Cartoon

This week the University of Texas student newspaper let go of its editorial cartoonist after an uproar over a cartoon about the Trayvon Martin shooting -- or, rather, about news coverage of the event and its aftermath. As my colleague Molly Hennessy-Fiske reported, the offending cartoon "showed a mother sitting in a chair labeled 'the media' reading to a child from a book titled, "'Treyvon [sic] Martin and the Case of Yellow Journalism.' "The mother says: "And then the big bad 'white' man killed the handsome, sweet, innocent 'colored' boy.'" . . . "On Wednesday, as students gathered to protest the cartoon with handmade signs saying, 'Daily Texan Racist,' the newspaper's editorial board published an apology editorial , saying that the cartoonist responsible, Stephanie Eisner, had left the paper.

For the Obama campaign, the creation of “The Life of Julia” was the latest campaign gimmick - drawing in female voters through social media to an infographic showing what a young woman's life might look like under the policies of a White House run by Mitt Romney, rather than by President Obama. But Romney does not seem amused. “This little cartoon that they have on the life of Julia really reveals the weakness of the president's policies,” the presumed Republican nominee told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a taped interview that aired Tuesday night.

Hugh Hefner didn't get a lot of hugs as a kid. He grew up in a repressed Midwestern Puritan home, and his parents were strict. He couldn't ask them about the things he saw at his favorite movie theater in Chicago -- like the confusing censorship codes, or why an adult married couple in a film had to sleep in separate twin beds. So he began questioning these ideas on his own -- through comic books. During his junior year in high school, Hefner began his own comic autobiography, documenting the events of his life through drawings.

Re Michael Ramirez's Dec. 13 cartoon: It didn't have to be Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) depicted as the politician wanting to "thank" Osama bin Laden; it could have been a right-wing Republican, and I still would have cringed. This is not the kind of sharp political commentary one expects regularly on your commentary page. It is shoddy, tasteless partisan mudslinging. Dawn O'Leary West Hollywood Ramirez's cartoon of Daschle thanking Bin Laden has a small error.

In the wake of the Catholic Church's child-molestation scandal, Michael Ramirez's tasteless editorial cartoon (Commentary, April 21) depicting newly elected Pope Benedict XVI dragging a resistant little boy labeled "liberal Catholics" away by the ear is quite disturbing. Is Ramirez aware that three years ago, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger dismissed the scandal as a "planned campaign" by the media to "discredit the church"? Larry George Santa Monica

Rep. Bob Filner (D-Chula Vista) has joined readers in criticizing a newspaper cartoon showing his GOP opponent, a wounded Iraq veteran, calling it inappropriate. "The cartoon was in poor taste and does not reflect the Imperial Valley's strong support for our troops and veterans," Filner said of political cartoon published Saturday in the Imperial Valley Press. The cartoon showed a poster of Filner's opponent, Nick Popaditch, wearing a patch on his right eye; two young skateboarders are puzzled about whether he is a spy, a pirate or a sitcom character.

I was shocked to see Michael Ramirez abandon his post as local apologist for the pro-big-business Bush administration and the anti-environment right-wingers who run it. His Nov. 29 editorial cartoon (Commentary), captioned "Gutted," tells it like it is, with the skeletal remains of two fish labeled "Clean Water Act" and "Clean Air Act," along with the "EPA" knife that gutted them. Thank you for the criticism, Mr. Ramirez. I don't think anyone will ever call you a tree hugger, but it's encouraging to sense that a caring heart beats in that breast, somewhere.

For once I agree with The Times' resident con(servative) artist Michael Ramirez and his sketch of Saddam Hussein sitting atop a pile of skulls while complaining about his underwear photo (May 24). I'd like one correction, however. Because the drawing must signify the 1,600 Americans killed by President Bush's illegal and immoral war, I think the number of skulls should be much greater to also factor in the tens of thousands of Iraqi lives that were sacrificed. Dawna Kaufmann Los Angeles Re Ramirez's May 21 cartoon on John Bolton, nominee for U.S. ambassador to the U.N.: Is Ramirez saying the U.N. hates America?

"G.I. Joe" reminds me of my grandmother. She isn't part of an elite military force, and she doesn't have her own cartoon, action figures or comic book. My grandma has the gift of constant, unrelenting, never-ending nagging. Don't get me wrong: She is the only grandmother I've got and I love having her around, but when she wants you to do something, there is no stopping her. But what does "G.I. Joe" have to do with her? Well, whenever she or any other family member began one of their verbal tirades when I was a kid, I'd simply turn on the TV and search for "G.I.