'Toon of the Day

Hop on Cop!Stop the Steal!Mr Brown Can't Vote

(click image to enlarge)

Dr. Seuss, take Deuce!

Wow, the first set of book covers seemed to get a lot of attention... either people really like Dr. Seuss or thought that my parodies were actually for sale! Either way, it seems to have struck a chord. So as promised, here is the next round of Conserva-Seuss-ism covers, dealing again with the Capitol riots, the mob that was out for VP Pence, and the continuing GOP attempts to restrict voting access to people of color. 


The Capitol Battle BookFifth AvenueOh, I Live at Mar a Lago!

(click image to enlarge)

The Cat with the Cartoons Comes BACK!

I’ve mentioned before that these past four years have been very difficult from a social-political parody perspective, as events happened so quickly, there was no time to respond properly. Unless you had a team of writers and artists as they do on the Daily show or SNL, or unless you are a trained editorial illustrator who can bang out an image and publish it online the same day, it was just too hard to keep up with the glut of Trump-induced situations. Even comedians complained that their jokes were old by the time they got to perform them, because in the time they wrote the joke and their performance, Trump created 10 more horrible events or comments. As an artist, educator, father and homeowner, I could not keep up with the pace, not to mention that trying to do so created such dread and depression that I could not find the humor in the situation. So, I just took the time off and left it up to the pros. 

Thankfully, the bad news flows out only in weekly cycles now, rather than hourly. And without Trump sucking all the oxygen out of the room, I can finally focus on the all-too familiar rantings of FOX News and the remnants of the GOP, who predictably attack the most ridiculous targets possible. Their recent feigned outrage at the “cancelling” of Dr. Seuss has been fact-checked ad-nauseum, so I won’t bother. However, being a fan of the good doctor since childhood provided the necessary fuel to get me off my ass and do some fun images again. I knocked out these first three covers in basically a day, a record for me! I figured that if these faux-conservatives missed reading Dr. Seuss so much, I would give them some books that they would be happier with. 

Enjoy these, in the coming days there will be more to come.


 

RIP Rush Limbaugh

Yes, you read that right, I am briefly memorializing El-Rushbo, but not for the reason you might think. You see, back in the 90s, I worked in a small office environment with one large room, two other partners and one radio. I was the token Democrat in the room, along with one traditional Conservative and one more Libertarian Republican. We spent most of the day listening to news radio, with the occasional CD in rotation. Come afternoon, the Conservative would switch on Rush Limbaugh for the afternoon. I didn’t mind it much at first, as I always considered myself pretty centrist. But the more I listened to Limbaugh, I began to question some of the “facts” El-Rushbo was spewing. With a little reading papers and listening to NPR (the interwebs was in its infancy), I realized that Rush was often creating a situation out of nothing, like the time he was so focused on accusing the Clintons of murder. 

Needless to say, I still begrudgingly listened to Rush, but I argued with my Conservative counterparts over the validity of much of his content. They often agreed that Rush was just hyping things up for his show. But my dad listened to Rush as well, and took a lot of what he said to heart. I realized then how nefarious talk radio could be. Our office routine of Rush followed by Sean Hannity continued, and it is what I credit for actually making me become more Liberal in my views. 

So, in retrospect, I need to thank Rush Limbaugh for doing the exact opposite of what his show intended. 


 

 

 

Current

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. Perhaps it’s the staying at home, lack of work, or the constant barrage of bad news streaming daily. I thought I became numb to it, I found not feel motivated to do anything regarding Trump or his exploits for years It just made me too sick to even think about it. But once again our country faces mass protests because once again American Justice has gone off the rails with the killing of George Floyd and the slow response to charge the officers involved.

I remember back when Graphix4Change first got started in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, post 9-11. I watched from my then classroom in Jersey City at a small group of protesters down below, carrying the worst signs of marker and cardboard, made in a hurry My greater disgust, was there were Art Majors in their ranks, protesting with bad and illegible signage. The first images I created for free distribution on my website were the “Got War” and “Got Freedom” ads. Now, faced with the option of going out to my local protests and deciding what to hold, I took the liberty of throwing together some small but printable (11” x 17”) posters for carrying to local protests.

As always, they are free to download and use by the public. Hopefully, I will be able to spend more time in the coming days working on more image-based signs, but for right now, the message needs to be clear: we will not stand for injustice, and we will peacefully demand that change take place now. From the police departments, through Congress, and to the President. We are dying for change.

 


 

What is Graphix4change?

Let’s start with what it is NOT:
• Graphix4change is not a militant organization.
•  It is not a corporate entity, nor is it a non-profit organization. 
•  It is not even a grass-roots web movement.

It is simply the personal of an opinionated graphic designer and design instructor… me. It is my soapbox to rant, my wallboard to post signs on, my website connection to the great experiment called Democracy in America and to a larger extent the experiment of a democratic World Wide Web.

I have never sold advertising on the site, nor is the work funded by anyone other than myself. From time to time I get hired to create works for others (campaign literature, posters, etc.), or even sell images I’ve created privately, but in general I have used the site to post my personal work and made it available worldwide, for free.

Why would I do this? Not because I’m independently wealthy, but as a designer, most of the work I do is for hire for someone else’s message or product, and I wanted a venue to express my own political views that no one seemed to want to pay me for. And since political art only seems to ever find an audience in the art world every four years or so, posting images on-line allows for a 24/7/365 virtual exhibit without needing a physical venue.

I have the great fortune of having viewers, fans and detractors from countries all over the world, something I never could have achieved through my client work alone or by exhibiting solely in Chelsea.

So if you’ve made it through this far, thank you for taking the time to visit my little self-important site. Feel free to download images, contact me with comments and suggestions. And if you are looking to hire a smart-assed designer for your progressive cause, I’d be happy to be paid for what I do.

Enjoy,
Mike
Creator of www.graphix4change.com