So we know what shitty editorial cartoons look like. How about good ones? What makes the best cartoonists in the profession different than the dross that wins most of the prizes and hold all of the jobs? Let’s take a look.
Stephanie McMillan’s “
Minimum Security” is – pardon the pun – a stripped-down version of the more complicated serial narrative version that ran for several years. But it retains its power through deceptively simple and hilariously designed characters provoking us to think about things in a different way. First of all, she’s ignoring Boston in favor of what is arguably a bigger story: the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas. And she’s showing how corporate America benefits from the media’s synergistic attempts to distract us with bullshit nationalism and terrorism.
You might not think of the dating implications that follow the revelation that Boston’s bombers were ethnic Chechens, but
Matt Bors did. By personalizing xenophobia, he’s pointing out our stupidity – and implying the way to a better society, one in which people are judged as individuals.
Jen Sorensen is at her best with social commentary work. I love her takes on class warfare. Here, she takes on gentrification, a topic with sweeping political implications that no editorial cartoonist (including me) ever does work about. And she does it with a hilarious there’s-always-someone-higher-up-the-totem-pole take.
Tom Tomorrow is the undisputed king of desconstructing right-wing and Republican talking points. His retro-1950s-esque art style has traveled well from its late 1980s origins, oddly reminding us how far we’ve come from a country that once had certain democratic traits.
Ruben Bolling is a cartoonist’s cartoonist, the person the best of the best point to when asked “Who’s better than you?” Seeking to reinvent the form every week, he takes artistic and compositional risks. Personally, I love his social commentary work even more than his political stuff. But it’s all worth reading.
Shannon Wheeler does the best gag cartoons published by The New Yorker. Here is his strip. You really feel like you’re in the hands of a seasoned humorist when you read his stuff.
What I want to know is: Why doesn’t the Pulitzer committee reward this kind of work? Why isn’t there a single newspaper in the nation willing to hire these artists?
5 Comments.
Ted, please answer your own question:
Which newspapers would be able to successfully employ these cartoonists? Meaning, which of these cartoonists would successfully cater to the largest percentage of readership for a given publication, thus rendering those readers valuable to the publications advertisers?
Please name six newspapers (for the six artists) that could successfully employ them based upon the content/subscriber/advertiser model.
Oh, jeez, that is so easy.
I could easily see Matt Bors at the Oregonian in his hometown or the Seattle Times, both cities with young readers and a youthful sensibility. Or anywhere where readers under 60 are wanted.
Stephanie McMillan could and should be at a leftie mag like The Nation or an eco one like the Sierra Club mag.
Jen Sorensen could run in any daily paper. Really, we’d all draw in more readers to any paper or magazine or website than the dross they’re running now.
Most of the people I know (aside from a handful like poose guys) are busy with sending cute photos and pictures of their kids and activities. Cartoons like this don’t make it past their hands, you know? – the “3 monkey syndrome”, hands over eyes, ears and mouths to keep out thoughts that creat cognitive dissonance and un-niceness as they follow the news on the latest media furor for at least a few days and then go on to the next media furor.
Ok, fair enough. Perhaps getting some of these artists fans to email these publications is a worthwhile effort. Get their attention, get them on the radar of the publications that have the right audience from them.
Hell — it worked for Rush. They just got into the Rock Hall of Fame (which is a lame institution , yes) because their fans badgered the Hall for the last decade. In fact, the Hall said they were relieved because they were tired of hearing from Rush fans.
Fans of these artists need to speak up then, and let those publications know they need better talent, that they’d subscribe if these artists were in house. Otherwise, it’s probably not going to happen.
Begin with a typical editor, hanging by a spider’s thread in the hands of an angry publisher.
Coming from the Deep Souf, one might ask why, before LBJ, fast food joints would refuse to accept money, coin of the realm, from African Americans. The answer was that they were sure that they’d lose $10 for every $1 they accepted. And some of them were probably right. Others weren’t, if they’d just drawn a line saying ‘Whites this side’ and ‘Coloreds this side,’ and could have substantially increased their profits, but they were not willing to take the chance.
How many typical ‘criminals-don’t-deserve-Miranda-rights’ readers does the editor fear would cancel their subscriptions if the editor ran any of the above cartoonists? The question isn’t how many would actually cancel, but how many the editor is afraid MIGHT cancel.
And so (to jump to today’s strip), that’s why they don’t dare allow any geography lessons in their publications, and why Americans cannot learn those lessons even if they were willing to learn.