Trump Will Not Silence Humor

Colbert will continue, I know it

Drawn from across the street on my iphone with my finger

From 2016-2020, I was resident cartoonist at CBS News. One afteroon, my boss sent me to the taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and to live-draw it. It was SO FUN, a dream assignment.

I adore Stephen Colbert. Not only is he hilarious, and his political humor always are spot on— he’s such a thoughtful man. He is not afraid to show his emotions on air, and I love that about him. When a tragedy happens in our world, he doesn’t avoid it, he always knows what to say to make us feel better. And then help us laugh again, if appropriate. He is the kind of humorist I aspire to be in my work.

Last week claiming “budgetary concerns,” CBS fired Colbert and ended The Late Show, although his show will remain on air until May 2026. It is the top-rated late night show on television. If you weren’t following the CBS saga recently, CBS just settled a lawsuit with Trump for $16 million; Trump claimed CBS wrongly edited a 60 Minutes segement with Kamala Harris during the election; many lawyers believe the suit was un-winable, Trump had no real case. But CBS hopes for a merger with Paramount— which Trump has approval over. When the suit was settled, Colbert- in his initmitable sarcastic style— criticized CBS on-air for not taking a stand against Trump. So…. you can make all the deductions as to why Colbert was let go.

This is scary stuff, and we should take notice of these kind of pressure tactics towards the press, and now humor. Stand up against it, make noise about it.

In any case, Colbert’s show in the next year will certainly be interesting; I assume he won’t hold back. And when his time is up at CBS, I am sure Colbert will now show up on another network next year. This firing will give him more of a megaphone than he already had.

Stephen Colbert is far from done.

Here are some of the live-drawings I did that night, standing behind the audience in the back of the Ed Sullian Theater.

Williams was one of his guests that night. The other gues was Charlie Rose before he was outed for sexual misconduct. Not going to share drawings of him.

An interesting aside: One of Colbert’s writers is Asher Perlman, a New Yorker cartoonist.

Thanks for being here, have a great Saturday. See you tomorrow.

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