In other news, did you hear? There's apparently an election today. Some black fella is running against a greased-up baby. Or is it the lovechild of an apple-head doll and Mr. Potatohead?
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Speaking of elevated political discourse...
When I was young my parents subscribed to Newsweek. When it came I always turned to the page that had three political cartoons on it. I read them because I liked cartoons not because I cared about politics or really understood them all the time. That I understood them at all is really a testament to the nature of political cartoons, not intelligence on my part; even an 8-year-old gets the basic message of, say, a man crushed under a thousand lb. weight labeled "taxes."
Political cartoons are often unfunny, unclever metaphors scrawled by some grumpy, old, sectarian fuck who only goes outside his house to drop off his latest ravings at a publication. Despite (or because of) this, I really enjoy them. At their best they are funny and at their worst they are much funnier.
To catch up on the latest political cartoons I usually head over to Slate Magazine's website, where they're compiled in a little unwieldy ghetto of a page by subject. You can troll through the issues, scoffing at the bad cartoons from the far right, feeling vindicated by the also-bad cartoons from the far left and scratching your head at the cartoons from other countries.
Some of my latest favorites:
This representation of Palin is just mind-blowingly bad. Jesus Christ, Gary Markstein, have you ever seen the woman? You didn't even get the hair right!
Speaking of bizarre Palin drawings, what happened to her face in this Irish cartoon? She's like some malevolent ape. Which might explain the bone in her hair.
Heinous.
By contrast, this guy makes most political cartoonists look like Michelangelo. He's turned these three recognizable men into bizarre simplifications of themselves. Barack Obama is a carrot with tuning pegs for ears. John McCain is a lumpy sack. George Bush is a... butterfly on a stick? Or, like, an angel for the top of a Christmas tree without a head...? Or...?
This one is not only unfunny, but it also telegraphs pretty clearly that Joel Pett is some kind of self-loathing racist who thinks that his inner conflict is common within the reading public. It really says nothing about politics but volumes about it's artist. Sad volumes.
But maybe the most baffling to me are the Obama-alarmist cartoons. I understand disagreeing with the man, but surely he can't be as scary as these cartoons make him out... or is he?
Subtle.
He's really malevolent when you take his head off.
I like how, here, McCain looks like Joe Everyman while Obama is like the Nightmare King of Black Supremacy.
"Hey, I'm Gary Varvel! I can do caricatures! Available for birthday parties and street fairs! What, you don't want to leaf through my portfolio?? What about just one cartoon?"
In case you missed it, Obama is Stalin, the devil is a liberal and Batman is George Bush.
Just like Obama, always playing the race card.
Obama's not just Stalin, he's also Dr. Moreau.
It just goes on and on doesn't it? Don't forget to vote!
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