Overheard At The G-20 Summit

I was out in the middle of two protest marches during the G-20. The security was off the hook. At one point, during the protest in Larenceville on Thursday, there far were more riot police than protesters. The bystanders and journalists were the only ones being pushed back by the blockade. I overheard some funny stuff, mostly questions about why they were protesting or why we needed the huge show of force.

Check out my final G-20 sketches on the P-G's G-20 web site, including this one below.

Does This Tarp Make My Butt Look Big?

Just a reminder to check out my G-20 Sketch Blog on the PG's dedicated G-20 web site. I will only be posting to it during the G-20 Summit here in Pittsburgh. Here is a sample of what you can see. I drew this sketch while watching the workers cover the Hilton Hotel's unfinished front with a tarp to hide the eyesore of failed labor/managment relations.

G-20 Cartoon Slide Show!

Check out a slide show of the Drawn To The Summit exhibition at the Warhol Museum! Below is one of the cartoons in the show. It is by Steve Bell of the Guardian in London and is called, Sermon On the Hood.

A Truly Pittsburgh Summit

For the next few days I will be posting sketches and thoughts to the P-G's exclusive G-20 web site. You can go there to see my G-20 Sketch Blog and all the cartoons from the Warhol exhibition Drawn To the Summit that I mentioned in my previous post. Here is today's cartoon about how if we approach this summit like a Steelers home game ... we may just pull it off.

For larger image click HERE.

Drawn To the Summit!

Hi everyone. Sorry I haven't been posting much lately but I have been busy working on mounting the Drawn To The Summit exhibition with my co-curator, Sylvia Rhor. The exhibition (which is on the 5th Floor of the Warhol Museum) opened Friday and includes editorial cartoons from each of the G-20 countries and a few cartoons by PIttsburgh artists commenting on what it means to host the summit. The cartoons give an alternate perspective to the major G-20 issues and highlight the different generational and national styles of cartooning. 

The G-20 spouses will be touring the show this week during their visit to the Warhol Museum. In case you are not one of the G-20 spouses, you have until October 18th to check it out.

The exhibit is co-presented by the ToonSeum and funded by the Pittsburgh Foundation. The Pittsburgh section of the exhibit includes work by Michael McParlane (he did the Summit art above), Mark Brewer, Randy Bish, Ed Piskor, Gary Huck and yours truly. Here are a couple of cartoons that I have in the show. It helps to know the curator.

Osama vs. Obama

No, I am not saying Obama is an evildoer ... but some people are and it's starting to really tick me off.

It's happened before and it'll probably happen again. Someone misunderstood the meaning of one of my cartoons. My editor fielded several calls last Friday, September 11th, from pro-Obama readers complaining that my cartoon comparing Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden was unforgivable. The problem is, I agree with those readers. I was trying to make the same point in my cartoon. It makes me sick to my stomach when I hear the ugly, hateful lies that are being spread around about our current President. We should all be standing united behind the idea of universal health care. We should all be standing united against kids dropping out of school. But we are not. Instead, as we mark another anniversary of 9/11, the same people who were united against Osama and al-Qaida are now making Obama out to be some kind of evildoer.

My advice to those Obama supporters who didn't like my cartoon: direct your outrage toward the ones who are making Obama out to be evil. That's all I'm trying to do.

Retro Rogers --- Serbs, Sharks and Osama bin Laden

As part of my 25th anniversary as an editorial cartoonist, every week I will be highlighting cartoons I drew on the same day and month in another year. Here are a random selection of cartoons published on September 9th.

In 1995, the FBI came under investigation for their aggressive tactics related to Waco and the 1992 Ruby Ridge shootout. They were accused of having an aggressive "shoot first and ask questions later" mentality. At the same time, Serb forces were committing atrocities in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovinia.

In July of 2001, a Time cover touted, "The Summer of the Shark." That was before 9/11. Suddenly, nobody was talking about sharks anymore.

While campaigning for re-election in 2004, George W. Bush claimed the world was a safer place with Saddam Hussein locked up. This cartoon wasn't much of an exaggeration. I actually watched Bush saying this on CNN while tragic world news scrolled underneath him.

Speaking of a safer world, how's that whole "war on  terror" thing going? It has been eight years since 9/11 and we still don't have Osama behind bars. Oh, that's right ... we were too busy saving the world from Saddam and his imaginary WMDs. This cartoon was one of my favorite from 2007.

Rob's Rough

The Post-Gazette has started a new premium site called PG+. One of the features of this site is something called "Rob's Rough" where I give readers a sneak peek at the next day's cartoon via my rough sketch. Here is a sample of what you would get. Keep in mind, you get to read the punch line before it even runs in the paper! Pretty cool.

This entry was made on August 25th and shows the cartoon I was working on for the next day. Enjoy!

This is the rough draft of my local comic strip, Brewed On Grant, for Wednesday August 26th, 2009. The first image is a page from my sketchbook. I try to use stream of consiousness to write down possible dialogue bubbles. As you can probably guess, a lot of it never makes it to the final cartoon. After I edit them (i.e., scratch some out), I go back and number them so they make sense as successive panels.

Next is the pencil rough. Rather than make you squint to read, I will give you the translation. Panel One. Boy Mayor comes into the diner. Rosie asks, "So, Boy Mayor ... how are you preparing for the G-20 protests?" BM says, "I'm trying to get City Council to ban masks." Panel Two. R: Masks ... why masks? BM: We don't want to scare the G-20 ... Boo! Panel Three. BM: I also want to force protesters to use their "inside voices." (he holds a sign that says, "no yelling, no horseplay, no potty talk.") Panel Four. BM: ... and allow police to give "time outs." R: I think that's called jail. Panel Five. R: What about people who just want to exercise their free speech? Panel Six. BM: No TV for a week! R: Juice Box Despot!

Click HERE to see the finished version of this cartoon. If you want to see more rough sketches, go to PG+ and click on "Opinion" and then "Rob's Roughs."

Partisanuenza

Obama should have washed after up shaking hands with people on Capitol Hill. He's got a serious case of partisanuenza. It strikes every new president at some point in their first term. As if that's not bad enough, he also seems to have contracted a case of food poisoning from some bad Afghanistan chicken. Tastes like Viet Nam. Oh, and did I mention he was run over by the economy? He is hurting. Good thing he has a decent health care plan.

Pittsburgh: There's an App For That

No, I am not kidding. Pittsburgh beat out Boston to be the first city with an iPhone app (app stands for application). It works like the 311 call system where people can report potholes, graffiti and bad landlords. Instead of calling, iBurgh users will simply have to click a photo of the offensive item and it gets sent to the city with GPS coordinates. How cool is that?

To see a larger image, click HERE. If you want to see my rough sketch of this cartoon go to PG+ and click on "Opinion" and then "Rob's Roughs."