Iranian political cartoonist,
Keivan Zargari, has been summoned to appear in "Press Court"
to explain one of his cartoons that the Iranian military forces
and Judiciary "disliked." Zagari was allowed to leave
after posting $6,000 bail.
A report on Zargari's trevails
is here,
written in Perisan. Click
here to see a sample of Zargari's work. The offending
cartoon has not been posted. Iran has a history of imprisoning
editorial cartoonists for periods of one week to more than two
years. Iranian security forces also investigate and intimidate
bothersome cartoonists.
Zargari is scheduled to go back
to court to give more details about his offending cartoon so
that the prosecution has more information to proceed with the
case.
Things don't look much better
for cartoonist Tony Namate in Zimbabwe. The courts in Zimbabwe
have overturned the government's rules that intimidated journalists,
but that didn't stop the government from continuing its crusade
against Namate's newspaper, the Daily News, and its forty five
journalists. The government is now requiring that each journalist
pay $5,000 for a license to work, an unreasonable fee in this
poor country. Police are threatening to arrest every journalist
who writes without a license. Namate hopes that he can slip by
because he works for the Daily News as a freelancer, rather than
as an employee, so he may not be required to pay the license
fee. Of-course, the fee is nothing more than a ham-handed effort
by the government to silence its critics.
September 29, 2003
FOREVER DADA
Three or four years ago, everyone thought that the future of
cartoons was on the internet. Lots of cartoonists were making
cool flash animations in those days. When the web bubble burst,
those innovative cartoonists lost their jobs and now only a handful
of cartoonists are doing political cartoons for the web. I'm
delighted to feature two great (and rare) cartoonists who are
drawing animated political cartoons, cartoonist Louis Dunn and
animator Steve Campbell. This talented duo draws "Forever
Dada," a wild, animated, weekly political cartoon. Click
here to see a collection
of recent "Forever Dada" animations. Take a look. It
is cool stuff.
Dunn has been described as a "visual essayist, a pictorial
journalist and a pen and ink poet." That's his picture on
the right. Campbell, the animator, is an also an artist. His
work has a surrealist flavor. Both guys hail from Northern California.
I was watching "Crossfire"
on CNN this afternoon. Paul Begala was arguing with CNN's right
wing heartthrob, Tucker Carlson, about telemarketers. Handsome
young Tucker defended the evil telemarketers. He declared that
he doesn't mind getting phone calls, and to prove it, he gave
out his own phone number on the air.
This intrigued me, so, like everyone
who was watching at the time, I gave Tucker a call. That wasn't
Tucker's phone number at all. It turns out that Tucker had given
us the phone number for Fox News. The receptionist at Fox News
seemed rather troubled that young Tucker had given out their
number on the air, and was only too happy to give me Tucker's
real home and office numbers. I called him again just now. I'm
still on hold. I'd like to tell Tucker about this great new deal
I have on time-share vacations, if he would only change his long
distance carrier.
September
23, 2003
Every so often, the folks at Microsoft will surprise me with
something bizarre --like suddenly making my whole darn site WIDER!
Today I'm running excerpts of an interview with Mike Ritter,
the talented cartoonist for the Arizona Tribune. Mike is one
of my favorites, and as an openly gay conservative, his cartoons
don't fall into a predictable category. Mike makes everybody
mad --except here, at the Cartoonists Index, where making people
mad makes us happy! Mike is the incoming president of the Association
of American Editorial Cartoonists; thanks to J.P. Trostle for
conducting the interview. You
can e-mail Mike here. See
Mike's regular updating cartoons here.
MIKE RITTER INTERVIEW
How did you end up doing political cartoons in the first place?
Was this something you always wanted to do or did you just happen
to fall into it? My parents were very interested in politics,
and discussions and arguments about politics and history were
always part of life around our house. I don't think my parents
actually agreed on anything since Goldwater in '64. So I grew
up around that, and political cartooning was sort of a natural
fit. It's really all I ever wanted to do. I have no other marketable
skill, I was a history major for God's sake.
You
are one of a relatively small number of cartoonists who consider
themselves conservative. Why do you think it is a majority of
cartoonists tend to lean to the left or are centrists? And really,
what is it with all this left-right crap? Whatever happened to
the idea of the cartoonist as an "equal-opportunity offender."
Why do more cartoonists lean left? I
think it has to do with college. In college you are far more
likely to get laid by a Democratic chick. No, honestly I think
the reason is that it's simply easier to draw cartoons bashin'
rich CEOs than it is to bash, say, the Sierra Club. Though I
believe the Sierra Club needs bashing from time to time. But
when I do that I look to a good many people like an asshole.
