1. How did Red and Blue come about?

Mitch Gelman at CNN.com asked me to come up with a cartoon that hit both sides of the political spectrum.   They already have a liberal and and a conservative cartoonist in Bill Mitchell and Bob Lang.   I have always wanted to do a political cartoon that was character centered and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to have two characters embody opposing political leanings.   At first I considered having them literally be couch potatoes, I am not sure how I got from that to Red and Blue -- these three sketchbook pages probably show the progression better than I could explain it.

Original concepts from Dan Shefelman's sketchbook.

My producer, Mike Toppo, sees the rough idea and will give me much needed feedback on how the idea is working -- and often will add a little zinger idea I had not thought of.  

As far as my process, I'm not sure if "control" is the right word.   I think "guide" might be better.   Basically, I think through the characters and that determines how they will react to each other and to the political issues the cartoon is dealing with.   What I love about well defined characters is that I do not have to impose thoughts or actions on them, they tell the stories themselves.
With Red and Blue I usually stoke the fire a bit with some news story or general feeling I have about what is going on in the world and then just let Red and Blue be Red and Blue.

Print cartoons are snapshots of thoughts and symbols.   The most successful cartoons in my opinion are the ones that with one image and very few words can evoke a whole torrent of conscious and sub-conscious thought (which usually is what is behind laughter).   The beauty of print editorial cartoons is that they come alive in the reader's mind.   I love this quality of doing cartoons on paper.   With Red and Blue, the challenge for me at first was daunting:   how to approach ideas in animation and accomplish if not exactly the same thing then something equally worthwhile for the viewer.   It would have been a mistake to just animate what is really a freeze-frame idea.   I think this is what most of the first attempts at animating political cartoons did and I always felt it was a waste of energy.   Once I stopped worrying about all this and again just let Red and Blue be Red and Blue the work started to flow.

2. Who is crazier, Red or Blue?

If by crazy you mean who has the most ridiculous politics I would have to say I personally find many of Red's opinions hard to defend.   At the same time I get very weary of political correctness and Blue is PC to a fault, so it is refreshing to have Red say the most un-PC thing to set her off.

3. James Carville and Mary Matalin......can you top that in animation?   Is it possible to caricature the caricature?

Well -- I certainly thought a lot about them and have always been fascinated by what their bedroom dynamic must be like.   I'm guessing they like angry sex.   Carville and Matalin are the left and right Power Couple.   Red and Blue are the left and right Powerless Couple.   Caricature to me is a one dimensional thing -- I don't see Red and Blue as much as caricatures of left and right as they are embodiments.

In a sense they are both me.   Literally in the sense that I do both voices, and metaphorically in the sense that I see value and error on both sides of the aisle.   But they are also an archetype husband and wife pairing that goes back to Zeus and Hera, or Ugg and Zugg the caveman couple.   And certainly much of the marriage stuff comes from my own (sorry Jane).

4. How did you get into editorial cartooning?

My dad showed me how to caricature LBJ when I was maybe 8.   In seventh grade my shop teacher, Mr. Gober, suggested I do cartoons for the Rolling Stone (not Jann Wenner's rock magazine , the O. Henry Junior High newspaper).   I knew I was hooked when Mr. Hudnall, the Vice Principal killed a cartoon I had done of him -- it made me so mad.   Then in high school I did a cartoon about Jesus that almost got my journalism teacher fired.   What could be better?

At the same time I was doing editorial cartoons, I was making super-8 cut-out animations on a copy stand in my bedroom. I have ping-ponged back and forth between editorials and animation ever since. This continued until Red and Blue when the two disciplines came crashing together.   It's like you got peanut butter in my chocolate and vice versa.

I did a lot of animation on my own in high school but never really learned it as a discipline.   I still don't really think of myself as an "animator" in the Glen Keane kind of hardcore do a thousand drawings in an hour way.   I am a cartoonist who wants to see his characters move.   I would rather spend a lot more time writing and creating characters than doing all the drawings it takes to make a character open a door.   On the other hand, nothing is more magical than seeing drawings move and become alive.

5. Who in editorial land is your greatest influence?

Jules Feiffer is the first cartoonist to make me REALLY want to do editorial cartoons.   The way he very openly delved into his own psyche to respond to the issues of the day appealed to me.   I met him at a cartoon symposium in college and he said something I will never forget.   When I told him how his collection Jules Feiffer's America inspired me he said that when he finished putting together the book -- which included cartoons from the Eisenhower to Reagan eras -- he realized that it was history of his own marriage.   Interestingly I think he was recently divorced or was soon thereafter.   Since then I have been influence by dozens of cartoonists: Quino, Sam Hurt, Clay Bennett, Ben Sargent... I could go on and on, but I go beyond cartoonists for much of my inspiration: PT Anderson, Norman Lear (Red and Blue is definitely a tip of the hat to All in the Family), David Sedaris, Mitch Hedberg, The Ramones.   Not that any of these things go directly into my cartoons but sometimes it's just seeing, hearing or reading something and getting a chill and thinking "man this is worth doing!"

