I’d given up hope that the final cartoons will be good.)

Should I have been more of a pain in the ass, more of a prima donna? On jobs like this my motto is, “Ours is not to wonder why, ours it but to do or die!”

I’ve had some down time from graphic recording (no work) so I have been working on Unpalleteable. I’ve been writing at least an hour in the morning and sometimes all day. It’s like sticking reeds under my fingernails and scalping myself with a rusty sardine can. Writing sucks! I hate doing it and having to live with my own words, but I really want to finish this book and I want it to be funny and good.

Review of Peter Gabriel at the Greek Theater

Hae and I went to see Peter Gabriel at the Greek Theater. I’m not a Peter Gabriel fan but I’m so goddamned old that I don’t know any new bands and have to go see ones from the 80s that I at least recognize. Peter Gabriel took the stage at exactly eight o’clock while Hae and I were still looking for a parking space on the streets of Berkeley, which is next to impossible among the mad aged hippies everywhere choking the streets with their Volvos and bumpersticker-laden Subarus. Finally we paid the big bucks for event parking and made our way up the hill to the amphitheater. When we entered the Greek Peter Gabriel was singing a melodic ballad with a full orchestra backing him up. I usually find an orchestra for a pop star to be a bit––what word am I looking for––idiotic? And this was no exception. As we found our slab of hard concrete to sit our old asses down on, Gabriel went into another slow dirge, the strings ever so delicately rising and falling in accompaniment with the singing. Then came another slow tune, another, and yet another. There was to be no toe-tapping that evening at the Greek. And Peter Gabriel is completely earnest. He believes that his singing is saving people in Africa and that people should listen to it because it’s very important. At intermission a drunk college student said to his pals, “That was the sleepiest music I’ve ever heard.” He was exactly right. A large panel descended in front of the orchestra and I thought, at least he’ll bring out the band and play a smoking second set (well, at least as smoking a Peter Gabriel gets), but it was not to be. The orchestra played the first tune behind the screen with some translucent effects that were lame. By the end of the concert I was lulled into a stupor as if my whole body had been shot full of novocaine. The only sensation left was the pain my ass felt from the long hours on the concrete slab. Pluses: at least the fog didn’t come in so the temperature remained sufferable.

In a nutshell, I give Peter Gabriel zero stars.

I got tickets to see Iggy and the Stooges for sometime in October. If he comes out with an orchestra I’ll slit my own throat with a sharp piece of a shredded plastic beer cup.

Your Dose of Dangle

2011-06-10T09:56:00.000-07:00

It’s been a couple weeks since I wrote a dose, so I’ll catch you up on my endeavors.

I’ve been working on my novel non-stop almost, the working title of which is Unpalleteable. It’s going to be a humorous book, so I keep having to go back and pump up the funny. The narrator is the main character and I’m having trouble giving him the right presence.

Here's a fake cover Pat Broderick made for me.

I’ve joined another writers group to workshop pieces of the novel. The last one I was in with Clive Matson was mellow. My inability to talk about other people’s writing was accepted and people were cool with me chiming in only occasionally. This new group works differently. They go around and each person must speak. I become tongue-tied and intimidated, and this group is very intimate and everybody sounds very intelligent when they speak. It’s just like college, which I hated. The point: it’s good to do things that are painful and difficult. It makes you stronger.

I went to New York and led the executive committee of the Graphic Artists Guild through a strategic planning workshop using my graphic facilitation skills. It was good practice for me since I want to be able to do that kind of work. The Graphic Artists Guild is very special to me, some of you might know that I’m a past president. Despite what you may have heard from some dickheads the Guild is a terrific organization with wonderful people. I hope they win that lawsuit against those dickheads.

Saw a Giants game with my friend, Karthik, the next mayor of San Francisco. I forgot my glasses but I could still see enough. Baseball games have sure changed since the days when I was a maniacal fan. The constant flashing of the lit up scoreboards almost puts you into a epileptic seizure. Some things are the same though: two beers––nineteen dollars.

Karthik is practically a professional cheerer. He’s the guy who starts those clapping cheers that go LET’S GO GIANTS clap-clap-clap! and then the rest of the ballpark picks up on it and joins in. Pretty amazing and another reason to vote Karthik Rajan for mayor.

I’ve read a couple books that I’ve forgotten already. Now I’m rereading Alan Black’s, Kick the Balls, which is unforgettable and hilarious. Last night I watched the movie Smoking Aces. If you haven’t seen it don’t waste your time.

Today's Sketch

2011-06-08T11:07:00.000-07:00

I've been on the road a lot.

Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-05-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

I have been on a media cleanse for almost a month now, something that would have been it impossible when I was doing the comic strip. No Talking Points Memo, no Huffington, no Matt Taibbi, no Truthout, not even Wonkette. In the evening I've left the TV off and spent time hanging out with my son listening to his jokes. It's far superior entertainment, especially compared to the show, The Last Word, which really sucks.

Review of the Ipad 2

I got an Ipad 2. I saw some animated layered painting Peter Durand was doing on one and thought, I must have one. I kept talking to Hae about iPads and how cool they were until finally she broke under the pressure and bought me one for my birthday. I want to love it because I know what a "disruptive" product it is, in that it caused people to stop spending money on a whole set of consumer goods in order to buy iPads. It must be terrific, I thought.

After I got my iPad I asked myself the question, what can you do with an iPad? One thing you can't do is type words. The touchscreen keyboard is very sensitive. Too sensitive. It's for typing one letter at a time like a retarded person. Anyone who "touch types" can forget about typing on an Ipad. The screen will drive you insane. I am typing this on my Ipad now but with a bluetooth keyboard I bought for $90 that, along with the leather pouch it comes in, makes it almost as heavy as a laptop. An Air laptop might even be lighter. And the typing even on this small keyboard is still sucking big time. Especially the shift key for the right hand. I can't find that motherfucker for anything. I'm always hitting the arrow keys and sending the goddamn cursor flying all over the place.

Touch screen technology seems cool, the way you can pinch and zip with your finger, but in practice it's not. Whenever the light hits the screen the wrong way I can see all the oily finger smudges and that disgusts me. It makes me want to wipe Purell all over it. And I’m not a particularly anal person or anything, it just bothers me. So I bought a stylus for $30 which is like a pen with a fat clitoris-like rubber tip. It’s spongy and fat like a chicken drumstick and unlike a Wacom tablet it’s not pressure sensitive, nor is the iPad very responsive to it. Wacom does offer a stylus for the iPad but right now it takes about six weeks to get one and they cost $30. The apps, Brushes, and Layers, are supposedly the best for drawing. I’ve tried them both. You can’t draw for shit on an iPad.

I should also mention that Elements, the app that is supposed to be the best for writing is buggy. Sometimes it fails to register your big greasy finger when you’re trying to plant a cursor on the page or when you try to hit the various commands. Also, Elements has a folder system, but as far as I can tell you can only rename folders you can’t delete them. So the whole idea that the app is useful in managing your text files is ridiculous. You end up with files and folders all over the place in no time.

Finally, the reason that this review is so lame is that I'm typing it on my iPad and the iPad makes you stupid. If you have any ideas of apps that will make me change my mind, please help!

Movies and books: I’m reading The Boy who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To, that somebody gave me. It makes me feel that if that writer could finish a novel and get it published that I certainly should be able to. We watched Bring Me the Head of Alberto Garcia, directed by Sam Peckinpah. It reminded me of the old Monty Python knock offs of Peckinpah movies so I kept laughing uncontrollably through all the ultra-violent scenes. We also went camping at the Del Valle reservoir with Oscar’s cub scout troop. My nose ran like a faucet, my eyes puffed out, and my head swelled up like a cantaloupe from all the pollen.

Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-05-17T09:04:00.000-07:00

Jobs keep coming in from all directions which is great. They come in odd patterns though. One day It’ll look like I’ve got three projects all happening right on top of each other, so I start getting stressed out, and then one after another they fall apart, so suddenly my time is free. It happens the other way around too. This week I’ve got two gigs in the Bay Area.

