Scientifical Madness Contest Roundup, Pt. 1

Earlier this evening we were directed toward a cartoon contest run by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The contest was to “draw humorous attention to the not-so-funny issue of political interference in science.” We must have missed the memo on that one, since the finalists are already up for a vote. We recognize no names except for Mike O’Brien, the cartoonist for the University of Maryland Diamondback newspaper alongside whom we’ve placed as runner-up for a few college-cartoon-type honors.

Given our proud tradition of armchair cartooning here at BRCB, we took a look at each of the finalists to see if there was anything worth looking at. Our team of Bangladeshi child laborers hardworking interns will be critiquing six today, with the other half following sometime this weekend.

The results, after the jump.

industry rule #9878

In an apparent effort to show the public why they should ignore editorial cartoons and never pick up a newspaper ever again, Daryl Cagle writes:

The fickle media is always the same – no one has ever noticed that, so I thought I would demonstrate. Here’s my latest cartoon, showing the fickle media “changing” from their fixation on Obama to Sarah Palin.

But it wasn’t long ago when we started the primary season, and the media went from blanket coverage of the Iowa Caucuses to the New Hampshire Primary.

This was quite a popular cartoon, but it wasn’t good for very long. Once the New Hampshire pirmary was over, I needed a new one.

He goes on to list five more instances of the “fickle media” moving en masse from one subject to another, concluding with the following:

The fickle media never changes over the years – but they sure are easy to draw.

Yeah, Daryl, maybe because you used THE SAME EXACT FUCKING IMAGE AND COMPOSITION IN EACH CARTOON, YOU HACK.

Seriously, though, if the gatekeeper for online editorial cartoons giddily admits to being a lazy artist who draws boring, derivative cartoons, then why should anyone be expected to read them and support a dying industry?

i think we lost him

So Cox Media sells off most of its newspapers. The AJC, one of three newspapers retained by Cox, announces an 8 per cent workforce reduction and cans most of its well-known scribes, with the notable exception of two-time Pulitzer winner Mike Luckovich, officially making him The Only Thing Worth Reading In The AJC.

One of the other remaining Cox papers is the Palm Beach Post, whose editorial cartoonist, Don Wright, had also won two Pulitzers. I say “had,” of course, because this week Wright was bought out in the Post’s own round of staff cuts. Wright’s artwork shows him to be a member of the Jeff MacNelly school of political cartooning, a visual style which dominated newspaper cartoons from the 70s through roughly the mid-90s. Generally speaking, the visual complexity of such cartoons suggests a time period when editorial cartoons weren’t crammed into the “Laugh Lines” section next to Letterman’s Top 10 list. Too bad the Post and the AJC didn’t reach the same conclusions about the arrangement of their respective deck chairs on their respective sinking ships.

now with 100 percent more human rights violations

Lest we forget our prime directive, let’s look at the wide range of opinions editorial cartoonists have given us on the Olympics. A cursory glance at Cagle reveals the following:

Crowson, The Wichita Eagle, 8-3-08

Chan Lowe, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 7-30-08

Turner, 8-08

Rice, 8-08

Bill Day, Commercial Appeal, 8-08

Nease, 8-08

Steve Greenberg, Ventury County Star, 8-08

Stephane Peray, 8-08

Dan Wasserman, Boston Globe, 7-08

Olle Johansson, 8-08

Give a cartoonist a universally recognizable logo attached to a well-known controversy, and without fail he will give you the above. The first four cartoonists go with the gas mask. We can surmise that the Chinamen don’t deserve the Olympics because they didn’t clean their yellow planet’s atmosphere of poison gas, or something. And nobody wants to see Bob Costas doing play-by-play for Amazonian beach volleyball players choking on poison gas. Besides, you can find that stuff on the Internet for free.

