Thanks to Stacey Matthews, who has been writing as Sister Toldjah for twenty years now — she ‘outed’ herself from her anonymity when a stalker ferreted out her identification and was getting ready to publish it — on RedState, I found this gem, from The Sacramento Bee:

Darrin Bell, Sacramento-based comic strip creator, arrested on suspicion of child pornography

By Darrell Smith | Updated: Thursday, January 16, 2025 | 7:37 AM PST

A prominent Sacramento-based comic strip creator, cartoonist and author has been arrested on suspicion of possession and creating child pornography. Darrin Bell, 49, who won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, was arrested Wednesday morning at his south Sacramento home by Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office investigators. Deputies had served a search warrant against Bell following an investigation by the Sacramento Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Detectives task force.

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain, “Least Surprising News of the Week?“

The Sheriff’s Office said it was the first arrest by the task force connected to AI-generated material, which was incorporated into existing child pornography law on Jan. 1. Bell is best known for his comic strip “Candorville,” which features three childhood friends of color and their daily lives in the inner city. Bell was the first Black cartoonist to have two nationally syndicated strips, the other being “Rudy Park,” which was created by Theron Heir. “Candorville,” ran Sundays in The Sacramento Bee from 2021 to April of 2023.

Bell was 20 when he began his career in 1995, drawing as a freelance cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Washington Post, while the cartoonist at the Daily Californian, the newspaper of UC Berkeley.

The Sheriff’s Office said it received a tip National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that someone had uploaded 18 files of child sex abuse material to the internet. Investigators said they had located “134 videos of CSAM were located and linked to the same account, owned and controlled by 49-year-old Darrin Bell.”

“Detectives recovered evidence related to the case, as well as computer-generated/AI (child pornography),” the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. “This case was the first arrest by Sacramento Valley ICAC where possession of computer-generated/AI CSAM was charged against a suspect.”

Erick Erickson commented on Twitter, “Cartoonist who attacked conservatives for pointing out grooming behavior turns out to have child porn on his laptop. Surprise. Surprise.”

Jugendverderber is German for “destroyer of youth,” so yeah, cartoonist Bell got the translation pretty much correct: groomers, which Merriam-Webster defines as “someone who grooms (see groom entry 2 sense 3b) a minor for exploitation and especially for nonconsensual sexual activity,” really are destroyers of youth, and the criminal justice system should treat them as such. If Mr Bell is guilty of the offenses for which he has been charged — and he is innocent until proven guilty — he should be locked up for the maximum time allowed under the law.

The Sacramento Bee’s story does not inform readers about Mr Bell’s history of disparaging conservatives concerned about the left attempting to normalize homosexuality and transgenderism, especially in our public schools. That does not surprise me in the slightest.

I guess that he won’t have yet another Donald Trump-bashing editorial cartoon for Inauguration Day.  🙂

The New York Post has more.

Mr Bell isn’t an idiot: idiots don’t get into the University of California at Berkeley! But what possesses people to save child pornography on their computers, knowing what can happen to them if they get caught?