I’m thinking I need to get a new car because it’s embarrassing to pull into these corporate parking lots in my truck. If anybody has ever seen my truck you know what a jalopy looks like. It’s an ugly blue Toyota pickup to begin with but it’s got gray Bondo all over it in patches and just looks like crap. All the other cars are Mercedes and Lexus so mine really stands out. I don't have the money for a new car.

Allergies suck. Last weekend I had to bail out on the third grade camping trip. My eyes were oozing and I was sneezing uncontrollably. I could’ve gone anyway but instead I got to hang out in my house alone, sit in my favorite chair, and read books, and not have to listen to fifty third graders screaming. I re-read What Makes Sammy Run to help inspire my novel and picked up Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea. It was supposed to be for reading to Oscar but I picked it up and started it. It starts off great and then becomes boring when they get into Nemo’s submarine and go around looking at starfish and stuff. I assume the action will pick up again, otherwise I’m going to shelve it.

My birthday was here! Yep, I turned 50. We had a great big party and a band, the Sons of Emperor Norton. Amazing! Thanks to everyone who roasted me. Embarrassing but cool!

This Week's Dose of Dangle

2011-04-29T09:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I penned my last Troubletown this week and it’s been a very emotive time around here as the emails and comments (most of them nice) have been pouring in. You hardcore Troubletown fans will be happy to know that the two pens and the inking brush I used to draw those cartoons are still sitting on my table exactly as there were when I finished the last panel and they will never be moved. I haven’t washed the brush and it is totally stiff with dried ink. My studio is now cordoned off with a velvet rope. It’s simply a museum to the great cartoon that was.

The reinvention of Dangle as corporate whore is going smoothly. What a relief. In addition to the 22 years I spent drawing a popular but unprofitable comic strip, I spent ten and an obscene amount of money trying to make a go at licensing, but found that manufactured superficiality didn’t come easily to me. Every time I tried to make something cute and inoffensive that I thought the public would buy I fell flat on my face. Target, Wal Mart, and all the big retailers used stripes and polka dots on everything and never wanted to slap any Dangle designs on their products. Plus, as an artist, when you start worrying about what people want instead of just doing what pleases you and comes naturally you become unhinged and screwed.

I don’t know why but ever since I came back from that candy convention in Chicago I’ve been eating like a pig. Just wolfing down easter eggs and Peeps and marshmallows and all sorts of disgusting crap. Last night the Feldman’s invited us over for cake to celebrate Clara’s ninth birthday so I sucked down a large piece. Tiramisu. Plus I’ve been throwing back beers and wine (mayor-to-be Karthik took me out to celebrate the end of the strip) like there’s no tomorrow. Now I must get back to eating nothing but fennel and kale again.

The Feldman’s had a break-in the beginning of last week. Josh was coming into his house when three guys ran past him carrying all his computers and valuables, sticking out the sides of the Feldmans' own luggage. Josh made chase but the guys all split up and took off. One of them dumped a desktop computer in the bushes, so at least Josh got that back. The Oakland police told him that since it was just a burglary they weren’t going to do a single thing about it. The burglars around here are sharp at surveiling and analyzing the residents’ patterns. Every time we spend a whole morning packing the car for a camping trip I cringe at the information we’re posting to all the nearby criminals.

I got back to work on my novel about art, life, politics, and pain. I bought the program, Scrivener, which is a hell of a lot better than trying to write a novel in Word. You can actually organize things. Ah, but the novel, it has it’s moments of profound artistry––pure genius––but mostly it’s a sprawling unruly mess without any pictures to help. I’m about two thirds of the way through the story. My plan is to hammer through the rest of it so that I actually have a first draft. Then I need to go through the whole thing a couple times and pump it all up to the same volume. There is an incredibly weak sub-plot that I might just kill entirely, except it provides my main character with a level of depth that would be missing without it. One of my readers (I’ve shared it with members of a writing workshop) says that the characters are cartoon-like, which is usually a bad thing to say about characters in a novel, but she actually means it in a good way. I’d like to serialize it here on the blog, but I’m not ready for that.

The other thing I’m doing is rereading What Makes Sammy Run for inspiration. One of the greatest novels I know.

Today's Sketch

2011-04-27T12:34:00.000-07:00

Dangle Off Deadline: Interview

2011-04-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

Here's an exit interview with yours truly in the Pacific Northwest Inlander. One of the papers that ran Troubletown. NEWS - Dangle Off Deadline - Lloyd Dangle

This Week's Final Troubletown

2011-04-25T11:09:00.001-07:00

Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-04-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve been on the road, last week in Chicago. I got to see my friend, Schmelzer, who was the Guild president after me. Anybody who’s been Guild president is automatically bonded to the ones who went before. It’s so painful and traumatic an experience that you have to have to been there to understand. Schmelzer and I ate oysters and drank pints of Guinness in a classic Chicago meat house. He’s creating cartoons for the New Yorker these days working with a gag writer. The drawings are good, but the gags are bad. He goes to the New Yorker office on Tuesdays at eleven when he’s in New York to show Mankoff his cartoons. It’s still done the old fashioned way there. So far all of his cartoons have been rejected. I wish I could do New Yorker style cartoons, but I just don’t seem to be able to write that way.

It’s Oscar’s spring break so I’m out of the office again on two camping trips. The first one was to Steep Ravine in Marin County, camping in little cabins with wood-burning stoves on a steep cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It’s really not camping at all. Next we’re going on a boy scout camping trip in the redwoods with the tent and the whole bit. It’s supposed to rain. I’ve had job requests coming in like mad so taking time off makes me a bit anxious. Things sure have changed since a year ago.

I confused my readers last week with my third-to-last comic strip by suggesting that I’m leaving the country. A bunch of haters sent emails saying stuff like: don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. Well forget about it. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be a thorn in your sides whether I draw Troubletown or not. I’ve had several newspapers interview me about the end of Troubletown. Everybody expects me to be sad and grieving the end of my comic strip, they look at me with big puppy eyes, but I’m not at all. After next week’s deadline I’m a free man. I won’t disappear though, I will still have Troubletown the blog and a constant annoying Twitter presence.

I’ve been reading the three Steig Larson books, you know, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the others, on Hae’s kindle. At first I was unimpressed with the artistry of the writing but after a while I got so hooked that I didn’t care anymore. The kindle is an odd little machine with a gray screen. It’s not lit so you can’t read it in the dark, but the face is shiny so you have to get the angle just right so that your reading light doesn’t reflect into your eyes. You don’t have the cover of a book constantly reminding you what the title is, so I always forget. It’s called The Girl who Played with a Tattoo of a Hornet’s Nest. Something like that.

This Week's Highly Patriotic Troubletown

2011-04-21T09:39:00.001-07:00

This Week's Troubletown

2011-04-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

With only three cartoons to go, I penned this bummer, anti-American screed. Let the snide comments roll!

Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-04-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

My friend Karthik is running for mayor of San Francisco. He’s an artist with an interesting background as a statistician and a news director for KPFK in Los Angeles. He’s traveled around the world many times and probably done dozens of other things that I'm not aware of. Now he walks the hilly streets of San Francisco talking to the people and stopping in at every bar and cafe to press the flesh. Anyway, check out his campaign, he’d kick ass as mayor. I’d vote for him except that I live in Oakland. Although he’s determined to fight cronyism I’m hoping that he will name me SF commissioner of cartooning. I’d liberally dole out money to all the cartoonists who are just one step from the gutter.

I’m heading off to Chicago for almost the whole week to do a graphic recording gig with my colleagues at Alphachimp. Corporate gig! I wish I could take some time to go see my dad two hours north of Chicago in the wilds of Wisconsin, but it ain't going to happen. He’s ninety and lives alone in a three bedroom house out in the countryside near where he was raised. My sister, Joyce, lives nearby too. She’s a school social worker who is in the crosshairs of Governor Scott Walker’s budget cuts. Her job is to try to get toothless, meth-addled hillbillies to send their kids to school. She’s half expecting to be laid off. And she’s had that job forever.