Bill Day goes with the slightly more universal skull-rings motif. The repetition of the skull indicates that it serves as a visual stand-in for death at the hands of the depersonalized, commodified post-industrial capitalist order. His image, then, evokes a sense of moral equivalence between the Olympics and the branded commodity — in this case, a bucket of bony, white-meat chicken. Day is clearly decrying the ubiquity of KFC franchises in Beijing, but he leaves unclear the question of whether or not such a moralistic response is an appropriate mechanism for dealing with the imposition of a neoliberal global order. Perhaps it will become clearer when the Chinese win pole-vaulting.

Following that, we see the repeated use of the Chinese factory blowing out smoke rings. One can clearly see the thought process at work: “Olympics! Rings! Pollution! Smoke! Smoke Rings!” The cartoonists condemn the Chinese for their use of the latest in pollution technology. The Chinese, an especially tricky people, cannot be trusted to rape the Earth as gently and tenderly as Americans can.

And lastly, we see Olle Johansson doing something particularly thoughtful — reminding the reader that somewhere towelheads are plotting to kill you, so enjoy the poison gas Olympics, but be eternally vigilant. At least somebody comes out with a positive message.

starving children, reconsidered

The other day we wrote about the abuse of starving African children by editorial cartoonists. Adding to what we discussed then, here we present an “ethanol is starving African children” wrap-up:

What political cartoonists consider daring and controversial is often sanctimonious, heavy-handed and obvious — the Vultures Over Darfur school.

Katy Roberts, New York Times editor

We can agree that starving African children is bad policy. We can also agree that corn ethanol is bad policy. But cartoons like those above manage to conflate the two without making any sort of substantive critique. “We shouldn’t use ethanol because children are starving.” Does that sentence even make any sense at all?

Considering the far bigger problems of which corn ethanol is symptomatic — U.S. subsidization of corn, the resulting obesity epidemic, our country’s overreliance on cheap gas, our government’s complicity in the supression of sustainable energy R&D — one would think that cartoonists would come up with something better. But a girl can dream.

“we saw ‘o africa, brave africa.’ it was a laugh riot.”

One of the more annoying tendencies of editorial cartoons is the reflexive reliance on cheap heavy-handedness to mask stupid arguments. You want a crying Statue of Liberty (“DEMOCRACY”) to act as pro-American propaganda? You got it. You want a crying Uncle Sam (“AMERICA”) or a shadowy, beckoning Grim Reaper (“DEATH”) to represent The Cost Of War? You got it. You want a teary-eyed kid in a baseball cap (“THE CHILDREN”) with the caption “say it ain’t so” to represent steroids in baseball? You got it. In fact, you’re probably already the editorial cartoonist for the Omaha World-Herald. Jeff, quit reading this!

There are too many such tropes to mention, but one of the most-abused ones is the image of the starving African child. A cursory glance at the situation in Africa would leave you thinking that the starving African child is most threatened by Janjaweed death squads and the ebola virus. This is a bald-faced lie. Starving African children are being abused daily by editorial cartoonists on deadlines, most recently in the context of rising U.S. investment in corn ethanol. Take these examples from this weekend:

Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner:

M.E. Cohen:

Sandy Huffaker:

And lastly, my BFF Kirk Carter in The Red & Black:

It works for Nike, it works for the Gap, and it’ll work for you, kids: when in doubt, go for the starving child.

“there is always some madness in the family circus, but there is also always some reason in madness.”

If you’re as tired of campaign news as I am, check out The Nietzsche Family Circus. The Family Circus is easy to make fun of, but at least this is a somewhat original method.

cartoon capers

One of these is a serious, respectable editorial cartoon. The other is a parody of such cartoons. Guess which is which.

diamondback readers: critical thinking skills are your friend

You’ve seen this before. Cartoon gets published in college newspaper. Angry, breathless reaction ensues:

cal-a
posted 4/11/08 @ 12:55 PM EST
I’m sorry to see the bias on the Beijing Olympic Game with litter knowlege about the whole issue. The editor is so trickish. America has no credit.

ji li
posted 4/11/08 @ 1:58 PM EST
It is totally irresponsible to allow such a biases showed up in the diamondback. Take it off and we expect some apologize from the editors.

