I’ve been drawing Obama pretty much the same way since 2009. Interestingly, no one said boo until last week, when my usual cartoons about Obama’s lies — this one about his reneging on his pledge to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan by 2014 — hit a little too close to home for Daily Kos, a website run for the benefit of the Democratic Party.
A rabid subset of DNC Obamabots used Kos to spearhead a campaign smearing me as “racist” for drawing the president like a “monkey” or “gorilla” or “ape” or “simian.” Never mind that most people can’t see it because, after all, it isn’t true. They censored my cartoons anyway.
Fellow cartoonist Eric Millikin suggested that I find a drawing of how I actually draw monkeys so people could see for themselves that my Obama, though not pretty, is also no monkey.
This cartoon from 2009 is a riff on my MAD magazine comic strip Fantabulaman, which mocks the superhero format by positing a superhero who really does have no weaknesses — and is thus boring. MAD did an all-monkey issue, and this was my entry.
Note, the humans come off as less attractive than our simian cousins.
This should settle the matter once and for all — but I doubt it will. When haters wanna hate, they hate.
16 Comments.
All the humans in the BC comic are white. If it were otherwise I expect that would be seen as problematic. Because Discrimination.
Yeah, but what about “Fat Broad”? Why aren’t people hollering about that?
😀
Now that I think about it, he gets around it by drawing all the black characters as insects.
I wonder whether anyone’s ever seen that as racist.
Fantabula Monkey is extraordinarily good-looking! Must be one of the “Good Guys”! (And his companion, too!)
😀
Your racist, animalistic renderings insult both monkey and humanistic organisms (including some apes and politicians). How dare you portray simian slime as capable of vehicular mobility and time travel? They cannot even wind a clock! And what’s with the overt banana sexual illusions? Are you suggesting that inter species philandering is delectable and acceptable? Next, you’ll be advocating same species marriage with other specieses.
Go ahead, Rall, put Darwin and Einstein into an entrapment cage without clothing or calculating devices; your day will come when the real humans, evolved beyond your puny brain’s capacity to understand, shall return to visit you and your little, scribbling hands. Mark my words. Time for a Rallcott. Smash cartoonism.
Did you overlook the “black” hole in the 3rd panel? That’s proof beyond all doubt that racism is inherent in these cartoons! 😀
You’re right! … and after studying these panels of prejudice awhile something else has struck me. The ink – the ink used for the outlines, the details, and for all of the words – it’s BLACK! As a matter of fact, if you check out the archives, you’ll learn that Rall uses very black ink indulgently in all of his depictions of Obama and his many supposed dilemmas. So what does our crypto-progressive cartoonism advocate have to say about that? There really is no excuse for this. We need a petition … pronto.
Damn! I missed “Black” Market in the fourth panel. It’s time to get this proposed petition circulating! You write it up and I’ll sign it! 😀
Looks like they’re done with Ted, aside from jshooper Who Will Always Be With Them until they ban his sorry ass, which seems inevitable.
Now they’re mad at HuffPo making Facebook a mandatory logon for comment posting, a much more sensible way to waste time.
PETITION FOR BANISHMENT OF TED RALL
The undersigned citizens of good conscious and fervent comprehension do hereby petition for the immediate, absolute banishment of the so-called “cartoonist” Ted Rall from all forums public and private, along with the crushing, burning, and acidic reduction of all of his pro-cartoonism panels of racist perversity.
He has routinely taken it upon himself to portray the great annunciator Barack Obama as a symbolic simian, delineating the president’s formal body structures, all of his words, his facial adventures using deeply black ink lines – insulting the American populace by implying that a partially white failure as president is not every bit as worthy of misdirected adulation as any other double-talking politician would be.
The racist treatments of this Ted Rall are well known to the faithful and long-suffering loyalists whose struggles to protect the heroically struggling Obama from the evil cartoonist attacks have left them hungry for the support of all men and women of good will. Please come to their aid and sign this petition, advancing the cause of all those who agree that a country united cannot stand, much less kneel, unless that which would make us fall is upheld as unnecessary and unwanted.
____________________ (Print name) ____________________(Sign)
n.b. out of respect for the office, please use blue ink to sign this document.
This petition brought to you by Humans Under Racist Tyranny Freeing Everyone Everywhere Light Shines.
@ gofomo – Printed & signed. I didn’t have a pen with blue ink, so I used a red marker. Where do I mail it?
@ Miep – H U R T F E E LS (?) meaning where the light DON’T shine is where you’ll find the heads of those godless bullies who abuse cartoonists?
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Not just cartoonists. I blogged there for three years before they kicked me off, and I started focusing on the various pile-ons early on. After awhile I started chatting up the victims, to try to understand what they were angry about. Sometimes it was just someone who wasn’t super articulate.
It was quite clear even then that doing this was considered Out Of Bounds.
Awhile later O was elected and then they started fighting about him. I posted a brief piece entitled “He’s Not Your Boyfriend.” This did not go over particularly well either.
As much as I wish to sign this worthy and noble petition, I cannot. I vehemently object to its black font as well as Mr. Rall’s site’s imposition of black font! He is making the great black people look small compared to the vast, impressive WHITE background! Deplorable. Rall is surely a master of subtle, symbolic racism. Does it ever stop with him? He truly must dream of slavery.
Well, the obvious solution is to make both the font and background black, in order to strike a blow against past inequalities.
Uhhhh … my sincerest apologies. Hoping to rectify the improper colorization proportions I have redone it using a white font upon an appropriately white background. What do you think?
Here it is:
There … I believe that is a far better petition layout than the original. Please print these up, adorn them with multiple signatures and mail them to: Regional Anti Libel League of Upper Tennessee, 123 Southpaw Lane, Middle Shoe, TN.