More on Last Week’s Toon

A write-in campaign by advocates for the disabled (they took offense at last week’s cartoon in which I compared the results of the presidential election–wherein a bunch of uninformed morons in the red states demonstrated their ability to get their way at the expense of people who actually pay attention to current events) continues

One of the hazards of this profession is that it requires fearlessness mixed with perfection. Draw 200 cartoons a year that people enjoy and you’ll get few if any thanks. Certainly no one conducts a write-in campaign of praise. Draw 1 that goes astray–intentionally or otherwise–and everybody calls for your head. No wonder so many cartoonists don’t take risks in their approach or in their politics. People are negative; they only react negatively.

When I wrote earlier that I intended to research the subject of mainstreaming in the public schools–now called “inclusion.” I will. But I’m confused. If your goal was to educate me, to convince me that I was wrong to depict disabled children the way I did with a view towards (presumably) gaining an ally in the media…why try to censor me?

If I had to draw that cartoon again, I’d take a different tack. I regret hurting people who I have nothing against. I do want to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and I think I failed in that with this cartoon. Not to mention that the cartoon failed–too many people got bogged down in the analogy and the main point got lost.

No one bats 1.000. I sure don’t.