Having said that, I don't really classify
myself as a conservative anymore. Your point about "left-right
crap" is on the money. I find those terms to be increasingly
artificial. But I find that readers are often confused and unsettled
when they can't box you into the "liberal" or "conservative"
camp. I wouldn't call that being an "equal-opportunity offender"
though. I only target those with whom I disagree. But the labels
of left and right are almost useless when it comes to predicting
who that will be. I've been thinking this might actually be an
interesting panel topic for 2004. I know I'm not the only one
who feels this antiquated 20th century shorthand of left and
right has outlived it's usefulness.
You've stated a number of times you actually
have a more libertarian bent, and in the last year you took the
big step of leaving the Republican party. What was it that finally
pushed you to quit? Actually, I'm currently registered as
a Whig. No, no ... I dropped out of the Republican party because
I can't stand the theocrats who have the GOP in their grip. They
are vicious, Middle-American inquisitors. They are the Taliban
with potato salad and they just creep me out. I'm glad there
are gay Republicans -- they do have a moderating influence on
the party, believe it or not. But I can't be that anymore. I'm
also disgusted by how readily so many so-called conservatives
are willing to follow John Ashcroft into the "security"
of a police state. But I'm not about to join the pusillanimous
parade of dickless chumps known as the Democrats either. And
the Libertarian party is too full of anarchists and gun nuts.
So I'm registered independent. I'm a "small-l" libertarian
with a Federalist flourish and an intermezzo of internationalist
sorbe. But that's hard to fit on a label. (Ted may have a point
there.)
Speaking of activism, as a general rule
do you think that cartoonists and commentators should be involved
in causes they believe in, or do you think they need to be removed
from the fray so as to appear fair and balanced? My current managing editor is often disturbed
when I do cartoons on gay issues because he is worried that I
may be seen as having an "agenda." Our editorial page
editor told him, "well if it was 1964 and we had an African
American cartoonist, I would hope his cartoons would have a civil
rights 'agenda.'" I thought that was a terrific reply. Of
course I have an agenda. I have an agenda when it comes to Iraq
or forest management, too. It's just that some agendas are more
personal than others. I've spoken to gay groups, and donated
cartoons to the Arizona Human Rights Fund's annual silent auction
and I belong to the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.
I draw the line at endorsing candidates or ballot issues -- other
than through my commentary in my cartoons. We're all citizens
and I see nothing wrong with having a political life outside
of cartooning.
Unlike
a union, the AAEC was not originally designed to be a full-blown
advocacy group for editorial cartoonists. Yet in the past few
years, the Association -- and its presidents -- have taken a
more activist role, speaking out publicly in support of cartoonists
under fire, and against cartoonists getting fired. Is this something
you hope to continue? And is this an idea the AAEC should advance
even further in the future? Getting involved in specific personnel
disputes can be tricky, but by and large I think the AAEC should
be the public advocate for the profession. If anything, we need
to raise our public profile and cultivate our relationship with
media outlets. Cartoonists should be appearing on Nightline and
Hardball. Perhaps not me personally because the camera puts on
ten pounds, but you get my drift.
Did you have to relocate to take your
current job, or was Arizona always home? Nobody is from Arizona. I'm from Washington.
I came here to go to ASU and lucked into a job after graduating.
What influences do you see in your style?
What influences have you consciously moved toward -- or away
-- from? First influences? Dr. Suess, then Al
Hirschfeld. My style looks nothing like Hirschfeld, but I fell
in love with line art when I discovered him as a kid. And that
really sent me into a specific direction. I still think his work
is the most beautiful line art ever. In college I was once about
two beers away from getting a tattoo of a Hirschfeld caricature
of Bing.
Technology is changing the format of cartooning
at an increasing pace. Where do you see editorial cartooning
going in the 21st century? Two words: Mark Fiore.
Speaking of ... you are most firmly in
the camp of the crosshatchers, but unlike some of your more heavy-handed
brethren, your style of hatching is lighter -- more like the
finer lines you find in etchings. What do you usually work with
to get that look? What are you saying, Jape? That I'm a
"little light in the crosshatching"? [laughs]. I've
been doing a lot more illustration work for my paper in the last
year, and I often don't get the extra two hours for what Oman
once called my "maniacal crosshatching." I've started
using the Micron pens, which I really resisted for a long time.
But on a piece that I really care about, and if given the time,
I still prefer to do everything with a brush. The really fine
crosshatching is best with a brush. I love the way it looks and
it is the most relaxing, Zen thing in the world to just arm yourself
with a #4 Loew Cornell watercolor brush and new bottle of FW
acrylic India Ink and just get lost in it. Christ, I need to
get out more.
