Cartoon Central

For the next issue, however, the gang has recruited some very special help. ‘Why George W. Bush Is in Favor of Global Warming,’ a two-page spread that the magazine calls an exposé, has been illustrated by 10 Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonists.

Going through the various political cartoons at Slate, it's simply amazing how all the pro-choicers feel that this is a return to the dark ages. Back alleys and hangers predominate. Assault on freedom and other such apocalyptic hype. It just enforces my view that Roe should be overturned and let the matter go back to the States and the democratic process. This is betteer than the hyperbolic mess we're in now.

Originally appearing in newspapers in August 13, 1941 Theodore Seuss Geisel had a lot to say about appeasers and the stupidity of the philosophy that fosters it. He published many political cartoons on the advent of the war to end all wars. The war to end all wars . . . what do you suppose that meant if not spoken literally?

It seems like my liberal teachers just can’t avoid those political cartoons. Last year I blogged about one of my teachers crossing the line with a cartoon about abortion, and no answer to the other side of the issue. Interestingly enough, some cartoon wars have been raging lately. Let me set the scene…

View an all star cast of the nations top political jokesters as they each take a shot on stage during a Mid-Term Election "Botched Joke" Comedy Hour. Animations by Mark Fiore. All your favorites are there, John Kerry, G. Dubya, Nancy Pelosi and vintage Dick Cheney. ROTFL.

dr. seuss, like many great artists, plays with paradox and layers and layers of meaning. and on the topic of meaning, he is paradoxical, too. while it is abundantly obvious that at least some of his pieces, like the lorax or yertle the turtle (and of course his political cartoons), carry strong messages about society, he has also been quoted as saying, “preachers in pulpits talked about what a great message is in [dr. seuss’s books]. no matter what you do, somebody always imputes meaning into your books.”

Paul Nowak has some more traditional-style political cartoons.

Actually, I like more than one of Cox and Forkum’s political cartoons but I don’t like many of them, because it is right-wing drivel which is something I’m trying to stay away from. This one though is worth sharing.

While I’ve been reading Time, the only improvement to the magazine was adding a political cartoons page.

In college, I remember writing about the change in the tenor of political cartoons between WWII and the Vietnam War (a contrast demonstrated most notably by the jingoistic, downright racist WWII-era drawings of Theodore "Dr. Seuss" Geisel. Yeah, that Dr. Seuss). The cartoonists at the New Yorker were at the forefront of this shift away from uncritical war bond hawking, and for a while, they seemed to be alone.

What do you do when you don't have anything to say, or are saying it elsewhere, and want to still post? You post political cartoons:

Here’s a roundup of some very un-pc political cartoons from all over the place. Enjoy.

You can also find some of Tenniels’ Alice illustrations at the Webmuseum, and his political cartoons, illos for The Haunted Man as well as a full Alice set on The Victorian Web and some of the color versions of the Alice images on the British Library site.

Today a young woman came into the special collection where I work and she wanted to look at some political cartoons. I showed her what we had, and it led to a good chat about Ben Franklin and the difference between American and French revolutionary print culture. I pointed toward our copy of Mary Wollstonecraft's Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution and said, "It's the same Wollstonecraft who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." Blank stare. I summarized. "Men of the eighteenth century wrote a lot of misogynistic crap about how women are worthless because all they care about is money and clothes and entertainment. Wollstonecraft points out that all women are educated to do is marry rich, look pretty, and have a good time. Until we provide an equal education to women and men, she argues, men will always hate women for what they grow up to be." The student blinked a few times and said she'd pick up a copy on her way home.

Here’s a collection of US political cartoons referencing the Danish cartoon war. I figured they were worth mentioning. I’d say they’re pretty pointed in their criticism, but everyone will have to judge for themselves. [Via Instapundit.]

The story about NASA and the stories about the Muslim world's reaction to the Danish cartoons are connected. Religion and politics need to be separate, as our founders understood, and the Bush administration does not.

The Daily Tar Heel — a University of North Carolina student newspaper — ran an opinion cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed Thursday.

The cartoons in question are in extremely poor taste, since they were specifically commissioned to be offensive to Muslims rather than simply funny. Nevertheless, in support of absolute freedom of speech, and in solidarity with the various news media in Europe who had the courage to stand up for what is right, I personally publish the following slightly humourous and intentionally offensive political cartoons:

For my project, I chose 2 political cartoons dealing with the issue of abortion. As soon as I saw this cartoon, I knew i wanted to do my project on a subject that I debate over quite often.

