Monday, March 02, 2009

Urban Cartoons

Some mean cartoons about mean city people.


Above: this is the epitome: a selfish, me-oriented couple, casually -- maybe even cruelly -- just not that into traditional family values (unless the New York Times and New York Magazine say otherwise).

A good gag cartoon does its job in a few seconds. And sometimes a good gag cartoon can leave you scratching your head. If you don't get it, that's OK. If you do get it, then you recognize these people.


Above: one of my urban couple cartoons. This one was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I wanted to show a couple coming on to each other in, well, in a higher education sorta way. I like the fact that the guy's in his socks here and the sleeping cat is oblivious.


The subways in NYC have it all: musical groups perform, people begging for change, and there are religious people passing out pamphlets. There was a group at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station that would only target black people, never Hispanics, Asians or whites. Well, that's discrimination! And how arrogant to presume people need a new religion.




Being happy is not a New York thing to be. This drawn a while ago, during my conte crayon and wash phase, as is the "new God" cartoon above.



I drew this up the same week that New York Magazine had an article about people spending lots of money to have fancy kitchens in their apartments, yet never used them.

More cartoons at my site heykidscomics.com.

2 comments:

Nick Fechter said...

Nice cartoons Mike!

Ya' know, when I compare the lifestyles of what your aiming for in these cartoons to the lifestyles of the people who live here in the south, I can point out some major differences.

But there's no need to make cartoons to make fun of these people, Jeff Foxworthy already does it with his "You Might Be A Red-neck" Punchline.

Anonymous said...

I'm totally killed. Why are there always full figures in cartoons? I know a closeup or some bizarre angle with the same caption wouldn't be funny, but I'm still trying to figure this out.