The Four Color Media Monitor

The Washington Post reports that cartoonist Darrin Bell, who's drawn for their paper and has 2 daily comic strips to his credits, was arrested for possession of child porn:

Pulitzer-winning editorial cartoonist Darrin Bell was arrested Wednesday in California on charges of possession of child pornography, some of which was allegedly generated by artificial intelligence, police said.

Bell, 49, was arrested at his home and booked into Sacramento County jail after police discovered more than 100 videos related to child sex abuse connected to an account that Bell owned and controlled.

According to the Sacramento County sheriff’s office, detectives from the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program previously received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about someone who had uploaded 18 files containing child sex abuse material, or child pornography. After an investigation into the tip, the detectives discovered 134 videos of that material uploaded by an account owned and controlled by Bell.

On Wednesday, police issued a residential search warrant at Bell’s home, where they discovered evidence related to the case, including “computer-generated/AI” child pornography, according to the sheriff’s office.

[...] This was the first arrest by the Sacramento Valley’s Internet Crimes Against Children detectives unit related to possession of AI-generated content since a new California law ordered possession of AI-generated content to be deemed a criminal offense, according to the sheriff’s office.

Whatever one thinks of even AI, that Mr. Bell would wallow in such abominable smut is horrific and offensive. His possession of illegal videos definitely warrants an arrest and prosecution, and let's hope he goes to prison for a long time.

One of Bell’s more notable works is “Candorville,” a daily comic strip that features young Black and Latino characters living in a city. Collections of the nationally syndicated comic strip, which often offers social and political commentary, have been published as books. He also cocreated “Rudy Park,” a syndicated comic strip no longer in production that focused on current events.

“Candorville,” which appears on The Post’s website and in its daily and Sunday editions and is syndicated by King Features, has been suspended from the comics lineup for the time being. The strip will appear in the Jan. 19 Sunday comics section because of production deadlines.

Counterpoint Media said in a statement Thursday that Bell has been suspended from contributing to its daily newsletter. But reruns of “Rudy Park” would continue to be distributed for now.

They should cancel further publication of his daily strips, and nobody should buy the reprints. We must hope his publishers are dropping his work from reprints already. And now, here's clues to his politics:

Bell got his start at the University of California at Berkeley, where he drew cartoons for the school’s newspaper, the Daily Californian.

He became the first Black journalist to win the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 2019. His winning cartoons that year “took on issues affecting disenfranchised communities, calling out lies, hypocrisy and fraud in the political turmoil surrounding the Trump administration,” according to the Pulitzer Prizes.

In 2023, Bell created a visual memoir, called “The Talk,” which focused on how racial injustice and public moments in childhood can help shape adulthood. The book’s publisher, Macmillan, said in a statement Thursday it is “aware of the arrest of Darrin Bell. These are disturbing allegations, and we take this matter extremely seriously. At this time, we are allowing due process to take its course and will take appropriate action as we get more confirmed information.”

The Sacramento Bee also notes:

Pulitzer judges remarked on his “beautiful and daring editorial cartoons” that tackled the issues that affect the nation’s disenfranchised communities and took on the political turmoil that surrounded the first Trump administration.

And the Washington Free Beacon says:

In 2023, Bell published The Talk, a graphic memoir on "police brutality and anti-Blackness in twenty-first-century Amerikkka [sic]." Bell said the book was inspired by George Floyd’s death in 2020, telling ABC News that parents should "take away some innocence" from children by discussing racial issues in America.

And so, it turns out Mr. Bell's quite a leftist ideologue, who studied at a terrible institute with a far-left bent, and it won't be surprising if his comics and cartoons build on only so much leftist ideology, as his use of an allusion to anti-American ideology hints. Now, his career looks to be over, and he's only tarnished leftism so much more with his offenses. It's quite telling he wasted so much energy attacking Trump. The NY Post also notes that:

One troubling cartoon that Bell created was posted to his X account in 2022 and resurfaced on the social media platform after his arrest. Titled “The Groomer,” it shows an elephant-like person flashing a group of children in front of a mirrored storefront, which reflect the word “BIGOTRY” tattooed on the subject’s chest.

And the U.S. Sun has more:

Darrin Bell, 49, who amassed a mainstream audience for his drawings depicting Donald Trump as Hitler, has been accused of sharing over 100 disgusting AI-generated images of child sexual abuse.

[...] Bell was active on social media and spent most of his time posting his political work on his Substack, Darrin Bell's Disobey in Advance.

In one drawing he shared several times on Instagram, he depicted Trump as an Adolph Hitler-type figure standing at a podium for a speech.

On the podium, he drew an image that resembles the Nazi Party symbol, but instead of a swastika, there's a T turned to an angle.

In another illustration, Bell drew Trump having a meltdown over the poor performance of MAGA-endorsed politicians in the 2022 midterm elections.

In that cartoon, the artist depicted the so-called "Red Wave" as an exploded bottle of ketchup that painted a wall behind the screaming president.

At the time, fans couldn't get enough of Bell's drawings. One follower commented, "This is good. I laughed right out loud," on the comic of the president's childish tantrum.

However, now, Bell's arrest and smug attitude have earned him a wave of backlash, as outraged users flood his comments with calls for justice.

"Prison is so fitting for this guy. Don't mess with children," commented one furious user on a post.

Another person wrote, "It's staggering how you spent the past years calling Trump and his supporters rapists, groomers, and Nazis.

"Meanwhile, you were just arrested for creating and distributing child pornography."

And other users blasted Bell for "tarnishing" his work and his disturbing alleged crimes.

"Somebody needs to have a talk to their kids about perverts like you," wrote another furious follower.

Wow...the hypocrisy knows no bounds. He accused conservatives in his cartoons of being "groomers", yet saw nothing wrong with being a groomer himself? Sadly, there's only so many Orwellianists like him around, and they've really brought down morality to a deep abyss. Now, Bell's career is over, and he'll hopefully be facing prison for his atrocities that hurt children.

Labels: comic strips, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, msm propaganda, politics, technology, violence