We all pull information from a variety
of outlets, but do you have a preferred media (print, web, radio,
TV, et. al)? What information sources are you sure to check every
day? I read the New York Times and the Wall
Street Journal every day. I'm such a news snob. I really hate
the news magazines and I'd rather lose an eye than watch local
TV news. I toggle between MSNBC and CNN as sort of white noise
in the background. I also listen to streaming news radio off
the Internet. You know what is often kind of fun? Voice of America.
Crazy.
What is more important in a good cartoon: the
drawing or the writing? Writing. Writing is for the readers.
The drawing is for me.
It seems everyone is doing a strip these
days. Any plans to do the same? Yes. See, I can be concise.
What do you enjoy doing outside of sitting
behind a drawing table? Fill a shaker with ice cubes, add two
parts cognac, one part Cointreau, one part fresh squeezed lemon
juice, dash of lime. Serve in a chilled martini glass with sugared
rim and lemon zest. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Okay, I gotta ask: do you REALLY think
Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were the greatest comedy team of all
time? Even better than the Stooges? Actually, the Marx Brothers are the greatest
comedy team of all time. But Crosby & Hope have been my favorite
since I was a kid. C'mon, think about it: In all their movies
they play two inseparable buddies who run away together to far
off, exotic locales, bicker and back-stab and pretend to fight
over Dorothy Lamour, as she slinks around in some fabulous Edith
Head frock, but never actually marry her ... Do I really have
to draw you a picture?
September 22, 2003
DAVID HORSEY
I''ve posted a cool new opus from David
Horsey, the two time Pulitzer Prize winner from the Seattle
Post Intelligencer. Every so often, David breaks free of the
little box that binds most of us editorial cartoonists, and he
creates a grand, sprawling, political cartoon opera. Click
here to visit "Empire Rising," David's Romanesque take on the
Bush administration.
I haven't posted too much on the Democrats running for president.
As an overworked cartoonist-editor, I find it much easier to
post cartoons about events that hit us with a bang. To do a good
collection on the Democrats, I have to pour over months of cartoon
archives. Yuck. But Wesley Clark came out with a bang, jumped
to the top of the polls, and had the cartoonists all drawing
the same thing at the same time. That's my editorial signal to
jump into action, and we have a cool new collection of cartoons
about general Wesley Clark, the new Democratic frontrunner. Click here and take a look.
September
20, 2003
I was amused to read an article in today's Los
Angeles Times, announcing that Slate's liberal blogger, Mickey
Kaus, endorses Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor.
I have to laugh. Mickey is an Arnold-basher without peer. He
broke the story on Arnold's bawdy Oui Magazine interview
and he highlights every bit of Arnold dirt that he can find.
The blogosphere has expanded to the point where blogs
quote other blogs, which quote other blogs --and now blogger
endorsements carry some weight. This article got me thinking.
I can do that too.
I've been bashing Schwarzenegger
more than any other cartoonist (look here,
and here,
and here,
and here
and below). My Arnold bashing
cartoons have probably been reprinted in California newspapers
more than any other cartoonist's work. Even so, I hereby give
Schwarzenegger my CAGLE'S CARTOON BLOG endorsement in the race
for California governor.
Like all good Americans, I vote
my pocketbook. Arnold is great news for the cartoon economy.
My readership almost doubled with the Iraq war (war is good for
editorial cartoonists) --but Schwarzenegger is like a war where
nobody dies! He is a one-man cartoon Renaissance.
California newspapers are notorious
for not hiring staff editorial cartoonists; how could that continue
if we had a cartoon as governor? Schwarzenegger could be a one-man
cartoonists' jobs program.
On a practical level, I like
the idea of a non-politician running for an office that is not
a stepping stone to higher office. (The US Constitution prevents
foreign-born Arnold from running for president.) I don't buy
the argument that Arnold is free from the influences of special
interests, but I like the idea that we occasionally switch sets
of special interests that pull the strings in Sacramento. I think
it's time to switch from the Indian casinos and unions that back
Davis/Bustamante. I'd like to give the L.A. real estate interests
who back Arnold a try in the hot seat.
Beyond that, as a liberal cartoonist,
when I look at Arnold I see a liberal hiding behind a Republican
veneer. Yes, I bash Arnold. And I will continue to bash Arnold.
We always hurt the ones we love. September
18, 2003
As a cartoonist, I'm sick of Israel and the Palestinians. How
many times can I be expected to draw the Energizer Bunny or a
Mobius Strip? The Road Map gave us cartoonists a little bit of
breathing room by throwing in some new metaphors, but now I'm
sick of the road map too. There have been far too many dead-ends,
bumps and dips in the road, broken down cars, blown-up busses
blocking the road, and driving off of cliffs. Enough! I can't
stand any more!
