Roughs, Volume 261

Ding-dong! Roughs are here!

I have posted roughs here and there since my stroke, but I haven't done a blog of them. I didn't expect to be drawing that many since it's kind of difficult to draw, but lo and behold, I've been drawing a lot of roughs lately. To share those, I figure the best thing to do would be to bring back the blogs of roughs.

There may be a few of these that I have already published, but I can't remember them all, and I'm not going back through my blogs to see what I have and haven't published.

I've been sitting on this one for about two weeks. I like the idea of them being in the same location, with the tell being the Washington Monument.

I don't remember if I shared this one already, but it was drawn on February 18. The cartoon I eventually drew and published that day was the right one.

I didn't think this was going to work, and the two people I showed it to didn't get it, even though they had seen the movie The Jerk.

In the movie, Navin Johnson, played by Steve Martin, is in a fight with a bunch of business developers because one of them said the N-word. Johnson is doing very well in the fight, and he's beating all of them up until he gets to the last participant, who he punches in the genitals and breaks his hand. How is he to know that the person he punched in the genitals was Iron Balls McGinty? Later in the movie, as he is filling out refund checks to customers of his failed invention, one of them is going to Iron Balls McGinty.

Of course, if Donald Trump were in that fight, he would be with the N-word guys.

I've been trying to get this one in since February 11, but other subjects keep getting in the way. I gave up on it several days ago. You know, with all these testimonies flying around. I might bring it back.

I drew this last Saturday, February 20, and it was a contender.

I did this last Saturday as well, and it was also a contender. The one I went with turned out to be the right one, and it was very popular.

I drew this just a few days ago, February 24, but something seemed off with it.

Then I took the photos out and changed it around a little bit. I decided I wanted to focus more on the women’s hockey team than on Kash Patel.

Then I tried this, but it was a no-go for me. Laura did not like that it showed the female as violent. I did not have a hard time with that part.

And this one led to the Puck U gag.

Am I the only one getting tired of people going on and on about the men's hockey team? Maybe it's my fault because I have been watching hockey the past couple of nights.

I am happy they won the gold and all, but I was disgusted with their partying with Kash Patel and then allowing themselves to be used as props by Donald Trump at the State of the Union. And yesterday, I saw photos of them at the White House, and a couple of the players were wearing MAGA hats. That makes me happy that Trump served them cold McDoubles in a conference room.

I'm still going to post roughs here and there in my blogs without doing a full blog of these things, but it all depends on how often I'm drawing roughs.

So which of these are your favorites?

The Community Voice: The Community Voice is a small newspaper in Wichita, Kansas, and it was a client of mine. They were a good client. They would often pay a few months in advance, but now, they owe me for over two years of subscribing to my cartoons, and after I gave them a year of free cartoons (I can't remember why, but it has something to do with a billing misunderstanding or something like that). This has happened with several newspapers that still owe me. What I usually do is take them off the distribution list, and when I send invoices to my clients at the end of the month, I send one to the papers that owe me.

I don't like to expose newspapers that owe me. I feel like the business side of this needs to remain private. But I discovered this morning that The Community Voice is still using my cartoons, even though I am not emailing them to the Voice. To put it bluntly, they are stealing my cartoons. Maybe they think it's OK since they used to pay for them a long time ago or something. But it is not right. If they get mad at me for exposing them, they can't yell at me for being unprofessional when they're literally stealing my cartoons. So, fuck them.

I recently re-shared one of these cartoons on social media, so that's obviously where they snagged it. I predict that after I have exposed them as thieves and for being journalistically unethical, they are not going to steal my work anymore. I do not predict that they are going to pay me what they owe.

Peezy Video: I appreciate that people love Pizza Rat and have connected with him as they have, but they can stop sending me this video now. I received this about 20 times, either on Facebook Messenger or on my Facebook wall. And honestly, I feel sorry for the rat in the video. He looks very cold.

You would not believe how often people send me rat videos, even ones that don't include a pizza.

Support your local cartoonist: If you want to support the cartoonist, please donate through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com, Venmo to clay-jones-87, or snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.
I also take Zelle.
All support is appreciated.

Signed prints and books: I cannot take orders for signed prints or for my books at this time. So please do not send me money or place orders for them until further notice. Because of the stroke, it is an ordeal for me to get to the post office, so we’re gonna hold up until I’m fully capable of doing so. Thank you for your understanding.

Merch: Did you know there’s a Claytoonz store? My cartoons are printed on mugs, clothing, caps, and even a Peezy T-shirt. If you ever want a specific cartoon on some merch, let me know, and I’ll add it.