Ke Zhang
posted 4/11/08 @ 2:32 PM EST
I’m a Maryland alumni and I was totally astonished when seeing this cartoon published on the Diamondback. Olympic is a peaceful sports game, not something one should attach violence and dirty politics to. Whoever create/publish this cartoon own an apology not only to the Chinese community, but also to people all over the world who love peace and harmony.

Chao Wu
posted 4/11/08 @ 2:42 PM EST
It is hard to believe the editor-in-chief could support this biased cartoon to be published here.

Awayfar
posted 4/11/08 @ 5:08 PM EST
I can’t believe a student in such a famous university can act as this.
Totally he’s no brain with him!

Roy
posted 4/12/08 @ 3:50 PM EST
I just saw the hatred, prejudice, misunderstanding towards Chinese people from some ordinary American people under so-called freedom of speech. I feel sick of that.

Could they provide article in public newspaper to praise slavery, praise Nazi? Then I will be convinced that freedom of speech allows you to speak anything publicly.

I’m reproducing a small selection of the comments thread because it provides examples of a few recurring themes in angry college newspaper letters to the editor. Readers often complain about the following:

1) The cartoon is bad because it is offensive. An offensive cartoon is not necessarily bad. For instance, I thought the Max Greenberg cartoon above was brilliant because it had the potential to offend those with blind, irrational allegiance to an autocratic police state that’s getting rewarded for its blood-stained “progress” and “modernization.” But that’s my own judgment. Other readers obviously don’t think that way. An offensive cartoon often is a bad cartoon. But most bad cartoons aren’t offensive at all. They don’t make sense. But as the comment thread suggests, this one does.

2) The cartoon is bad because it shows evidence of bias. A newspaper is divided into two sections: news and opinion. For something to be labeled an opinion, it must necessarily demonstrate some sort of bias. An editorial cartoon is biased by definition. There are facts, and there are opinions. Some people can’t tell the difference. Sucks for them.

3) The fact that the cartoonist would draw a cartoon offensive to X shows that the cartoonist himself is biased against X. Part of a cartoonist’s job is to try to predict the various ways readers will wrongly react to a given cartoon, and to minimize these possibilities as much as possible. But they can’t be held accountable for the full spectrum of human irrationality, which allows for a virtual rainbow of crazy and misguided reactions.

For instance, let’s say I have a rare personality disorder that causes me to have panic attacks whenever I see the color green. Now, let’s say I opened up the paper on September 12, 2001 and saw fifty cartoons with the same crying Statue of Liberty. Would I be right in assuming that every editorial cartoonist that drew the Statue in that tarnished copper shade of green is biased against people with my disorder? Of course not. And besides, I shouldn’t retroactively affix some sort of grand authorial motive because my own delicate sensibilities were affected.

4) The fact that the newspaper would print a cartoon offensive to X shows that the newspaper itself is biased against X. See 2 and 3. Newspapers have two autonomous sections. And they can’t predict every possible offended reaction. And taking offense is not the same thing as being a victim of systemic bias.

5) The cartoonist should be fired for drawing such an offensive cartoon. No, the cartoonist should be given a raise. An editorial cartoonist provoking a reader reaction is an editorial cartoonist doing his job. An instance like this will often give the newspaper greater exposure not only on campus, but also nationally (think Editor & Publisher). A good sign of an effective cartoon is the number of angry messages it provokes that deal with the substance of the cartoon itself. And in this case, Max Greenberg did college cartooning proud.

about the way i talk / about the way i dress / about how my gold teeth look so fresh

Omaha-based freelance cartoonist Neal Obermeyer has posted on his blog a lengthy interview with me about college editorial cartooning. Check it out if you can’t get enough MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME!!!!!!!