That said, we have a great new
collection of cartoons on Israel's latest ultimatum to Yassir
Arafat. Come
take a look.
September 17, 2003
My buddy, cartoonist Nik
Kowsar from Iran, has started a new daily cartoon strip
about a cartoonist who is persecuted by his government. Nik was
thrown into jail and prosecuted for his cartoons in Iran, but
he tells me that his strip, which features a character called,
"Nick," who looks like Nik and who also gets thrown
into jail because of his cartoons, is not autobiographical. Well.
OK.
Our readers will note that Nik
regularly bashes the USA in his cartoons, and likely generates
more hate mail than any other cartoonist on our site. We will
put up a special front page collection of Nik's non-autobiographical
strip when he has drawn a couple more weeks of strips. In the
meantime, readers can see Nik's
daily cartoon here, and below. E-mail Nik at nikankowsar@excite.com
September 16, 2003
5:15pm
Dr. Russell of Cartoonists Rights Network (CRN) contacted me
to apoligize for the confusion. CRN decided not to take any action
on the Tony Namate case at this time, and have not issued their
usual news release when a cartoonist is threatened.
The government of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe has shut down Namate's
newspaper, "The Daily News." Namate and other journalists
fear for their safety. The Zimbabwe government information minister,
Jonathan Moyo, has criticized and threatened Namate for his cartoons,
including the two shown below. Dr. Russell tells me that Namate
wants no actions to be taken on his behalf as the government
in Zimbabwe has not yet taken any action against him. We will
watch the situation closely.
12:00 noon
I promised that I would give my buudy, Scott Shaw, a plug for
his Oddball
Comics BLOG. Scott is a great cartoonist who has made
a second career out of being an expert in and collector of "Oddball
Comics." Scott sells calendars and trading cards with the
strangest of the strange comics in his collection. This
episode of Scott's BLOG is devoted to Bob Hope comics.
(Our Bob Hope tribute cartoons
were probably our most popular feature of the year.) I also remember
Bob Hope comics as the first place where fans got to know the
work of Mad Magazine's great caricature artist, Mort Drucker.
I was troubled to see this article in the International
Freedom of Expression eXchange site, quoted in the Comics
Journal BLOG, about the trevails of cartoonist Tony Namate
from Zimbabwe. The Cartoonists Rights Network had sent a confidential
memo to its members last week about Namate's concerns. We have
not yet received a public alert on Namate's behalf.
The
Comics Journal Weblog reports on the arrest of Algerian cartoonist,
Ali Dilem, who was detained along with seven other journalists
in an ongoing, heavy handed, government effort to silence criticism
from the daily Le Matin and Liberté newspapers. The International
Federation of Journalists voices their opposition to
the Algerian governments actions. The Australian
Broadcasting Corporation reports:
"Over the past few months
the newspapers had published a string of revelations over scandals
involving some of the country's top officials and a number of
editors and journalists critical of the president have been summoned
by the police."
September 9, 2003
American Color, the company that colors Sunday comics, reports
that 84% of their client newspapers refused to run last Sunday's
controversial Doonesbury strip shown below. this tidbit comes
from Editor
and Publisher Magazine.
The Comics Journal
Weblog links to an AsiaMedia
report from AP/Pacific Media Watch. According to the article,
a newspaper editor was tried and found guilty of printing an
editorial cartoon that criticized his country's parliamentary
speaker. According to the AP report:
The cartoon depicted Tandjung
shirtless and dripping with sweat because of his legal travails.
The South Jakarta District
Court gave Karim Paputungan, from the tabloid Rakyat Merdeka,
a five-month sentence suspended for 10 months.
"The defendant has been
found guilty of attacking the standing and reputation of someone
by showing an unsuitable picture," said Judge Asnawati,
who goes by a single name.
The politician depicted in the
cartoon was convicted of embezzling $4.5 million in state funds
intended for public food assistance. The Indonesian Appeals Court
upheld his conviction, and the politician is now appealing to
the Indonesian Supreme Court. he refuses to resign from Parliament.
That all sounds like good fodder for an editorial cartoon to
me --apparantly that is not the case in Indonesia.
September 9, 2003
The Washington Post has announced that Pulitzer Prize winning
cartoonist, Berkeley Breathed, will resurrect a new, Sunday only,
comic strip starring Opus the penguin, from his old Bloom County
strip. This is no surprise to those of us who heard Berkeley's
speech to the National Cartoonists Society in May, where he waxed
nostalgic about his days drawing Bloom County, before his last
retirement. The new strip is slated to begin on November 23rd.
