One morning I was waiting for my kids in Santa Fe and just decided just to paint that on there. I submitted that as a cartoon for the New Mexican in early July. Native News Online chatted with Caté about his role as a health advocate, his cartoon history, and those “Lockdown Reservation Quarantine Blues.” How did the Chief end up on your truck? Since 2013, Caté has been ingeniously injecting Indian humor into mainstream society and expressing the quirks and challenges of dealing with the dominant culture through Without Reservations.

It’s a busy and rewarding time for Caté, who also has to meet his newspaper deadlines in the midst of all his side projects. Among his activities are a coloring book and brochures made in conjunction with the New Mexico Department of Health, a coloring book for the New Mexico Native Census Coalition, and billboards and pamphlets for the New Mexico Human Services Department’s Dose of Reality, an anti-opioid campaign. He and his characters, including the Chief and the Custer-like General, are drawing attention to health and other causes through a variety of amusing awareness projects. Multiple organizations have recently reached out to him to help liven up campaigns for crucial causes.

(Ricardo Caté)Caté is New Mexico’s reigning clown prince of COVID-19 prevention, and he’s in demand. “He’s a man of few words, but they’re usually very intelligible and inspiring or helpful.”Ĭartoonist Ricardo Caté on the Santo Domingo/Kewa Pueblo in New Mexico. “People who know my cartoon know the Chief speaks the truth,” Caté said from his home in New Mexico’s Santo Domingo Pueblo, a.k.a. Ricardo Caté, creator of the Santa Fe New Mexican’s daily “Without Reservations” comic, painted this simple warning, as well as the mask and war-bonnet-clad cartoon Chief delivering it, on the window of his truck.

Without Reservations by Ricardo Cate