I also wish I had time to see my pal, John Schmelzer, the guy who was Guild president after I finished my term from hell. He’s incredibly obnoxious, the kind of guy who gives waitresses a hard time, but I’m fond of him. He collects bulldogs, draws illustrations, and raises pigeons. We like to drink together. Maybe I can see him on the last night before I return unless Alphachimp has other plans for me.

Took Oscar to his cuong nhu martial arts class Saturday morning. He was goofing off and not paying any attention to the teacher. Spinning around and falling on the ground and being a clown. I asked him what the hell he was doing out there and he said, “Dad, if you ever make another comment like that I will never do cuong nhu again.” He’s always making ultimatums. I heard a guy deriding California dads who want to be their kids’ buddies instead of parenting with an iron fist. I wondered if I was one of those dads.

A Sob Interview with Dangle

2011-04-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

Cagle Post � Q&A: Dangle To End ‘Troubletown’

Village Voice Comics Idiocy

2011-04-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

The Village Voice ran a comics issue and invited cartoonists to contribute for free (for the exposure) and then ran this article asking why comics don't pay. The Voice has gone from being my all time favorite to being a real douchebag newspaper. The comments agree with my sentiment. The Comics Issue: If Cartoons Are So Big, Why Don't They Pay? - Page 1 Village Voice

This Week's Dose of Dangle

2011-04-05T07:25:00.000-07:00

I was asked to emcee a roast of the crazy-child beat poet Clive Matson who was turning seventy. I went there in my tuxedo with a bunch of crass jokes I’d written about Clive, how old he is, how much he loves rocks (he’s a mineral collector), how he’s the poet laureate of Viagra, etc. But when I got there I discovered it was not a roast at all but a poetry reading. I also discovered that they had asked two people to emcee, me and another guy. I guess they wanted a backup. We each tried to pawn the job off on the other, but it was decided that because I had the tux I would emcee, and he would come on a couple times to say some clever stuff. Every single person in the room signed up for a chance to read a poem or two. Folks read heartfelt verses for hours. My jokes did not fit the mood and went over like lead balloons. To make matters worse, the woman who made the list had bad handwriting, so I mispronounced every single poet’s name. And it was a tight-knit group so they all knew each others names. It was the kind of experience that just makes one stronger.

I went to LA twice last week to graphically record lectures and discussions for science and medical departments at USC. Heady stuff about neurology, engineering, and spatial science. This weekend I recorded two days at Sex::tech, a conference for people who educate teens about sex. I drew pictures of condoms and pregnant girls. When I did the medical school gig they sent a driver to pick me up at the airport. A chauffeur. I came down the escalator and there was a guy standing with a sign that said, “Doctor Dangle.” In Albuquerque the rental car place gave me a brand new silver Mustang by mistake. The cockpit is so low and the hood so high on those things you can’t see the road at all--and I’m pretty tall. I was driving to the gig and I got pulled over in Corrales for doing 20 in a 15 mile per hour zone. He let me off with a verbal.

I get paid to do this

I’m retiring Troubletown, as everybody knows by now, and I've been getting a lot of kind notes. Thanks for your comments! None of the haters are emailing me thanking me for quitting though. I think they’re secretly going to miss me. Here’s the type of love letter I’m going to miss about this week's cartoon from amateur psychologist and over-user of quotation marks, Kevin H.

Maybe the president you so adored only two years ago isn't doing what you think is "correct" now is because that now that he is in charge, he "gets" things that you obviously don't, and never will. Its so easy to blast the guy in charge, until suddenly you are the guy in charge. Then its funny how things change. Imagine that. Maybe its because he has to consider both sides of the equation when for years you only considered your side? Hell, did you ever spend 10 seconds even trying to understand the rationale of the otherside? I doubt it.

Its easy to be a critic when you are not in charge - but when were YOU ever "in charge"? I am laughing. Give me any bullshit answer you want - I know the real answer is "never".

Don't worry.... your views couldn't possibly be wrong. Keep believing that. And keep drinking the coolaide. George Soros loves puppets - who knows, if you kiss his backside enough, maybe he will give you a subsidy!

Isn't America wonderful? You can make money off spreading bullshit! You of all people should know.

Just out of curiosity - are you an only-child rebelling from your rich parents? You certainly act that way.

Hmmm, some interesting projection there. Pissing off dudes like Kevin is what I live for, so it will be tough. But I'll find a way to live without it.

This Week's Troubletown

2011-04-04T10:37:00.001-07:00

Thanks Papers!

2011-04-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

The Bay Guardian
where it
all started

I want to thank the papers and magazines that stuck with me to the bitter end:

Austin Chronicle
Cagle.com
Cascadia Weekly
Connect Savanna
Funny Times
Pacific Northwest Inlander
Portland Mercury
Progressive Magazine
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Seven Days, Burlington VT
Tucson Weekly
Weekly Alibi/ Albuquerque

And the ones that ran me at one time before they canned me:

Broward Palm Beach New Times
Buffalo Beat
Cleveland Free Times
Durham Independent
Honolulu Weekly
Inland Empire Weekly
In Pittsburgh
LA New Times
LA Weekly
Maui Time
Metro Silicon Valley
Miami New Times
Minneapolis City Paper
Metro Silicon Valley
New York Press
OC Weekly
Philadelphia Weekly
San Diego Reader
The Stranger
Telluride Watch
Urban Tulsa Weekly

I'm probably missing a few. It has been 22 years.

It's True

2011-03-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

That's right folks, after twenty-two years I've decided to retire my comic strip. It's been an agonizing decision but I've come to the conclusion that the time is right. I'll be doing my last strip at the end of April so there's still some time for me to do a few last cartoons, at least one of which will be self-aggrandizing. I want to thank all you newspapers for your longtime support, and you readers who made it all worthwhile. Finally I'd like to thank GOD, even though I'm an atheist.

Hey, the blog is still alive and I'll be sketching and posting new stuff, just not the weekly strip. And the store is open and ready for business!

Pole Dancing for Jesus

2011-03-23T12:48:00.001-07:00

This Week's Troubletown

2011-03-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

This Week's Dose of Dangle

2011-03-22T22:20:00.000-07:00

God, I’ve been lazy when it comes to blogging. I go through periods where self consciousness overwhelms the masturbatory impulse to share. I haven’t tweeted at all either but more people keep following me.

I’ve been working a lot and traveling for graphic recording gigs. I went to Albuquerque for four days and I’ve been going to LA a lot. I’m in demand. Next weekend I’m doing the sex education conference which is always a blast. Also, all sorts of interesting projects are falling into my lap. For many years I did comics and illustration and did the same damn project over and over. Now I never know what's coming next. I should’ve done this years ago.

I had one of those moments in the airport when I was watching all the people talking on their phones, texting, listening to iPods, and reading from little handheld screens how surreal the world has become. I’ve decided that people hooking into their personal devices is like what smoking used to be. At the beginning of a flight when passengers are told to turn off their personal devices you see them get really pissy about giving up their ear buds. During those unplugged moments they are jumpy and irritable. Then when they’re allowed to go back into their device they’re happy. After a couple generations when these devices have been proven to have killed millions with brain and testicular cancer, only the most hardcore addicts will still be seen standing around outside office buildings texting and checking their email, unsuccessful in their attempts to quit.

Last time I talked to Geoffie he had an idea for a line of women’s clothing somehow based on former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, who Geoff thinks is pretty foxy. In fact he has a thing for her and knows her quite well from some campaign events in which he’s spoken to her directly. I can’t tell you the name of the clothing line. It’s a closely guarded secret, but I can tell you that it will use as its theme music a popular Neil Young song from the 1970s.

