So here are some pretty funny parodies of my cartoons

Check ’em out.

The big one is my favorite.

13 Comments.

  • alex_the_tired
    January 2, 2014 5:54 AM

    Someone named Rainbow Bright posted a comment about the drawing parodies that, probably unintentionally, managed to squeeze more examples of what’s wrong with political discussion these days into a shorter space than anything I’ve read in a long, long time.

    1. “Ted Rall, whose ineptitude at art is matched only by the size of his ego.”
    Dilbert is drawn by an artistic simpleton. It’s barely even stickfigures. People don’t read the strip for the art. They read it for the humor. Cartoons are rarely just the drawing. The words are almost always the important part. If you write (or draw) something and then it turns out you had your facts wrong, you lose credibility. I can’t recall anyone catching Rall on a big error of fact. People disagree with his opinions and conclusions on some things, but his facts are sound. Compare with Thomas Friedman, who, in any sane world, would have been fired many years ago. But let’s stick to bitching about the medium of presentation and the personality of the presenter.

    2. “Although he identifies as a left-wing radical, his need to be contrary towards other leftists (because he wants to demonstrate how he ‘gets it’ and nobody else does) often has him agreeing with conservatives.”
    This, too, is amazing to read. “Politics makes strange bedfellows” is a maxim because it’s true. Most leftists, sadly, are incompetent politically. They no longer know how to organize (OWS), they don’t hold themselves to their own standards (Huffington Sweatpost and any number of other leftist publications that don’t pay, while running bloated article after bloated article about raising the minimum wage). The culmination of this blinkered kind of thinking–the other side couldn’t POSSIBLY be right about this and my side couldn’t POSSIBLY be wrong–however, was only recently achieved with the ascension of the Obamabots. I thought the Reaganites were bad, but these Obama supporters didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, they’re doing colonic irrigation with it six times a day as well. They make the scientologists seem calm and rational.

    3. Rainbow Bright again: “[Rall] has a compulsion to insert drones in every single one of his cartoons.” Amazing. Just. God. Damn. Ed. Amazing. A president, acting with no external review, is bombing children to death and, somehow, Ted Rall mentioning it too much is the problem. Somewhere, Kissinger is lovingly stroking his Nobel Peace Prize.

    4. And the concluding line from the part I’m dissecting: “Most recently, he got into a scuffle with DailyKOS, when they accused his Obama caricature of being racist. In Rall’s defense, it wasn’t a racist caricature so much as it was just plain bad. Rall responded by throwing a fit on various social media outlets and drawing a cartoon where Obama was a giant smiley face (which he sadly did not stick to).”

    This offers a great example of a key problem in political discussion. Reread the first sentence of this portion. See how it redefines the actual events. “They accused his Obama caricature of being racist.” No. Incorrect. They SAID Ted was a racist. They didn’t accuse him (accusation carries the notion of exculpation). They reacted and pronounced judgment all at once. And not of his cartoon. And even for those comments that did draw the distinction, it’s a meaningless one. It’s like saying someone only “possessed” child porn, rather than saying he “looked at” it. (“Yeah, hi, I’m required to notify you that I once ‘possessed’ child porn.” “Oh, thank God you didn’t look at it. Come on in and meet the kids.”)

    “Got into a scuffle.” That’s the code phrase for when you stick up for yourself. “Throwing a fit.” That’s another. Usually, sticking up for yourself requires examination of what actually happened, which means time and effort. The Internet does away with both. No post should be longer than a bumper sticker, the sentences should be short and with no complicated (hard) words, and the correctness of the argument is determined by who gets more “Like” clicks.

    I can’t wait to see the primaries.

    • Or when Ted draws a comparison to a current event with Nazism, the real problem is that he is obsessed with Nazis…

      The Kos Krowd threw the fit. Ted had reason to be upset.

      In any case, it’s JUST politics, guys. Just simple differences in policy with Obama. Nothing to get so worked up over. It’s not like these things determine people’s fates or something! So, you don’t like Obama. It’s not like he could be that bad. I mean he is POTUS and a Dem besides! Jeez!

    • Regarding the “Ted is a sucky artist” meme, I think he does a fine job of getting across stuff with a certain kind of minimalism. But if you really want a sucky artist, look at the xkcd dude, one of my favorite cartoonists. What matters is getting your point across incisively.

      • Thank you, Miep. Another defense to my skills as an artist would be how difficult it is for people who attempt to parody me to replicate my style. Charles Schulz had a very simple drawing style too, but whenever you try to copy it, you realize how sophisticated it is.

      • As I’ve noted before, I find your stark street scenes especially striking. The grey bearded guy under the lampost with the newspaper across his face with the headline about job growth..is he still alive? It’s not clear. And you get exactly that across, that it’s not clear.

    • “Compare with Thomas Friedman, who, in any sane world, would have been fired many years ago.”

      Mr Friedman writes exactly what his readers want to read. And if the facts are NOT what his readers want to read, he ‘fixes’ them. And he writes well. So he makes lots of money for his publishers. An American success story.

      Added to which, few Americans have been outside the US, and those who have mostly went on packaged tours where they only heard the tour guide, so they have absolutely no idea what the rest of the world is like, and Friedman claims to have been there, spoken to the overwhelming majority of oppressed and deprived foreigners, and ascertained that they strongly support whatever Friedman’s readers want them to support.

    • I tell ya Alex, Ted got played there. Markos needed a racist to scapegoat for his sins, so he waited until somebody wandered into his paddock and was accused of being a racist. Then he sat back and watched the drama play out, and now he is all cleansed and stuff because they Drove Off the Evil Racist.

      And to think I thought those people were intelligent. Well, to be fair, and one must be fair, some bloggers there did stand up for Ted. Let’s not forget the crew at Stars Hollow Gazette, and Seneca Doane, and some other allies.

      • alex_the_tired
        January 3, 2014 7:16 AM

        Miep,

        One of the things the old-time journos (and those who had the benefit of being taught by them) knew is the following:

        1. Smith gets accused of ________. (The blank is whatever you want it to be. Rape, murder, goat-molesting, racism.)

        2. The paper (now, the website) runs an article about it.

        3. Smith makes a very carefully worded explanation of how it wasn’t him. “I never penetrated that goat. I couldn’t have. At the time, I was in Canada, at a business conference. I gave a presentation. There were photos! I have receipts and expense accounts proving I was there.”

        4. Person X, a few months later, asked about Smith. “Wasn’t he the guy who did something sick to a goat?”

        Science finally caught up to the old-school journos.

        Smear the person, then, even after the person proves the smear was false, some people will still believe it. It is extraordinarily rare for something like the Duke Lacrosse case to fall apart so completely and so publicly that the accused persons actually are truly absolved of the accusation. For most, the stain remains.

        Perhaps Ted can field this one: When you go to draw Obama, do you hesitate now, even if just for a second? I would be very interested in knowing that.

      • Yes, Alex, I absolutely do hesitate. Then I go right ahead and do it. But there’s no doubt, there is a chilling effect.

  • I like the hanged Maus.

    • I liked the debt piece.

    • Although I gotta admit the hanged Maus was effective. I read some history about that, I still like Spiegelman’s work. Whole Grains was awesome, and I still have a copy. And I liked the Maus books a lot too.

      They say, never meet the artist…

  • I see Hitlers. Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re Hitlers.

    (How often do you see them?)

    All the time. They’re everywhere.

    (with apologies to The Sixth Sense)

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