Cartoonists With Attitude

From Mr. Fish…of course.

Cartoon for March 1

Republicans are accusing Barack Obama of not being patriotic. Their reasons include his decision to stop wearing an American flag lapel pin because the symbol had been hijacked by right-wing neocons, his failure to place his hand over his heart during the National Anthem, and his wife’s comment that she was proud of the United States for the first time during her adult life.

Bean pointed out this story to me; an ABC hidden camera “reality” show paid three teenage white boys to “vandalize” a car in a park (a car that was owned by ABC, of course). The boys visibly broke into the car, and then began beating it with a metal tool and spray-painting it. This went on for quite a while.

One person called 911, and one passerby asked the boys what they were doing. Elsewhere in the park, coincidently, some black folks (relatives of an ABC employee, as it turned out) were napping in their car; this also generated a call to 911.

Next day, same park, same situation — but the three actors hired were black. Suddenly, lots of people were asking the boys what they were doing, and lots were calling 911.

What interested me, in light of recent discussions on “Alas,” was the quotes from the various white people who called 911 about the three black “vandals.”

So we asked those who approached the black kids or reported them to police, “Would you have acted any differently if the boys were white?”

Sang said, “I would have done the same thing. Maybe I would have stopped them sooner.”

Joan A. and Martha had a similar response: “I did notice they were African-American young boys in a white neighborhood,” said Joan A. “But if they had been white kids, I mean, I would have done exactly the same thing.”

Martha agreed, “I might have done it quicker if they were white kids.”

“Actually, I probably hesitated because they were black,” said Joan D. “I don’t like to assume that three black kids are up to trouble. But they were clearly up to trouble,” she recalled, laughing. “But had it been three white kids I’d have done the same thing. I might have called quicker.”

ABC’s segment isn’t a legitimate study, of course; but for argument’s sake, assume a social scientist did a well-designed study which replicated ABC’s findings. (In the real world I doubt an academic ethics committee would approve purposely generating false calls to 911).

RonF and others argue that it’s wrong to believe racism is a factor when the individuals involved have a plausible, non-racist motivation for their actions. That means there’s no racism here: Every individual person who called 911 denies that there was any racism in their choice. If anything, they say, they would have been quicker to call 911 if the vandals had been white. And no one denies it’s legitimate to call 911 when one sees a crime being committed, regardless of the criminal’s race.

So, Ron and others: Is it wrong to say that there’s anything racist about a society in which random passerbys are more likely to call the cops on black teens than white teens for identical behavior? Let’s say that having black teens do the crime generates 10 times as many 911 calls, whereas white crimes doing a crime is only as likely to generate a 911 call as black people taking a nap are. But in no case can we prove that any individual making a 911 call had a racial bias.

From your point of view, there’s no racism going on here. Right?

Over the last few years, more and more editorial cartoonists are ridiculing their own profession. I’m not sure if this happens in many other communities, but we specialize in wielding brickbats so why not on ourselves? The best example is Ward Sutton’s weekly cartoons in the Onion, which parody a hack cartoonist.

The latest critic is an anonymous editorial cartoonist that started a blog called Bad Cartoonist ripping on work, sometimes with some personal attacks thrown in. He (it’s almost certainly a man) is definitely a professional cartoonist with personal knowledge of the people he’s attacking so it’s whipping up a firestorm of speculation. The Daily Cartoonist has an interview with the unknown blogger and a growing comment thread with a lot of pros responding. Justin Bilicki already has a comic about it.

Internal criticism is sometimes hard to take, but editorial cartooning desperately needs it. The artist should have started the blog with their name on it, but whatever. I guess it’s more exciting this way. Everyone gets to call each other and rampantly speculate! Maybe we can out him like Larry Craig.

I’ve been told that some artists have floated my name as a possibility. It’s not me.

I have been critical of the state of political cartoons though. The first time a lot of people saw my work was when Cagle posted this cartoon on his blog on 2005.

The Bad Cartoonist brings up a lot of embarrassing characteristics of “mainstream” comics–the cliche driven metaphors, the random cross hatching thrown behind word bubbles for no apparent reason, and the Jeff MacNelly style that so many cartoonist derive their work from.

The blog is enraging some pros because of the anonymous nature of the criticism (and the ad hominem attacks). I understand their beef. But I think the blog points out something important about this diminishing profession: There’s simply too much unoriginal work drawn in very similar styles.

It’s the fault of the artists as well as their editors. The decades-long drive to get an editorial cartoon that appeals to all readers has lead to safe, homogenized, and uninspiring cartoons that most everyday people can’t even differentiate. Many editors are fearful of any cartoon that takes a partisan position and instead reprint safe political gag cartoons (as exemplified by the cartoons run three inches wide in Newsweek).

I just don’t see the excessive labeling and holiday metaphors (cupid shooting arrows at whomever is in the news near Valentine’s Day) as resonating with people in 2008. It’s time to move on from that.

The anonymous criticism within our ranks may spawn resentment and paranoia but hopefully it will embarrass some people to do better work.

It’s really attractive.

click for comic

I might still be battling that flu bug, or perhaps it’s an entirely different illness that has decided to have a party in my throat. Whatever it is, it’s hard to be funny when your uvula feels like it’s made out of a Nerf ball covered in cat hair.

This cartoon only marginally deals with our current economic downturn. I just needed to meet my yearly top hat and monocle quota. But I think we’d all be more convinced that everything was coming up roses if Bernanke showed up to hearings dressed like that.

Next Week: Westminster Democratic Candidate Show

I just found out the e-mail I have on this site hasn’t been working since I switched over to a new server. I’ll switch the info when I get a chance, but if you’d like to contact me use: comics -at- mattbors -dot- com

From a Washington Post story on a Pew Center of the States study on the U.S. prison population:

With more than 2.3 million people behind bars at the start of 2008, the United States leads the world in both the number and the percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving even far more populous China a distant second, noted the report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.

The ballooning prison population is largely the result of tougher state and federal sentencing imposed since the mid-1980s. Minorities have been hit particularly hard: One in nine black men age 20 to 34 is behind bars. For black women age 35 to 39, the figure is one in 100, compared with one in 355 white women in the same age group.

Take that, China! Booyah! In your face!

But I was kind of surprised to see that William F. Buckley had a clutter problem even worse than mine:

(photo from NYT)