I’ve also reconnected with my old golfing buddy Gordy Jones who lives in Orlando, Florida and drives for Papa Johns. He’s thinking about driving a taxi to make some extra money but his wife doesn’t like the idea on account of a number of taxi drivers getting murdered lately in central Florida. Gordy told me he’s an alcoholic. He calls me on my cell phone after he’s had a few beers. Gordy, if you’re reading this, I love you bro!

I’m not going to write about the size of my prostate. That’s just more information than anybody wants to know. But it’s been an adventure. I’m turning 50 in May.

I’ve been reading too many books and watching too many movies to list them. I’ve started sneaking off work and going to see movies during the day. Saw The Fighter. As my son says about the sports movie formula, it was just like Dodgeball.

This Week's Troubletown

2011-03-15T16:18:00.001-07:00

This Week's Troubletown

2011-03-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

This Week's Troubletown

2011-02-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

This Week's Troubletown

2011-02-22T07:26:00.001-08:00

Cartoonist Pilloried!

2011-02-17T08:28:00.000-08:00

I couldn’t believe it when I saw this the other night. Lawrence O’Donnell called this cartoon a racist obscenity and went on and on over it pleading with the cartoonist’s mother, friends, and wife to make him stop. Maybe it’s racist to show a black woman eating hamburgers. Maybe it’s racist to show Obama with comically large ears. What do you think?

Every cartoonist toils away in obscurity and can’t buy a mention in the media until they eventually do something that’s picked up on as obscene or offensive. Then they get their fifteen minutes in the spotlight. You see it all the time.

In light of this, it’s a good day to play Offendo. Help me get my fifteen minutes of abuse from a sanctimonious TV host.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This Week's Troubletown

2011-02-08T07:26:00.001-08:00

Classic Ronald Reagan

2011-02-04T16:05:00.000-08:00

This video says it all.

This Week's Troubletown

2011-02-01T08:24:00.000-08:00

Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-01-26T13:32:00.000-08:00

Deer in Somebody's Headlights a Little to Your Left

Everything is falling apart at our house. It's been eleven years since we re-did the kitchen and the appliances are all going. We had the Sears guy out to look at the dishwasher and he charged us $149 to tell us it was shot. A plumber came out to look at the tankless water heater. Both need to be replaced. Recently we had to replace the toilet. There’s a list of house repairs on our refrigerator as long as my arm and growing by the day. We put on a new roof recently, which cost a fortune, now we have to decide where to sink our money next. Sometimes I wish we had a characterless ‘80s tract home in Manteca. It’s bad timing too because Hae’s major client disappeared. I might have to get off my ass and make some money.

Life in California has been gorgeous though. We’re having a spell of summer right in the middle of winter, in fact it’s nicer now than it was anytime between last June through August. The flowers are starting to come up. Nature is confused. We’ve been out hiking and taking bike rides in the hills. There was mud everywhere and my bike tires are the smooth kind made for roads, so I was fishtailing all over and almost went off the steep cliff on the side of the trail. Oscar and Hae ride bikes the same way they ski, fast and fearless, while I pull up the rear being cautious, hands on the brakes, trying not to get killed. I don’t want to make it sound like I’m exercising a lot or anything. I’m still ninety percent sedentary.

We went to Tilden Park on Sunday and afterwards took Oscar out to the place called Oscar’s where he had a burger. Hae and I watched him eat. The semi-vegetarian lifestyle is suiting us fine. We’re shedding pounds and looking fabulous.

Despite feeling great, or perhaps because of it, I skipped out on my deadline and ran a classic Troubletown cartoon this week. I don’t do it often but once in a while it’s necessary to take the week off.

It's been another week of making proposals and chasing a dollar like a rat on a wheel. All of the projects I have hanging out there are going to come through at once, I know it, and then I will be backed up and stressed out. But for now all I can do is wait. I also filmed my short graphic recorder promo video and chopped it up in iMovie. I guess one of these days I’ll have to learn Final Cut Pro. I hate to learn new programs.

I got my webmaster, Pat Broderick, to make a few changes to the site which you may have noticed. We got rid of all the ads. I wasn’t making any money off of them and they were always coming up as troubled youth boot camps, feminine hygiene products, or my books on sale for a penny. Screw that! We also got rid of the second page so now if you click on “More Cartoons” you get the archive viewer in a pop up window. Enable your pop-ups! I’ve also been going through my piles of old sketchbooks and pulling out my favorites for the Lloyd Dangle sketchbook, one of my most popular features. Please take a few minutes and click through. Also, keep sending in those donations! Troubletown still delivers more for your entertainment dollar than any other cartoon blog on the web.

Watched Man Inside, which managed to make a daring heist very boring. And Lives of Others which made living in East Germany during the Cold War look very creepy. That’s the kind of country you leftist Marxist Frankfurt School Obama socialists want to turn America into! Bad, very bad!

New Sketches up!

2011-01-25T14:18:00.000-08:00

Hey, if you're tired of reading about the Frankfurt School, check out my new sketches on the Lloyd Dangle Sketchbook.

A Real Fun Video About Graphic Recording

2011-01-24T09:40:00.000-08:00

Fun Paranoid Video

2011-01-24T09:18:00.000-08:00

Some of my critics are way into this stuff. It touches on SEIU, political correctness, the liberal academy, and all the stuff the right hates. Warning: the Frankfurt School and Saul Alinsky are eating your brains!

You need to install or upgrade Flash Player to view this content, install or upgrade by clicking here.

Right Winger Violence

2011-01-21T08:11:00.000-08:00

-- July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how "liberals" are "destroying America," walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others.

-- October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama.

-- December 2008: A pair of "Patriot" movement radicals -- the father-son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, who wanted "to attack the political infrastructure" -- threaten a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, with a bomb in the hopes of extorting money that would end their financial difficulties, for which they blamed the government. Instead, the bomb goes off and kills two police officers. The men eventually are convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.

-- December 2008: In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear "dirty bomb" in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.

-- January 2009: A white supremacist named Keith Luke embarks on a killing rampage in Brockton, Mass., raping and wounding a black woman and killing her sister, then killing a homeless man before being captured by police as he is en route to a Jewish community center.

-- February 2009: A Marine named Kody Brittingham is arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate President Obama. Brittingham also collected white-supremacist material.

-- April 2009: A white supremacist named Richard Poplawski opens fire on three Pittsburgh police officers who come to his house on a domestic-violence call and kills all three, because he believed President Obama intended to take away the guns of white citizens like himself. Poplawski is currently awaiting trial.

-- April 2009: Another gunman in Okaloosa County, Florida, similarly fearful of Obama's purported gun-grabbing plans, kills two deputies when they come to arrest him in a domestic-violence matter, then is killed himself in a shootout with police.

-- May 2009: A "sovereign citizen" named Scott Roeder walks into a church in Wichita, Kansas, and assassinates abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

-- June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester named James Von Brunn opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, killing a security guard.

-- February 2010: An angry tax protester named Joseph Ray Stack flies an airplane into the building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. (Media are reluctant to label this one "domestic terrorism" too.)

-- March 2010: Seven militiamen from the Hutaree Militia in Michigan and Ohio are arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate local police officers with the intent of sparking a new civil war.

-- March 2010: An anti-government extremist named John Patrick Bedell walks into the Pentagon and opens fire, wounding two officers before he is himself shot dead.

-- May 2010: A "sovereign citizen" from Georgia is arrested in Tennessee and charged with plotting the violent takeover of a local county courthouse.

-- May 2010: A still-unidentified white man walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque and sets it afire, simultaneously setting off a pipe bomb.

-- May 2010: Two "sovereign citizens" named Jerry and Joe Kane gun down two police officers who pull them over for a traffic violation, and then wound two more officers in a shootout in which both of them are eventually killed.

-- July 2010: An agitated right-winger and convict named Byron Williams loads up on weapons and drives to the Bay Area intent on attacking the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, but is intercepted by state patrolmen and engages them in a shootout and armed standoff in which two officers and Williams are wounded.

