Editorial Cartoonist Quotes

In college I was an editorial cartoonist for my school paper, The Daily Aztec...I did straight, news-oriented editorial cartoons. Occasionally, my Chicano background snuck in to the toons simply because I might do a César Chavez toon about how the School Student Board was too stupidly racist to allow him to speak on campus or other anti-frat toons on how they were so racist in doing fund-raisers for Tijuana kid charities--dressed in sombreros and begging with tin cups (from an interview in the book Attitude, 2002)

What is your impression of American editorial cartooning? I met two kinds of editorial cartoonists. Some of them, they deal with local and domestic issues and they never focus on U.S. foreign policy. One of them is Tom Toles, and I feel like he is not serving the people. And the others deal with international issues and understand the oppression and the suffering caused to other nations. One of them is Kal in The Economist. Really, I've started to change my mind and, you know what? I am going to be an international cartoonist. On the professional level, I was really impressed with Callahan's work--he talks about serious issues. I was so excited to meet such an iconic figure. The one lady, Jen [Sorensen], I felt like she deals more with international issues. (2011 interview with Cartoon Movement)

You've done a lot of work on the revolution, obviously. And you tend to focus on women's rights and free speech. What other issues are you drawn to? Eladl: All the issues that concern Egyptian citizen. I deal a lot with women's issues, gender rights, but I think I focus a lot of my work on Egyptian citizens and, because I think any reform should start with the Egyptian citizen, trying to get them to participate in this process. The purpose of editorial cartooning is to awaken people. Some media outlets, whether in the United States or Egypt, distort the facts. And normally the media is controlled either by government, by investors, by the people who have the money. So cartoons, they should look into issues and make it clear whether it is black or white, or whether there is a grey area. People can look and distinguish between sincere and honest cartoonists and from other kinds that are not. Even an historian can be under pressure and to fake the writing of history. But cartoonists, we have the freedom to say what we want. (2011 interview with Cartoon Movement)

Q: Who are your influences? I was lucky as a kid to get to meet Paul Conrad who lived in my hometown. He is a giant in editorial cartooning, winner of three Pulitzers and even more impressively he won a place on Nixon‘s enemies list. He was a huge influence. Starting out I also spent a lot of time looking at Ron Cobb, an insane crosshatcher who drew for the alternative press in the ’60’s, as well as David Levine, Ed Sorel, and R. Crumb. I also love Steinberg‘s visual elegance and innately whimsical voice. Red Grooms is another guy who took cartooning wonderful places. There are also a number of 19th-century cartoonists whose mad drawing skills and ability to create rich visual worlds always impressed me. A.B. Frost, T.S. Sullivant, Joseph Keppler are often overshadowed by Nast, but in many ways they were more adventurous graphically. I also want to throw in here how great it is to work in D.C. There’s a great circle of cartoonists here and being in their orbit is a daily inspiration. Opening the Post to Toles and Richard Thompson (Richard’s Poor Almanac is the best and most original cartoon in the country and sadly known mostly only to those lucky enough to be in range of the Post;, Cul de Sac is pretty good too). And then there’s Ann Telnaes’ animations that appear in the Post online—-truly inspired and the wave of the future, as well as Beeler, Galifianakis, Bill Brown, and others. It raises one’s game to be around all these folks. (2010 interview with Washington City Paper)