I got these images from "The Ungentlemanly Art: A History of American Political Cartoons" by Stephen Hess and Milton Kaplan.And these brought me to this...Bush giving a Pep Talk to Disabled Vets

I've done this because I have enjoyed posting cartoons here so much that I am going to continue. After I finish posting the snowman cartoons I have stashed away, this blog will continue on with more fun things; miscellaneous cartoons/jokes and such. Politics is pretty serious stuff and everyone needs a laugh at least once a day!

Happy New Year!

Found (and edited) on The Boiling Point (aka Mikhaela’s Political Cartoons). Go read some more, there are some real gems in there.

Scribe Publications is releasing its annual compilation of political cartoons on Saturday. “Best Australian Political Cartoons 2005″ will be available from all good booksellers and features cartoons by 30 cartoonists including Bill Leak, Peter Nicholson, Geoff Pryor, Fiona Katauskas, Jon Kudelka, Cathy Wilcox, a whole load of others and me.

Not as funny as JibJab.com’s most popular political cartoons (below):

I’m a sucker for sharp political humor. I’m a sucker for ingenious Flash cartoons, too. These are just priceless:

Sometimes, especially when money gets a little scarce, I start thinking, "Hey, I’m a cartoonist. I could get some regular work with area newspapers doing political cartoons. What’s my problem?" Always a tempting thought.

Bush — Iraq Collection — Great collection of political cartoons.

Take the recent issue of Time Magazine that addresses the teaching of evolution versus intelligent design in schools. On first look, it would seem that the featured article gives the ID crowd a fair shake, but upon reading the article in its entirety, it lambastes Christians as dogmatic people who think science is the enemy of God. It reads about like my biographical account of Hillary Clinton would. If that doesn’t quite help you understand the perspective of the Left on this hot-button issue, just flip a couple pages back in that same issue and look at the political cartoons. Not only are two of the three blatantly leaning to the left, but one in particular ridicules proponents of ID, comparing their beliefs to that of such bogus concepts as alchemy, astrology, phrenology and magic.

Grooms pays homage to Cubism by bisecting space, revealing multiple views of the same object, and disproportionate scale. The overriding influence is doubtlessly the comics - from the humor of the Sunday funnies to the bite of political cartoons. Those who experienced Ruckus Manhattan, a city within a city, witnessed a reflection of themselves and their environment. People can be taken out of their routine by encountering something different or by seeing themselves in a mirror that exaggerates their everyday experience…Grooms’ acute satire also provoked serious thought about one’s own personal environment.

If we want to see change, we need to end the “politics of personal destruction”. We need to start engaging in debate, not rhetoric. Unless that happens, we’re just going to have more of the same, a government that bickers over who holds the reins of power instead of debating the effects of proposed policies, and a populace that distrusts our politicians and tunes out the nasty rhetoric. Let’s remember, our politicians, whether it’s Bush, either Clinton, or any of the others, are human beings. They’re not cardboard cutouts of political cartoons. Wrong and evil are two different things. Showing why your opponent is wrong may be more difficult than calling them evil, but it will improve our nation to do so.

Devine (2000) describes incidents of anti-Scottish racism in political cartoons during the mid to late 1700’s and notes that David Hume declared, ’ some hate me because I am not a Whig, some because I am not a Christian, and all because I am a Scotsman’, (Devine (2000), p28). In its time the 1757 Militia Act incensed the Scots because it excluded Scotland from a force for home defence, English retaliation for the Jacobite rebellions, in conjunction with attempts to eradicate symbols of Scottish nationality, such as the Kilt, this...

Secondly, if the Government tolerated political cartoons, which Dr Lim also described as part and parcel of “democratic life in any country”.

You may have seen the creator of this cartoon, Aidan Maconaghie, posting on the Shotgun over the last few days. Aidan is a freelance cartoonist from somewhere in Ontario (he votes Conservative, so he prefers his fellow provincemen don't know his exact location).

Even though the all-wise bear saying that this blog links us, I couldn't find the link. So until then, they stay off the roll. But at the same time, go scroll through the beautiful array of political cartoons in tribute to John Paul on the site.