-- September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. The man, 26-year--old Justin Carl Moose, referred to himself as the "Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden” in a taped undercover meeting with a federal informant. [Digby]

Priceless Video

2011-01-18T14:14:00.000-08:00

Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-01-18T09:08:00.001-08:00

Last week’s cartoon was inspired by a line I read in the New York Times, probably by the useless Matt Bai, who said something to the effect that there are dangerous elements on both ends of the political spectrum. I immediately thought of my neighborhood because my town represents the extreme end of the political spectrum. It’s arguably the most liberal county in the United States. When I look around at the “far left” I’m certain that there couldn’t be a group of more soft and harmless people anywhere. Contrast that with the people who show up at tea party rallies with guns strapped to their legs and t-shirts with jokes like, “liberal hunting permit,” and “water the tree of liberty.” I’d say there’s no equivalence between the two groups, and, hence, the cartoon. Anyway, that sparked a lot of discussion about guns here and on my Facebook page that’s been fun to read but hasn’t changed my mind. It’s that same old, guns don’t kill people, people do, argument the NRA must publish on the back of the membership cards. You could kill your spouse or brother-in-law with an ice pick but a gun is so much easier and more convenient. I also posted a porny sketch of a guy getting off on a gun as a sex fetish. Potential corporate clients are going to love that. “Let’s not hire that sick Dangle character,” they’ll say.

I remember when, as an adolescent, I used to go to a rifle range, the ROTC range and the University of Michigan. My friend Mike Krebs and I were competitive in every sport, whiffle ball, bowling, tennis, billiards, you name it, so we decided to compete at shooting guns at targets. Of all the sports we played shooting guns was the most boring. It’s probably more fun when you’re firing a Glock or an Uzi that blasts the target into little bits, but we were shooting 22s, which just make little holes. The instructors and people there reminded me of the church youth groups I used to crash for the girls and pizza. I didn’t like the atmosphere. The people were very upright and religious about their guns.

Speaking of Michigan, my friend Geoffie is still juggling his thirty projects and hounding me to go to work for him. Now he’s going to make records (he has bands lined up) and movies (he’s got twelve ideas that are fully formed, he just needs me to write them) in addition to the nightclub he’s opening in Ann Arbor. He told me that of the top fifty ideas for economic development in Michigan the thirty-five best ones are his. A couple weeks ago he was trying to get me to go to Detroit for the auto show so that he could announce the launch of his media company (and take all the attention away from the new car models). This is a guy who spent a few nights recently sleeping in his car. I didn’t go but he attended the show without me. First he went to a hip hop store and got all pimped out. Everybody was coming up to him and introducing themselves because he looked so cool. He says he’s coming to California next week and that I should open up a few days to sit around and brainstorm with him.

Hae, our friend Irene, and I took Oscar to see a vault print of Walt Disney’s Fantasia at the Paramount Theater Friday night. Oakland has become hip quite recently, so downtown was bustling, but we still found a parking place. I didn’t see any guys with guns at all in the theater. Fantasia is pretty amazing and it runs the whole gamut from dinosaurs, to satan, to Walt Disney’s peculiar ideas about sexuality. We also watched The American, kind of a lame hit man drama but with George Clooney’s chiseled mug. Also watched the Scorsese documentary on Bob Dylan, No Way Home. It was way more fun than Nazis a Warning from History. We also took Oscar to see the Harlem Globetrotters. There were some fantastic stunts and a few yucks. Good for the kids.

My zodiac sign changed from Taurus to Aries. What is that going to do to my personality?

This Week's Cartoon: The New Civility

2011-01-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

New NRA Statistic That's Good News

2011-01-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

Four out of ten gun owners don't hunt or shoot them at all. Their guns are only a sexual fetish.

Glock Sales Surge in Aftermath!

2011-01-11T15:05:00.000-08:00

Glock Pistol Sales Surge in Aftermath of Arizona Shootings - Bloomberg

This Week's Cartoon: Danger on Both Ends of the Political Spectrum

2011-01-11T08:26:00.000-08:00

Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-01-08T13:49:00.000-08:00

Hae said that this week’s cartoon was the most depressing thing she’s ever seen. I kind of thought so too after I did it, but it was a reaction to all those new year’s top ten lists and year-in-review things. I decided to do one for the down and out. I thought it was a funny concept. I had to make it all up of course because I've been living comfortably, skiing and vacationing while you were huddled over your laptop in a doorway with a can of Sterno. MTK and Rosencrantz have been saying such things behind my back, how nice it must be to be a soft, old cartoonist. Well if it makes you feel any better the only way I can do it is by living beyond my means.

Anyway all that vacationing is behind me. It’s 2011! The ‘leven. I’ve got to clean the cobwebs out of my websites, rev up the promo machine, start shucking and jiving, tweeting every day, and being funny, funny, funny.

I sent out this year’s Troubletown calendar expecting a lot of intense blowback, but so far––hardly anything. Maybe it’s the silence of people unfriending me and unliking me. In case you haven’t gotten one, sorry, it’s an ass-a-month calendar dedicated to Sarah Palin. It’s all about ass, tacky and tasteless, and I cringe every time I put a stamp on one. I hope you folks get the spirit of it, because it wasn’t easy to find such sleaze. Give me your address if you want one.

Oscar is back in school. He’s such a grumpy kid (wonder where he gets that from) that we instituted a rule: at dinner everybody has to say one positive thing that happened to them that day. Oscar and I both started out by saying things like, “Today didn’t suck nearly as bad as I thought I would.” I think I said, “I lost four pounds instead of gaining more weight like I usually do.” Those aren’t positive statements. One’s therapist might ask why Oscar and I would answer the question that way? It reflects a certain world view. We’re working on it together.

I finished some exceedingly complex proposals to make whiteboard animation videos that took me days. The projects ended up being so expensive once I added all the production costs that the clients immediately bailed. Another client has paid me in advance to do some cartoons. In advance? Who pays for things in advance? How am I possibly going to do the work now, without the carrot? I honestly don’t know. I may take the money and disappear to Acapulco except it’s not that much.

Hae and I are making an effort to clean ourselves up and stop eating so much meat and garbage and sucking down booze and try to ease ourselves into a vegetarian lifestyle. It’s not one of those new year’s resolution things, I hate those. This is something that started in December, stopping during the holiday bacchanal, and is continuing now with a new sense of purpose. I am going to miss the barbeque grill and chomping all those carcinogen-coated ribs I make all summer long. I may still do it once during the summer, a rack of baby back pork ribs with my amazing sauce. Otherwise, pure vegetarian.

Looking forward to seeing Matt Taibbi’s article on John Boehner in Rolling Stone. I’ve been going down people’s blogrolls to dig up some new sources of information, the old ones are getting stale. Saw Time Bandits, which I wanted to love but I thought it sucked. I fell asleep actually. What else? I watched part of Nazis A Warning from History. In the first episode the Nazis are just a fledgling movement, considered a joke, Hitler is considered a clown. It’s exactly like the Tea Party.

Today's Sketch: Boehners

2011-01-06T11:55:00.001-08:00

God, I'm going to have to draw him crying all the time so you'll be able to tell who it is!

2011-01-04T09:27:00.000-08:00

My friend Warren Bernard, who works at the Library of Congress, sent me this Art Young cartoon from 1921. It works just as well today. Notice the heavy use of labels...there's one on every damn thing in the drawing!

This Week's Troubletown: Down and Out Year in Review

2011-01-03T18:45:00.000-08:00

Weekly Dose of Dangle

2011-01-02T09:10:00.000-08:00

Our Tahoe vacation’s over. I made it through three days of skiing without killing myself and we escaped before the latest huge snowstorm hit in the mountains. During all that skiing and falling my old injured knee never bothered me, then I slipped on some ice and jerked it so that it started hurting again. I’ve been icing it and limping.

Christmas was full of the usual sparkly joy. We put on an internet radio station playing syrupy Christmas tunes that ambianced the background. Oscar opened all his Chinese-made plastic toys and there was an ocean of wrapping paper left on the floor. Within an hour he was complaining that he was bored. Yes, we've spoiled the child.