+1. How was the transition to Flash?

Fun.   Painful.   Terrifying.   Flash is the dream software for an animator who doesn't really have the time, patience or money to actually animate.   At least in the traditional sense.   It also lends itself to the crude kind of animaticky style I like.   My friend Xeth Feinberg has always amazed me with how he could create such lively work with so many cheats and shortcuts.   I am still an advanced beginner in Flash, the Red and Blue cartoons are made on the edge of my seat thinking "How in the hell do I do this?"   But this is always the best way for me to learn -- and I have "flashes" of feeling like an expert.

+2.   Do you think animated features could do thought provoking themes, or is that the domain of   web animation?

Of course animated features as an art form can provoke thought.   Look at Persepolis or Team America.   The problem I see with much of the animated features in the US today is not in the medium or art form.   The problem is the corporate approach to making big budget animation.   The only way any art can truly be thought provoking is if one person has a vision or a team of very creative people have a shared, clashing and/or complementary vision.   Unfortunately as soon as an organization gets as large as the big film studios there are too many people who are not really thinking about the film for it's own sake.   It is serving too many masters and as a result either becomes a confused mess or just simply bland junk food.

End of sermon.  

I have worked on several features and I would not say any have been particularly thought provoking.   I think there can be thought provoking messages in scenes and moments but none of the movies were really made to say anything much more than, "Here are a few characters we want you to like and they are going to defeat a few other characters we want you to not like."

I may never work on a feature again.

The fact is that web animation costs a lot less and has to compete in a much more raucous field of provocateurs and entertainers.   So one has to provoke in one way or another.

Beyond that my plan is to continue to create web content because it is the most direct way to get work to an audience short of setting up on a street corner and juggling flaming cats and chainsaws (hmmmm... that's a thought).   If it leads me back to TV or film that is fine too.

Hell, I'm just trying to get 1 minute of attention in the raging torrent of the internet.   Really.

See more of Dan's work on his site!

Sketches for this article are the property of Dan Shefelman.

Part 5: Is it Fall Yet?

Finally, tomatoes. Tomatoes are always the garden favorite, and for some reason they have arrived a month late.

Roma tomatoes

We were away the last ten days of August, enjoying a family vacation in Yellowstone. On our return, I found the garden was chock full of veggies - and weeds.

clockwise from top: lima beans, squash with zucchini, roma tomatoes, Japanese tomatoes, horse radish, cherry tomatoes, okra, and regular tomatoes

And speaking of weeds, I want to mention my weed weapon of choice - the onion hoe. Not all hoes are the same (No ho' jokes here). A few years back, when I first started working in Dad's garden, I arbitrarily picked up an onion hoe out of his garage. While its blade is wide as a standard hoe, it is much shorter, giving you lots of flexibility in weeding around plants. I've never seen an onion hoe in any garden supply store, so you may have to try the internet. The one I use is about 70 years old.
garden hoe vs. onion hoe

Picking lima beans has to be my least favorite thing to do in the garden. There's a lot searching through thick green vines for green pods which, once found, need to be checked to see if the beans are large enough for picking. Dad always said to pick them before they got too big and starchy. Sometimes you can tell by feeling the pod, but often times I hold them up to the light to see.
Same size pods, but only one is ready to pick.

Picking lima beans (also called pole beans) is a bit of a low-impact workout. First you hold you arms up over your shoulders for five minutes, searching the higher vines, then squat for five minutes searching lower vines. In an hour you're very well reach-and-squat-ed out.


The leaves on the horseradish are drying up, which is when I dig up what I want for the next year. This stuff has been coming back on its own since long before I got involved with the garden. I usually dig up a few roots, which get washed and scrubbed clean, then put in the food processor with some vinegar. That's it. Only the roots are used.

Horseradish root

Lastly, there's the Japanese tomatoes. I picked a half dozen or so of this odd colored fruit, and amazingly enough, they taste like tomatoes! Nice, firm, meaty tomoatoes. The only difference I can see is the dark, reddish brown color.

Japanese vs. Better Boy. Note the dark color of the Japanese varitey.

See you next month!

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