POLITICAL CARTOONS AT THE CROSSROADS

[In response to your inquiries, I've been away on a mission.  Now I'm back and I still have a few things to say.]

Political cartooning today is challenged by two trends:  

• The disintegration of intelligence and substance in politics

• The disintegration of taste and skill in drawing.  

The first trend, the disintegration of politics, must be frustrating for cartoonists trying to parody a parody.  People once feared that political cartoons might dumb down politics, but today cartoons can hardly get dumb enough to keep up.

My real concern is with the second trend, the disintegration of taste and skill in drawing.  Good political cartooning is an art form that calls for specialized drawing abilities.  Unfortunately, today's impatient audiences and obtundent artistic standards place little value on quality drawing.   

For example, some cartoonists get away with creating a likeness by gluing a photocopy of a head on a poorly drafted body.  

An overlay of scratchy lines creates the illusion that this is a real drawing

Note in the following example how easily a photograph of a face can be incorporated using automation (not, of course, literally with "glue.") 

Cartoon (left) and photograph (right)

Here is the result when superimposing one on the other:

This technique is analogous to "photo-illustration," a plague which surfaced years ago as a cheap and easy method for illustrators to achieve a likeness when they might lack the talent to do so.

 

But achieving a reliable likeness is not the goal of the best political cartoons.  The real artistry lies in the caricature of that likeness, the expressive distortions,  the exaggerations and visual liberties.   These artist's tools can help re-energize discussions that have become costive due to too many words.  

For example, consider these two marvelous statements by Matt Davies and Tom Fluharty.  

Davies abandons the laws of  anatomy in this portrayal of his subject as a beast, yet we have no trouble recognizing who it is.  

There was obviously a photograph somewhere at the start of Fluharty's brilliant drawing
but all the artistry comes from the hand and mind of the artist.

As a reminder of the artistic potential of political cartoons, over the next several days I'm going to share examples that I think are excellent and deserve renewed appreciation.