We were back in Oakland for New Year’s eve and had dinner at Carrie’s house with her and her friends, Johnny and Lynn, who we re-met after a ten-year hiatus. We popped the corks and poured the wine down our gullets and talked about music and bands Hae and I had never heard of. We have an eight-year-old, so it’s been at least eight years since we were hip to the music scene and even then we weren’t really. From Carrie’s apartment we could see the fireworks over San Francisco and the night was free of gunshots as far as we knew. We stood by the window without fear. I remember New Year’s in the past where Hae and I would hit the deck and stay on the floor until the shooting stopped.

I drew a lot in my sketchbook during the vacation. I wasn’t disengaged from the family though, which sometimes can be a problem when you draw too much. I built snowmen and played and cooked meals and did all that stuff. In the sketchbook I made lots of pictures of me skiing and falling on my ass in gruesome ways. I was trying to get one that was just right. Oscar asked if I ever drew anything but pictures of people getting hurt. He should talk, all his pictures are of bombs and guns and wars.

Hae, Auntie Soo, cousin Sarah and I all had our computers with us and we checked our email and Facebook constantly. Every time I read my email I learned from the Yahoo group of another break-in in the neighborhood. An attempted one happened on our block but was thwarted by some alert vigilantes. We had the visiting family of some other neighbors staying at our house and feeding Coco for part of the time we were gone so that may have deterred the burglars from hitting our place. We were happy to find that everything was intact when we got home.

The roads were slick and icy some of the time we were up in Tahoe and one day I drove up to an intersection where a type of giant snow-blowing truck was clearing snow. On the front was a set of rotating blades three or four feet tall that churn the snow up so it can be shot up into the air. When I hit the brakes we just slid. We were helplessly sliding straight toward those grinding blades. Luckily the snow-blower driver had control and made a quick maneuver so that we could slide right past. As the skiers say, we just about ate it, dude!

Anyway, it’s good to be home. Soo and Sarah came back to Oakland with us, but they left today for LA. It’ll be great to get Oscar back in school so that I can work and no longer have to entertain his spoiled ass. (I love him more than anything). I have some complicated proposals to write and of course I’m hoping to book some graphic recording gigs for January and February so I can get to work and make some bucks. I have to draw a Troubletown cartoon tomorrow and have zero idea of what I’m going to do. I’ll spend the day reading news then get up at five tomorrow morning and crank it out.

Today's Sketch: Happy New Year, America

2011-01-01T18:25:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year from Troubletown

2010-12-31T09:38:00.000-08:00

Hey fans: the 2011 Troubletown calendar is yours for the asking. This year's is so tacky and controversial it has to come in a wrapper! It will make for a memorable souvenir you and your family will be talking about for days and days. Just email me, lloyd (at) troubletown (dot) com, with your address and I'll shoot one out to you!

This Week's Troubletown: The Rich Thank You

2010-12-28T08:48:00.000-08:00

Today's Sketch: Sled Culture

2010-12-25T12:09:00.000-08:00

Weekly Dose of Dangle

2010-12-24T17:30:00.000-08:00

Hae and Oscar and I are on an adventure in the Sierras. Even though the pavement was clear of snow and ice on the way up they made us put on chains to cross Donner Summit. The noise was deafening. It sounded so wrong we pulled over to check. One of the chains had broken and was flapping into the wheel well and making a horrible racket. Hae used her girl scout ingenuity to fashion a solution, tying off the flapping chain with a nylon rope. It held for a while but then the nylon gave out. The sound was twice as bad but we drove along anyway. Eventually we just couldn't stand it anymore so we stopped and took the chains off. A three foot length of plastic shell from the wheel well was completely mangled and just hanging there. We broke most of it off but one last end wouldn't come free. Hae pulled out some super sharp scissors she just happened to bring along and cut it free. She didn't want to litter the roadway so we packed it and took it with us as a souvenir. I was glad she had those scissors.

We have a cute little house on the west side of Lake Tahoe surrounded by snow-covered firs and there's a tiny sliver of a view of the water. The snow is many feet deep and Oscar likes to roll around in it until he's soaking wet from head to toe. I did that when I was a kid too.

Hae was determined to get me out on the slopes this year with skis attached to my feet. Oscar and Hae ski like experts, so I agreed to try it. The first thing to get used to about skiing is the monstrously painful boots you have to wear. You cinch them down with big buckles and with each pull your feet are bound more tightly into the heinous plastic devices. They are impossible to walk in but you have to walk across the huge parking lot to get to the office where you buy obscenely expensive tickets. The place is crowded with hipster snowboard dudes who come sailing down the mountain at a hundred miles an hour. Once the skis are on your feet you are next to helpless. You can't go anywhere on flat land without strenuously pushing yourself along on the poles. So of course the bunny hill requires you to cross three hundred yards of flat ground to get there. Skis only allow you to go downhill and they are waxed and sharpened to go very fast. They tell you to point the fronts of your skis together so that your feet are awkwardly pigeon-toed. You have to stay in that knock-kneed position for hours, fully concentrating on preventing another fall. You try to control your speed, but you end up going faster and faster and then the only way to stop is to crash into something or someone. It looks like a lot of fun for expert skiers, but having fun as a beginner would take a very rosy attitude.

Oscar's Auntie Soo and cousin Sarah came up from LA to meet us. Sarah is a heckafresh fourteen-year-old fly girl. She just gave herself two lip piercings, a procedure so gruesome that they wouldn't even make Marines do it. I'm considering putting some hardware into Oscar's lips so I can hook them together when I want him to shut up. Just kidding! Sarah is also taking a break from vegetarianism. Last night we had bulgoki. Sarah made cookies. Tonight I'm going to make one of my signature dishes, a spicy coconut curry with spinach and tomatoes, except I'm doing it with chicken instead of squid or scallops.

Oscar is happily prodding the fire in the fireplace. Sarah, Soo, Hae, and I each have a laptop computer with us, and we usually have them all out at once. We're all checking our Facebook. Hae and I had an argument in the grocery store about a piece of ginger and now she's all pissed off at me.

Today we went to Squaw Valley and rode up the mountain in a gondola. Soo and I drank coffee in the lodge and watched the rest of them ice skate. I'm as terrible ice skating as I am skiing, so I decided to pass. I sketched ski bums and skaters and shot some video of my son break dancing on the ice. We had a panoramic view of the rink and the vast frozen Sierra mountains with the plummeting skiers looking like tiny specks. It was outstanding.

Today's Sketch: Day Two on the Slopes

2010-12-23T15:29:00.000-08:00

Today's Sketches: Lake Tahoe

2010-12-22T14:47:00.000-08:00

This Week's Troubletown: Holiday Operation

2010-12-21T08:10:00.000-08:00

Today's Sketch: Cuong Nhu Violence

2010-12-18T12:40:00.000-08:00

Done at my son's martial arts class while mature parents looked over my shoulder.

Today's Sketch: Happy Holidays from Troubletown

2010-12-16T20:21:00.000-08:00

A Time of Self-Loathing

Dangle's Uneasy Assange Roundup

2010-12-16T08:21:00.000-08:00

Like many dudes, I proclaimed Julian Assange innocent of rape because I consider him to be a hero for founding Wikileaks and taking it to the man. As soon as I heard that his accuser had CIA ties I Facebooked the article thinking that I was being really smart. I'm the kind of guy who was suspicious of Pee Wee Herman's arrest in Florida and Iraq war critic Scott Ritter's bust for internet sex crimes. Like my old buddy, Michael Moore says, never trust the official story. But now I don't know what to think. Some of the reporting said that Assange was being charged with "sex by surprise," or a "condom malfunction," both of which sound trivial, but neither are true. Some of the criticism of Michael Moore here, and here, is pretty compelling, and a lot of the articles defending Assange, including Naomi Wolf, are creepy in the way they attack the accusers as being jilted lovers, feminist bitches, or Swedish sluts. It's impossible to know what really happened. But one other thing to consider: Julian Assange looks like kind of a dick. He's probably guilty.

