So our terrible Vice President Elect drew cartoons — terrible cartoons — back when he was in law school in the 80s. Esquire has posted a bunch of them, and holy crap they are bad. The art is sloppy and derivative and awful. The jokes, such as they are, are worse.
And seriously, it should be illegal to draw cartoon eyes like this:
Esquire discovered and posted the cartoons back in August. I can’t believe they didn’t get more attention at the time — I only just learned of them. Even setting aside his other failings, these cartoons really should disqualify Pence from holding any public office.
I mean, sure, I also drew some pretty dumb and possibly not-that-funny comics when I was in college. But trust me, they weren’t this annoying.
H/T — Scildfreja Unnýðnes, for bringing the Esquire piece to my attention.
Maybe it’s just me being an artist, but I’m reticent to make fun of someone else’s 30 year-old work, even Pence’s. I’m pretty sure if he saw them today he’d admit they’re bad.
There are many other, more criticism-worthy things about the man.
If you want cartoons to mock for their political stances, look here:
http://agoodcartoon.tumblr.com/
Aren’t all college cartoons generally inept, though? I saw some of the original college-era Doonesbury pieces and they were awful.
Still better than Reply All.
I like to think I was a wittier cartoonist than Mike Pence when I was in high school (The Hair-Raising Adventures of Harriet).
But put the man’s lack of artistic talent (and his terrible, awful, horrible politics) to one side for the moment. He’s done something (relatively) good.
Unlike Donald Trump, Mike Pence has not gone ballistic over the Hamilton incident, in which he was booed by other theatergoers, and in which actor Brandon Victor Dixon addressed him with a polite, impassioned plea to uphold the rights of all Americans and to protect the planet:
Mike Pence, for the love of everything that is decent, keep Donald Trump’s twitchy finger away from the nuclear button!
This may mean you get no sleep for an unspecified number of years. Totally worth it. History will thank you — yada, yada, yada.
The new president will need a minder. And Melania can’t do everything!
Those cartoons might be the best thing he’s ever done. That’s pretty sad…
I really can’t tell if this is a joke article or not. Are we going to seriously insult a guy over some cartoons he drew 30 years ago? That’s really petty.
Oh gawd, his spelling. Bumb and bumber…
I didn’t get any of them. I figure that’s because I’ve never been a law student, though.
Those are spectacularly unfunny. Maybe it’s because I’m not a law student, but jeez…
Agreed.
I mean, looking back at the cartoons I did thirty years ago, they don’t exist because I wasn’t alive then, but they’d suck nonetheless. Art and humor are skills and everyone sucks at them when they start, and there’s no shame in that.
But Pence probably shouldn’t quit his day job, though…no…no, wait. He should quit his day job. But you know what I mean.
On the bright side, looking at these I feel a lot better about my shitty high school cartoons.
Only marginally better than Big Bang Theory. 1/10
When I was in high school I used to draw comic strips called “The Man”. It was about a nameless man whose body parts fell off one by one, in somewhat creative ways, accompanied by a haiku describing the process. Damn, I used to be a fucking genious. What happened?
I’m not going to attack him over the art. That’s unbelievably petty. Not everyone is a good artist, and even a good artist’s first works are usually kind of crappy.
But the jokes… yeah. I was a law student (though admittedly I ended up not going into law), and they’re not at all funny. Some of them are just sad. So people who wonder if it might be because you haven’t studied law, it’s not just you.
I’m… seriously disappointed in this. I mean sure you’re all “I drew bad ones too” but then you go for the “they weren’t this bad”
This is just a petty attack about old af artwork. Come on, can’t you find anything else to make fun of Pence for?
If not, don’t stoop to petty attacks on artwork that’s ninety times older than most neo-nazi’s attention spans.
Well… they’re better than his political career.
@Snowberry
I knew you’d break that promise! :p
—
Seriously, I don’t know why people on a blog dedicated to mocking assholes would draw the line at snickering at their pathetic attempts at cartoon comedy. It seems pretty harmless to me. I’d be surprised if even Pence himself would care that his old law school drawings are being ridiculed. I just find it hilarious that even the least funny person in the universe at one point thought he could be funny. This just proves that humans suck at self awareness.
@JSun
I’m pretty sure we’ve made fun of Pence for plenty of other things. Doesn’t make his cartoons any less cringy.
@Imaginary Petal
Then find something else.
I’m seriously disappointed in this.
It’s not even a proper dressing down like I’ve come to expect from this site. It’s just a petty “hey look at how bad you were! It just goes to show you were bad! hahahahaha”.
This is the same kind of argument schoolyard bullies use to attack their victims. It’s not something that I’ve come to expect of this blog.
@Kat
At this point I’m basically expecting Pence et al to keep Trump afloat for just past half of his first term while playing the “straight man”, then figure out a way to get Trump impeached so that Pence can run out the rest of that term “fixing” things then have a shot at running for two more terms. Pretty much any measure of competence and reasonableness from Pence will look like a godsend compared to the Trumptown Circus.
Like, look how we are now praising the soon-to-be Vice President for not throwing a hissy fit in the face of vocal opposition. Trump isn’t just moving the Overton Window, he’s setting the bar for acceptable behavior directly on the floor, so that anyone who doesn’t literally dig down underneath it seems worthy of congratulations.
From the image
MRA ellipsis sighted!
re: Whether it’s fair to mock his artwork,
Dude’s horrible. Like, he goes out of his way to hurt people who aren’t hurting anyone, and who are already suffering. Picks on the meek and defenseless because they don’t live in the way he approves of. I’m as happy to call him a third-rate hack cartoonist as I am to call Hitler a derivative, uninspired postcard painter. He’s earned my ire, and I see no reason to treat him with a drop of consideration until he makes amends.
Yeah, as an artist myself, I’m willing to make fun of Pence’s work. I’m especially willing to make fun of my own work.
I feel like it’s not okay to mock others unless I’m willing to mock myself, but I’m also willing to be kinder to people who don’t think I should be electrocuted until I say I only like penises and I’m strictly female.
So, yeah. No mercy here.
@JSun
We already did. And now we’re doing this. Are you listening?
Context is important: we’re not the big kid here. He is literally the Vice President of the United States, and he has both the motive and power to directly cause harm to many of the people who comment here. It might not be a thoughtful criticism, but maybe for some it’s cathartic? It might be a bit mean spirited, but you don’t have to participate, and it’s nowhere near punching down.
Fucking hell. The guy is literally trying to kill LGBT people, and we’re eternally wringing our hands over giggling at some fucking drawing he made once. Is this real life?
@JSun
Nobody’s making fun of his appearance, his ethnicity, his orientation, his gender, a disability or ailment, or anything else that’s innate. Nor is Mike Pence a child. Nor was there any sorta fuss about any other asshole’s artistic endeavors. Given that, you’re complaint boils down to tone argument. And an odd one at that. Let this one go…