This e-card for the New Year 2009 by Laco Torma is from Ivan Hanousek

Laco Torma

Invitation to the Cartoonists - 11th PortoCartoon - The CRISIS

Dear Friend,
The most global word is now CRISIS.
Every citizen of the world feel it on their own way.
There are crises for all tastes and temperament: humanitarian, economic, political, psychological, of food, sports and so on. And so on.
Only there is no crisis in crisis.
It is known that the evolution is largely increasing, in periods of disruption, conflict and crisis. For too bad to say about it the crisis sharpen the human talent and art.
That is why we hope the crisis will stimulate the sharpen pencils of the cartoonists from all around the world, for the PortoCartoon 2009.
Against the CRISIS war, weapons of creativity and humour!
You will find the general rules of the 11th PortoCartoon on the PortoCartoon website: http://www.cartoonvirtualmuseum.org/eventos/pc/xi/xipc_reg.pdf
We wish you a Happy New Year, in spite of the crisis!
Warmest regards
Luís Humberto Marcos
Director
PortoCartoon-World Festival
The Portuguese Printing Museum
Estrada Nacional 108, nº 206
4300- 316 Porto Portugal
Tel: 351+22 530 49 66
Fax: 351+22 530 10 71
portocartoon@museudaimprensa.pt
http://www.cartoonvirtualmuseum.org/

More e-cards for 2009 from Hanusic, Kar, Elpen, Massimino, and Trenholm

Hule Hanusic

İsmail Kar

Levent Elpen

Leonardo Massimino

To ring in the new year & send glad, happy tidings of only the very best to those i know, my annual maze of floating celeb heads, all done during the course of '08....
(Clockwise: Actor Paul Newman, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Actor Alec Baldwin, First Lady Michelle Obama, Former Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Actress Keira Knightley, Countrywide's CEO Angelo Mozilo...)
Zach Trenholm / Caricaturist
San Francisco, CA. USA
415.753.6020
http://www.zachtrenholm.com/

Beyond silence: let’s re-launch Kufia - Gianluca Costantini

In these tragic hours, while witnessing the atrocities of Israeli military occupation in Palestinian lands, the brave resistance of Palestinian women and men, and the courage of Israeli and international pacifist activists, we feel we must do something quickly and effectively in order to stop the ongoing massacre. Actions are due if we wish to preserve any spark of hope from destruction. We cannot wait while Sharon’s criminal arrogance, supported by part of the Israeli Labour party, tries to extinguish all critical understanding in Israel. There will be no permanent and just solution to the current conflict if they do not recognise the Palestinian people’s historical right to have their own independent and sovereign state. What has been cynically offered to Palestinians so far is a humiliating collection of territories.
We have to denounce U.S. military support of Israel, and the terrible risks this policy entails for our future. As a justification for its attitude toward the Palestinian conflict, the U.S. government is boasting about the need to fight terrorism, and showing once more its absolute indifference to international laws. We firmly believe that the language of violence, used by Bush and Sharon as a political strategy, will only enhance hatred, desperation, and terrorism. Our need to act is not only based on the wish to stop manslaughter in the Middle East, and save the lives of Palestinian and Israeli women and men, but is also an effort to save our own life and future.
Twenty years ago we created “Kufia, Italian pencils for Palestine” with the help of many artists and associations supporting the Intifada. An exhibition of the artists’ original drawings toured more than 70 towns in Italy, Israel and Palestine, including Jerusalem. Prints of the portfolio were sold to raise funds to support Palestinians’ rights over their land and their right to return to their land. Today, we wish to re-launch the Kufia campaign and possibly to widen it. Together with il manifesto, l’Alfabeto Urbano, Mano magazine, and other political organisations and press companies, we are now working on a new edition of the portfolio and exhibition. It will host major Italian comics artists and, hopefully, Israeli and Palestinian artists (as in the past edition). Although we know that humanitarian support and alternative information - offered by important associations such as “Emergency”, “Un ponte per”, “Action for Peace”, “Peace Brigades Interna-tional”, “Indymedia” and others - is absolutely fundamen-tal to many areas in the world, we still think that more can be done in the field of communication, culture, and art for the sake of Palestine. We want to bring together different experiences, all stemming from Palestine’s emergency call, and develop new theoretical and practical strategies. In the following days more information on Kufia will be found in the newspaper il manifesto, including the different steps of our project and other coming publications.
http://www.inguine.net/kufia
Contributions: Mark Merkeke, Xavier Torcelli, Vauro, David Vecchiato, Oscar Zarate, Andrea Accardi, Giorgios Botsos, Andrea Bruno, Giorgio Carpinteri, Onofrio Catacchio, Blaise Dehon, Elfo, Marco Ficarra, Giacon, Gabriella Giandelli, Nabil Hanani, Jean Lamore, Jean-Christophe Long, Sliman Mansour, Mark Markeke, Marina Comandini, Leila Marzocchi, Josè Munoz, Rula Halawani, Daniele Brolli, Gianluca Costantini, Marta, Squaz, Cinzia Ghigliano, Arnon, Oreste Zevola, Daniele Scandola, David Reeb, Filippo Scozzari, Giacon, Guido Crepax, Erika Pittis, Lorenzo Mattotti, Magnus, Sliman Mansour, Taleb Dweik, Taysser Barakat, Milo Manara, Vera Tamari, Paper Resistance, Ale Staffa, Rocco Lombardi, Marco Corona, Mimmo Manes, Giacomo Nanni, Gipi, Guy Vandervoorde, Paco Desiato, Matteo Bergamelli, Stefano Centonze, Tayseer Barakat, Vincenzo Apicella, Maurizio Ribichini, Alessio Spataro, Serge Ricco, Miki Kratsman, Alessandro Pessoli, Bertrand Panier, Giuseppe Palumbo, Michelangelo Setola, Mark Merkeke, Franco Matticchio, Andrea Pazienza, David B., Igort, Marina Comandini, Vanna Vinci, Sara Colaone, Davide Catania, Renato Calligaro, Maicol & Mirko, Elena Rapa, Miguel Angel Martini, Raul, Enea Riboldi, Davide Reviati, Aleksandar Zograf, Joe Sacco, Matteo Bergamelli.