Best Courtroom Sketch of Assange

2010-12-16T07:40:00.000-08:00

Boing Boing says courtroom sketches of Julian Assange aren't very good.

This Week’s Dose of Dangle

2010-12-13T09:01:00.000-08:00

I had to cancel my trip to see Geoffie in Michigan because of an ice storm that hit Chicago and closed down the airport. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t have to be there when it hit the mitten state. I don’t really have the boots and scarves and clothes for it anymore, let alone the fortitude. In California we panic if it rains or if the temperature goes down to forty. Anyway, now I’m kind of pissed because I was looking forward to escaping my family duties for a few days but now I have to deal with a week of “minimum days” as Oscar’s school. That means days where the school does the minimum amount of teaching and lets the kids out at 1:25. I was going to pawn that off onto my wife but now I'll have to figure out what to do with the kid.

Oscar picked out a nine-foot-tall Christmas tree and I bought it for $93. We must be doing pretty well. I’ll bet a lot of families are buying those two-foot trees. Oscar made a list of presents he wants. He’s not a very materialistic kid except for Nerf Guns. He wants every model. Some of them are over thirty bucks. He has an arsenal but he never plays with them. Kids are strange. He also wants a lie detector. Yeah, I bet that’ll really work. Put the batteries in and then discover how much the toy sucks.

I talked to my friend Simms Taback this week who has cancer and only has a couple months left to live. He’s stopped the chemo since it made him feel terrible and wasn’t going to help anyway. The cancer has spread and remission isn’t going to happen. Simms has a special place in my heart not only because he’s about the nicest guy in the world, and that he illustrated many of my son’s favorite childrens’ books, but Simms was the only guy who had my back during my darkest days at the Graphic Artists Guild when I inherited seriously screwed up financial situation and had to fire everybody. He came to New York and hung out at the office with me and tried to help me figure out what to do so that the Guild wouldn’t go out of business. I’ll never forget that weekend. It was raining like hell and Simms had his car. He gave me a ride uptown to the skanky little flophouse on 17th Street where I was staying. We had dinner at some raucous steak house over by Gramercy Park. Anyway, Simms and I kept in touch but it had been a while since we’d talked. In the meantime he became ill. I only found out because Paul Basista sent out a message on Linked In. Paul is going to Ventura to pay Simms a visit.

Some friends and I had a studio sale at Hae’s office on Saturday. Michael Wertz, Isabel Samaras, Jim Winters, Dave Warnke, and I tried unloading our stuff. We had a decent crowd at times but it wasn’t overwhelmingly successful. If the jewelry guy in the building wasn’t having a studio sale on the same day we would’ve had a lot less; his customers wandered into our studio looking confused because we had no jewelry.

I imagine some people were scared to come to West Oakland, the area has a reputation for shootings and criminal activity. One guy emailed me and asked if it was safe. I told him that if he drove a nice car he might get carjacked. He never showed up. Many people just have no money this year. I talked to two people who either lost their jobs or have a spouse who did. Or both. Another friend has been looking for months.

I have such a goddamn accumulation of inventory from so many years of making “art” that it’s ridiculous. Everywhere you look in Hae’s office I have boxes of books stashed away that I’ll never sell. A couple of old titles did actually sell out but it took years. The only new product I made this year was a Sarah Palin sno globe with the title Sarah Palin’s Big Ass Alaska. I don’t really know if Sarah Palin has a big ass, but I think it’s funny anyway. She brings out the sexist pig in me big time.

Anyway, if you want to come by West Oakland and buy some Troubletown stuff email me and I’ll meet you over there.

During holiday season all the newspapers send me notices of their confusing holiday publishing schedules and tell me on which days they need to have the cartoons in. So far I’m cool I think, but it’s hard to manage. You’d think after all these years I’d have a system for getting three cartoons done ahead of time so that I could sail through the holidays without any problem. I just can’t do it. Maybe now that there’s no Detroit trip I can just do a couple extra cartoons and then forget about the deadlines until after the first of the year. Yeah, right. I just can’t do it.

This Week's Troubletown: It Must be Nice to be a Righty

2010-12-11T05:57:00.001-08:00

This Week's Dose of Dangle

2010-12-09T08:49:00.001-08:00

It gets big if you click on it.

I went to LA and did a graphic recording gig at USC’s Norman Lear Center. It was great. It was an academic symposium full of the brightest minds. I’m beginning to feel that my graphic recording is really coming along. The work looked pretty good to me.

Now that I travel all the time for jobs I’m becoming a connoisseur of hotel accommodations. The Radisson at USC was perfectly located for my gig, right across the street. The Russian gal at the front desk was wonderful. It went downhill from there. Firecrackers went off all night. A pep rally took place a hundred yards down the street for the big USC-UCLA game. There were lots of college students staying in the Radisson, which I thought was odd. College kids are so young! They seem only to be a year or two older than my son who is only eight.

In the morning I got up at six and the shower didn’t work. Literally no water came out. I wondered if it was some kind of unusual bathroom fixture that I wasn’t understanding. Some of the better hotels put in novel shower controls; this one was simple but just didn’t produce water. Luckily, I looked in the mirror and my appearance wasn’t that bad. The hair was puffing out a little in back but that’s not unusual. The restaurant didn’t open till seven and then it sucked, the food was awful. I checked out and headed across the street with my gear.

In LA, taxi drivers sort of adopt you when you ride with them. They give you their card and ask you to call them the next time you need a ride. I don’t get how it works, or that it could be profitable driving from one side of LA to the other for a fare, but there’s obviously more to it than meets the eye. When I met Geoffie in Venice Beach, whenever that was, when he was on a cross-country bender, he had found a taxi driver named Mohammed, who was a hilarious Iraqi dude. Geoff kept calling him a terrorist motherfucker and Mohammed told us stories about how the Department of Homeland Security questioned everyone from his mosque one by one at the Starbucks across the street.

This time I met another guy whose native country is being bombed by the United States, a Pakastani taxi driver named Zahid who’s been in America forever but who lost his job as an electrical engineer when they outsourced and off-shored everything. "One thing about driving a taxi," he said, "they don’t lay you off." When I called him to pick me up for the airport he met me in his family car. “I don’t start until six when the other guy drops off the taxi, so I came to get you in my car,” he said. “Afterward I will drive back to my house and pick up the taxi.”

Saturday there is going to be a holiday sale at my wife’s studio in West Oakland, with Michael and a gang of other artists. I’m migrating a lot of merchandise from my studio over there. God I hope I can thin the inventory. Check my earlier post for information. Come and get some bargain priced stuff!

I’m also getting ready for a trip to Detroit to see Geoff and Hank and roam the streets of Ann Arbor. Gordy couldn’t come from Florida because his wife lost her job and they’re having trouble with money. I have to get a Troubletown cartoon done ahead of time. I’ll have to do it today but I haven’t got a clue what the subject will be except that I’m pissed about Obama caving in the the Repubs on the Bush tax cuts. Yeah, I’m a sanctimonious bastard from the left.

This Week's Troubletown: WikiWarning

2010-12-06T14:33:00.000-08:00

Big Holiday Sale December 11

2010-12-05T11:24:00.000-08:00

Attention fans: I'm having a big holiday sale where I'm dragging out all the Troubletown relics from the archives, books, prints, t-shirts, novelties, holiday ornaments, mugs, Sigg bottles, puzzles, you name it, and selling them for fantastically low prices. It will be not only me but these fantastic artists: Isabel Samaras, Dave Warnke, Jim Winters, and Michael Wertz. Almost all of our last names begin with the letter "W!" Not only will our items be on sale but you'll be able to hobnob with our effervescent presences! This is an event of biblical proportions.

