Around 15 years ago I got an email from Dylan Smith, the founding editor of a newspaper in Tucson, Arizona, asking me if I would be interested in producing political cartoons for his paper.
The good thing about political cartoons is that, with humor, you can make very accurate criticisms without consequences. The only thing that can be criticized is that there are newspapers that demand that the politician to be mocked must be of a specific ideology, or that the cartoonists themselves be of an ideology and renounce criticism of their own politicians. And then there are the cartoonists who criticize one another, without fear of losing work. Those are the ones who have the most sources for ideas to do their work, they have no political limitations.
Yes I genuinely think our modern politicians have killed the political cartoon, which is based on imagining a fairly ludicrous but powerful person doing an absolutely ludicrous thing. If you look out the window and they’re actually doing it, it kills the joke😢
I think that is true, certainly, but also, I don’t think there is much independent press these days. Look at Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post. Look at the New York Times, which seems afraid to offend anyone these days. The television media, for example NBC, which recently hired that Republican insurrection denier Ronna McDaniel. And the list goes on.
The good thing about political cartoons is that, with humor, you can make very accurate criticisms without consequences. The only thing that can be criticized is that there are newspapers that demand that the politician to be mocked must be of a specific ideology, or that the cartoonists themselves be of an ideology and renounce criticism of their own politicians. And then there are the cartoonists who criticize one another, without fear of losing work. Those are the ones who have the most sources for ideas to do their work, they have no political limitations.
Yes I genuinely think our modern politicians have killed the political cartoon, which is based on imagining a fairly ludicrous but powerful person doing an absolutely ludicrous thing. If you look out the window and they’re actually doing it, it kills the joke😢
I think that is true, certainly, but also, I don’t think there is much independent press these days. Look at Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post. Look at the New York Times, which seems afraid to offend anyone these days. The television media, for example NBC, which recently hired that Republican insurrection denier Ronna McDaniel. And the list goes on.