What Would Jesus Do?

Probably, not this.

I have emerged from the bathroom, just in time to watch the final round of the Masters. Granted, it’s not the same fun as when there were stars like Nicklaus, Watson, Trevino and later Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.¹ Now I don’t know anyone. I just know the course.

Yesterday, I had lunch with my former golf partner, John. He is 96. We ate at our favorite all-you-eat Chinese buffet and I have been sick in the bathroom the past 24 hours.²

We have not been on the course together in years. Golf is very emotional for me, a love-hate relationship. The only real job I ever had was at a golf course as a starter. I got fired after five hours.³ Never again I thought.

The last couple of times I tried playing golf I got tremendous anxiety. First there was the fact I was gone for almost six hours and my clients couldn’t contact me.⁴ Then there was the performance anxiety. I would stand over my tee shot and putts, unable to relax and start my back-swing.

Cartoon from Barron’s and my creed.

I don’t have these issues at my drawing board but I do oscillate between encouragement and discouragement. I can get excited about working on a cartoon and then quickly realize the realities in our field. Is there another artistic endeavor where it pivots on the tastes of just a couple of people? Musicians and artists in other disciplines push the envelope, mash genres, experiment as they wish, more—some would argue it’s the same for them, but I don’t see it. I get jealous hearing artists, like Laufey, talk on the Louis Theroux podcast, about constantly changing their work. I have tried to bend the format as to what is expected from a gag cartoon, in a print magazine, but no one will see it, it won’t get published. There is little tolerance in single-panel cartoons to advance the craft (speaking artistically, only.). There are no more alternative weeklies. National Lampoon and others are gone. Perhaps the last cartoonist who really did ground-breaking stuff was the great Jack Zeigler. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

I got over a lot of emails related to my Jesus cartoon going viral—including from lawyers, providing advice regarding it being used everywhere without permission or re-edited, using AI in some cases, by over enthusiastic people and without crediting me. They seemed not to realize that this behavior is digital theft of intellectual property. Some individuals received over a million Likes and Views. So, I want to briefly discuss this because I address AI questions later as well.

First, many writing me thought I would be very mad or upset. I’m not really. I have even try to bee cordial to the people creating and posting my cartoon illegally, so something can be accomplished. My frustration stems from the fact that the three cartoons that have gone viral in my career, were not published by the large magazine, because, and I’m just guessing, the publication would have provided some legal support if the cartoon was stolen. But that is just speculation.⁵

Secondly, and I think some would find this interesting; when I contacted the people using and manipulating my work, they don’t see it as stealing. One defense is that any work in the public online, is open to anyone to do what they wish.

Then there’s the religious angle, which has been told to me, twice, that my humor is to be shared. My sense of humor is not mine. It was God given. God is just using me as a vessel to bring humor to others. One, an old high school classmate,⁶ said I should be ashamed of myself for monetizing humor. So there.

Well, this does touch on the AI discussion. What belongs to who. How to protect your content. My Inbox is filled with newsletters, like Kathryn Vercillo’s Create Me Free, that are frankly too dense for my pea-in-a-soda-can-brain of mine. But check it out if you wish.

Let me share what my friend, Michael Gerber, Editor & Publisher of the humor magazine, The American Bystander, wrote on this subject and specifically about what happened to my cartoon. Excerpt:

The original cartoon, which in some sense combats Main Character Syndrome, was replaced by something in tune with it. In one little film, Jesus strides over to Trump, picks him up, and hurls him over the edge. In another, Trump throws Jesus over the edge, to the delight of a cheering MAGA crowd…

…Bob was, in effect, an unwilling part of a writer’s room. This has happened to Bob before, and other cartoonists I know, and while it is perhaps a signal that they are tuned into the zeitgeist, it has got to be infuriating. Culture can’t be free if it’s how you pay your rent, and what you express is who you are as an artist—someone shouldn’t take your cartoon, with your name on it, and express a different idea, any more than I should be able to make a car out of balsawood and call it a Tesla. Because if that happens, the very concept of a Tesla is blurred—there is no consensus reality. “BOB” changes from Bob Eckstein to some meaningless glyph.

But what happened to Bob Eckstein’s cartoon is simply how social media works; anonymous remixing, a race to the stickiest idea. Unfortunately, the stickiest ideas seem to be simple blurts of emotion, things that bypass the forebrain and take up residence in the amygdala.⁷ And that’s where the anonymity becomes essential; all of us are free to produce things as @Daddylovesfeet420 that we’d never make or say as ourselves…

If you would like to read the whole opinion piece by Michael Gerber, you can find it, HERE.

Since others are using the cartoon he published without our permission, and additional inquiries have been made about the cartoon for themselves, we agreed to make it available through us. T-shirts, magnets, mugs, etc. Yes, I realize this is not what Jesus would do, but this was a way of assuring our copyrights, laying claim to it, and attempting to take back some control. Please visit here, if you would like any details.

More questions from the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop…

How do you feel about AI? – Yuliya

BOB: I have seen first-hand how AI is changing the landscape in the writing and humor field and the loss of jobs and creativity. We can’t lump this in with other advancements in our history when making the argument for it being just an adjustment on our part (creatives). That’s because AI is not encouraging growth and creativity. It promotes laziness. It spurns shortcuts.

The biggest problem is reshaping society’s standards, in the same way a popular TV in the ‘80s, MAD magazine did for decades, or old radio stars in the ‘40s taught what to laugh at. Now AI is lowering the bar. We are being trained to accept what is good, like AI-produced art. And I already see patterns and repetitiveness surface. How do you feel about AI? Me and AI are not speaking. I feel like the tomorrow’s next New Yorker cover by Christoph Niemann, who I consider our generation’s smartest illustrator.

In the novel I am working on, I have an old historical character who is kind of pompous. I want to make him funny. I do not know if I can pull it off but I am going to try. Two tips as I embark… Thank you! – Maryanne Boyen

BOB: We had shared some exercises in our session (and I will be discussing those tips again but I can’t condense it down here). One we didn’t mention is creating a “Bible” for your character. Start by fleshing he/she out. Create their backstory. It would help you making them funnier if you knew them better.

How had AI changed humor in 2026? – Matt W.

BOB: There’s no metrics to measure or monitor comedy. How it has changed is based on your personal environment and exposure. AI is changing the world. Humor is a reflection of the world we live in. How much AI has changed humor in your life is based on how much AI is in your life.

To see more of my work, visit my website HERE.

Apologies to “Freewheeling,” whose caption was incorrectly credited in previous issue.

“If we train hard enough we can crawl 26 miles by spring” — Freewheeling

1. Mickelson is out, indefinitely, dealing with “personal health matter” and Tiger has flipped his SUV, a second time.

2. My body not used to anything on my strict no-fly diet. Please excuse the likelihood of an above average amount of typos—I’m a mess at moment.

3. The owner saw the golfers waiting to tee off, laughing. In front of a large group, he accused me of being on drugs and announced the club’s policy of not allowing drug use by employees. I was just funny. Promised myself I would have hold another job and I never have.

4. Especially during pre-cell phone days.

5. There is also, of course, the feeling, why can’t I sell my strongest work.

6. Actually the Class Clown, who found God and ditched me.

7. The amygdala is a pair of small, almond-shaped structures in the temporal lobe that acts as the brain's emotional center, primarily processing fear, aggression, and reward. As a key component of the limbic system, it plays a vital role in survival by detecting environmental threats and initiating “fight-or-flight.”