Saturday, December 11, 11 - 5
3264 Ettie Street
in Festive West Oakland

Artwork by Michael Wertz

This Week’s Dose of Dangle

2010-12-02T14:00:00.000-08:00

Not much time for this week’s Dose. I’m on the road in an hour to LA for a graphic recording gig at USC. It came out of nowhere; I have to remember to ask how they found me. Monday we finished the shoot for that whiteboard animation thing. It went well and I really enjoyed the people I worked with. They might have more animations in the future which would be great. I have proposals to write for potential clients for making more of those videos. Last week I had nothing, now I’m up to my ears in work. I know the client I’ve been working for today will email me with changes five minutes before I need to leave for the airport. I just know it.

I’m going to Detroit next week. I had a free flight from all the rewards I’ve been stacking up. Going to see Geoffie and my pals, Hank and Gordy. Three guys I’ve known for thirty years. Gordy’s delivering pizzas in Florida, Hank is retired from the City of Ann Arbor with a sweet pension so he goes to the gym and sits in the hot tub every day, and Geoffie, as previously mentioned, is going for a mental health disability. Maybe I’ll see Mike Cole too, an equally old friend who has decided he’s had enough of Geoff. It’s a three day visit, but Michigan gets boring after about an hour so it’ll be fine. I have an ex-girlfriend there too but she always makes a point of letting me know how unimportant and meaningless our time together was, so I won’t bother to look her up.

I saw Kite Runner. It was faithful to the book and very well done. I’d recommend it. It’s heartbreaking. Also saw the opera, Aida. I like the opera because it's a cross between a ballgame and a musical. Verdi is good.

This Week's Troubletown: All About the Junk

2010-11-30T08:44:00.000-08:00

Palin Enthusiast Hatemail

2010-11-28T13:06:00.000-08:00

Hey Dick, What are you going to do when it's President Palin? Move to Mexico I hope!!

Today's sketch: Peculiar Papisms

2010-11-27T14:52:00.000-08:00

This Week's Dose of Dangle

2010-11-25T09:32:00.000-08:00

The cleanse is over. It wasn’t too bad eating coconut milk and vegetables all week, I made Tom Ka Gai and a potato curry; Hae made turnip soup, nut milk, breakfast porridge, kelp noodles, and all sorts of weird stuff. She read the cleanse listserve to find out how everybody's elimination was going. Halfway through the week I started to crave a disgusting heart-choking pizza. Then I walked past the burger place on Piedmont Avenue, smelled the charred beef smoke belching out onto the street and was halfway tempted to walk in. The other half was tempted to throw up. After the cleanse we spent a night up in Calistoga and submerged ourselves in a hot mineral pool. Yes, life is pretty good. Oscar built ships out of floaty recliners and noodles. Then we ate some fried chicken.

Geoffie Update
I was making a joke last week about my old pal Geoffie wanting to start a nightclub in Detroit, but it turns out he really does want to start one but in Ann Arbor, and he plans to call it “Blue Boots.” He wants me to draw fifty pictures of cowboy boots right away for starters––and be part of his art team. The real estate agent warned Geoff that a Hooters-type establishment will not do well in Ann Arbor but Geoff is determined to have some scantily clad females working the bar. I don’t know if he thinks it’s a wise business decision or if he just wants to be around scantily clad babes. He’s putting together an investor package right now to build the money pyramid. It all sounds very legit and very tempting to believe. Geoffie’s 50th birthday is in December and he demands that I come to Michigan. I would love to see Geoffie and my old hometown, but I’m loathe to travel and leave my family––unless it’s a paying gig or maybe a Sly and Snide Slideshow.

Death to My Shows
With sadness I killed my Internet shows “Dangle on Deadline” and “Drinking and Inking” this week after rigorously and religiously producing them for a year. It was lonely drawing my comic strip at 5 am Monday without the viewers on the chat board supporting me, and Fridays just won’t be the same without the weekly alcohol-infused sketchapalooza, but I just can’t hang with Ustream anymore, it sucks so bad. It’s sad because my viewers, all four of them, are so loyal and sweet. It’s not the number of viewers that counts, it’s the commitment.

I've Got Some Work
Whiteboard animation is all the rage these days. You’ve seen them on YouTube or on the UPS commercials. Some dude stands there and draws on a dry erase board while the camera captures it. They’re a fad, but while they’re popular I’m trying to cash in as fast as I can. On Wednesday I drew for one for a corporate client at a studio in San Francisco with a real professional crew, lighting, sandbags, the whole thing. I pre drew all the illustrations, which was the hard part, and then had to recreate them with the camera rolling. It was a long day. Afterward my hand was achy and my shoulder was knotted. I’m not a young man. I need to go back up to Calistoga and get a massage.

A Dangle Thanksgiving
I ordered a natural young free range turkey from Ver Brugge and Hae had to go wait in line for it for a half hour. All the Berkeley natural folks were buying their hormone-free birds. She brought it home in a box and since there wasn’t room in the fridge (still too much squash and nut milk left over from our cleanse) she left it on the back deck. I imagined a pack of raccoons discovering it so I placed it inside a cooler. Then I dreamed last night that I looked inside the cooler in the morning and all that was there was an empty box. Thanksgiving ruined!

Saw Mega Mind in 3D, liked it, Ray, liked it, Judgement at Nuremberg, incredible, and Inherit the Wind, loved it. It’s obvious that all movies should be 3D, even Judgement at Nuremberg.

Sketchbook: TSA Employees are People Too

2010-11-23T17:35:00.000-08:00

This Week's Troubletown: The Sarah Palin Collection

2010-11-22T09:40:00.001-08:00

Troubletown

New me

First 2012 Dose of Dangle

On the Fly

Relax They're Just Hippies

Silly Short with Das Racist

Thanksgiving Dose of Dangle

My Contribution to the Davis Cop Art Trove

Too Perfect

My Favorite Occupy Posters

Dose of Dangle

40-Second Autobiography

That's My Town

Happy Halloween

Sitcom

Angry Ed

Today's Sketch: Big Ass Scout

Your Occasional Dose of Dangle

Your Weekly Dose of Dangle

More Dangle Than You Want to Know

Last Stop Ttown Press Release!

Another Dose of Dangle

Weekly Dose of Dangle

Please Give Some Money

This Week's Dose of Dangle

Today's Sketch: Iggy Pop Performing Tunes from the Jazz Album

Conversation with the Man

The Shocking Result of Poor Adhesives

Your Weekly Dose of Dangle

Photo from my iPad

Your Weekly Dose of Dangle

Your Dose of Dangle

Today's Sketch

Weekly Dose of Dangle

Weekly Dose of Dangle

This Week's Dose of Dangle

Today's Sketch

Dangle Off Deadline: Interview

This Week's Final Troubletown

Weekly Dose of Dangle

This Week's Highly Patriotic Troubletown

This Week's Troubletown

Weekly Dose of Dangle

A *Sob* Interview with Dangle

Village Voice Comics Idiocy

This Week's Dose of Dangle

This Week's Troubletown

Thanks Papers!

It's True

Pole Dancing for Jesus

This Week's Troubletown

This Week's Dose of Dangle

This Week's Troubletown

This Week's Troubletown

This Week's Troubletown

This Week's Troubletown

Cartoonist Pilloried!

This Week's Troubletown

Classic Ronald Reagan

This Week's Troubletown

Weekly Dose of Dangle

New Sketches up!

A Real Fun Video About Graphic Recording

Fun Paranoid Video

Right Winger Violence

Priceless Video

Weekly Dose of Dangle

This Week's Cartoon: The New Civility

New NRA Statistic That's Good News

Glock Sales Surge in Aftermath!

This Week's Cartoon: Danger on Both Ends of the Political Spectrum

Weekly Dose of Dangle

Today's Sketch: Boehners

This Week's Troubletown: Down and Out Year in Review

Weekly Dose of Dangle

Today's Sketch: Happy New Year, America

Happy New Year from Troubletown

This Week's Troubletown: The Rich Thank You

Today's Sketch: Sled Culture

Weekly Dose of Dangle

A Sob Interview with Dangle