8th International Carluka Cartoon Contest 2009: Gogol's World & Free Theme

8th INTERNATIONAL CARTOON CONTEST CARLUKA 2009 - UKRAINE
GOGOL'S WORLD
Gogol and Poltava. The genius writer and the land that gave birth to him – all this is engraved not only on the souls of Ukrainians, but also on the souls of all admirers of Nikolai Gogol's writings. It's very symbolic that the great satirist was born on the 1st of April. Therefore it is impossible not to mention the author of such unfading works as Vechera na Khutore bliz Dikan'ki (Evenings on Homestead near Dikanka), Revizor (The Inspector General), Myortvye Dushi (Dead Souls) and many other genius writings, which became classic during Gogol's life and brought him international fame. Among them is a famous Nos (Nose). That's why the official prize in the nomination Gogol's World is "The Gold Nose". This nomination has become the main theme of the International Cartoon Contest CARLUKA, which is traditionally opened in our city exactly on the 1st of April. By the way, The Gold Nose is a quite "natural product", a sculpture designed by famous Russian cartoonists Mikhail Zlatkovskiy and Sergey Tyunin and made by a well-known Ukrainian caricaturist Oleg Dergachov.
The second theme of the Cartoon Contest CARLUKA-2009 is a free theme.
Best works will be published in Ukrainian and foreign papers and magazines and placed on the sites of the professional cartoonists from different countries.
I. THEMES:
1. Gogol's World in Cartoons (characters, ethnics, mysticism, black humour, etc.)
2. Free Theme
II. CONDITIONS
1. Each participant is requested to submit the original cartoons created in any material, as well as computer graphics with the author's signature. The cartoons may be in colour or in black and white, may have the formats 297x420 (A3) or 210x297 (A4). The number of works – no more than 5 (five). The deadline for the entries is 8 March 2009.
2. The participants are requested to give their personal information (name, surname, home address, contact phone number, e-mail) on the back of each cartoon.
3. Works sent by mail should be protected from damage during the forwarding.
4. The cartoons will remain with the organizers of the contest and may be returned to the authors upon their request.
5. The organizers hold the right to publish and use the cartoons sent to the contest without their authors' permission with obligatory reference to the authorship.
6. The cartoons' evaluation is done by secret voting according to three criteria: cartoon's conformity to the theme of the contest, style, humour.
III. PRIZES
Nomination "Gogol's World in Cartoons" Grand prize – "The Gold Nose", 3000 USD
Nomination "Free Theme" - 1st place - 1000 USD, 2nd place - 700 USD, 3rd place - 300 USD.
WORKS ARE TO BE SENT TO THE ADDRESS:
ASTREYA-REKLAMA (Cartoon Contest) Chapaeva Str 30, Poltava, 36039, Ukraine
Tel./fax: +38 0532 561134 E-mail: carluka@gala.net WEB: http://www.carluka.com/en/contest/

Rahim and Elpen depict the new year through footprints of the previous one

Rahim Baggal Asgari

Levent Elpen

Visual Intifada by Gianluca Costantini

I$R*€L Visual Intifada

http://www.channeldraw.com/

The International Exhibition "Gaza” Syriacartoon website – 2008-2009

Special Gallery:
Theme: GAZA in Fire
Entries: max. 2 cartoons, on colour or b/w (from archive too)
Size: JPEG - format with 800×600 Pixels and 200 DPI
Deadline: 15/1/2009.
All selected works will be awarded (Certificate).
Send your cartoons by email: syriacartoon@gmail.com
Works should be accompanied by the author's photo or caricature and a short biography (doc format).
Some of accepted works will be printed in a brochure, on posters and will be published on syriacartoon website: http://www.syriacartoon.com/

This e-card is from Hikmet Cerrah to greet the New Year 2009

Hikmet Cerrah

November 2008 Winners in NATURE & MAN International Cartoon Web Contest

November 2008 results of the monthly Man & Nature International Cartoon Web Contest 2008 with theme "Drought & Water" are announced at the competition website: http://www.muhittinkoroglu.com/

WINNERS

Mohammad Habibi – Iran

Julio Carrion Cueva – Peru

Hosin Hoshmand – Iran
November 2008 Finalists
Previous Winners

Results 2nd Black Cat International Cartoon Web Contest theme: Black Humor

Results of the 2nd “Black Cat” International Cartoon Web Contest - Azerbaijan
Theme: Black Humor
WINNERS
First Prize: Ares / Cuba (See above)
Second Prize: Doddy Iswahyudi / Indonesia
Third Prize: Stanislav Ashmarin / Russia
Honorable Mentions:
Majid Adibi / Iran
Yuri Kosobukin / Ukraine
Henryk Cebula / Poland
Grzegors Wach / Poland
Slawomir Luczynski / Poland
Darko Drljevic / Montenegro (See below)
Valeri Kurtu / Germany
Marcin Bondarowicz / Poland
Babij Sava / Serbia.

All prize-winning cartoons, the jury and the participants