Almost every state in the country
puts the "interpretation" of an editorial cartoon into
their state mandated testing. Social Studies teachers, who "teach
to the test," need resources for teaching the "interpretation"
of editorial cartoons. Our
own teachers Guide, and our daily lesson plans are one
of the most popular parts of our site, and our e-mail box is
always full of questions from students who have been given an
assignment to write an essay about one of our cartoons. The typical
e-mail message reads, "What does this cartoon mean? Please
tell me by tomorrow morning because my paper is due then."
The AAEC and NIE are looking
to take advantage of our reluctant student audience to help teachers
inculcate a new generation of editorial cartoon fans. Local newspapers
can make the NIE cartoon site look like it is part of their own
newspaper site. Click
here to see what the "Cartoons in the Classroom" site
looks like in Detroit.
We get a lot of e-mail from aspiring young cartoonists. Hogan's
Alley asked a number of top cartoonists, including Will Eisner
(The Spirit), Sergio Aragones (MAD, Groo the Wanderer) and Mort
Walker (Beetle Bailey), what advice they would give to a young
cartoonist just starting his career. Read
the advice here.
We have a great new collection of cartoons on crazy, high gas
prices. Take a look.
September 5, 2003
Here is
a great article about the new CRACKED Magazine and it's
"one man show" of a publisher, Dick Kulpa. Dick and
I first met when we both started features for Tribune Media Services
in 1995, I was drawing "TRUE" and Dick was drawing
"Ghost Story Club." Dick went on to be the executive
art director for the crazy supermarket tabloid, the Weekly World
News, where he devoted his talents to incarnations of Elvis,
aliens, devils, angels and his own creation, "Bat Boy."
Dick is an entrepreneurial cartoonist. He purchased CRACKED,
the long running Mad Magazine wannabe, from his bosses who had
planned to shut it down. I read CRACKED as a kid, simply because
I couldn't get enough Mad Magazine. CRACKED now looks like the
Weekly World News for nine year olds. It's filled with Dick's
drawings and his odd view of what kids want to see, including
his love for "booger humor." The magazine has a bizarre
publication schedule, coming out with an issue whenever Dick
happens to get one finished.
Dick and I did a trade --for the past few years, he has run my
TRUE cartoons in CRACKED, in return he lets me run CRACKED content
on my web site. Dick describes my cartoons as the "intellectual
part" and the "least popular part" of the magazine.
He complains that I "don't draw enough boogers."
Every so often CRACKED has some great content, including this
X-Men movie parody
which was one of the most popular features ever on our site.
Tom Richmond, who is now Mad's lead parody caricaturist, drew
this one before he moved to Mad. A couple more that were popular
here were this
X-Men in the comics article and this
article on postage stamps.
The audience for MAD Magazine and CRACKED is only about one tenth
the size of what it was when I was an avid reader as a kid in
the 1960's. The genre may have lost it's edge for today's kids,
but it still has it's charm for old cartoon fans, like me. Visit CRACKED's web site here.
September
3, 2003
I asked Garry Trudeau, my Slate
neighbor, for comments on his controversial strip that is scheduled
to run this Sunday. Garry replied, "I think this one's going
to blow over pretty quickly, but I have had heard from a few
reporters ..." and he gave me this statement:
The strip isn't really about
masturbation or the prostate cancer study as such, but about
the shifting nature of taboos and the inability of two adults
to have a certain kind of serious conversation. It was inspired
by a similar conversation I had recently with friends. The more
traditional viewpoint (Boopsie's) is represented without mockery,
so readers who share her discomfort shouldn't be offended. There's
a laugh in there, but not really at her expense.
Still, I understand that the mere mention of certain words will
not be acceptable to some family newspapers, which is why we
made an alternative strip available. This is certainly a departure
from past practice, and it does not signal our intention to start
supplying replacement strips (what Pogo's Walt Kelly used to
call his "bunny rabbit strips") every time there's
a chance someone might be offended by the regular release. It's
a "South Park" world now, and younger readers are unlikely
to be shocked or confused by anything they find in Doonesbury.
Besides, our general experience is that most children don't understand
Doonesbury in any event, and thus sensibly avoid it. It's been
a long time since I've received a letter from an irate parent
who had to answer an embarrassing question from a child.
As to whether I'm willfully forcing the issue, it's hard to say.
I simply write about things that interest me and for the most
part, editors have trusted me to handle serious subjects with
acceptable discretion. It is a trust I am deeply grateful for,
and I try not to violate it. And on those occasions when, in
an individual editor's view, I stray across the line, I'm the
first to defend his or her right to withhold the strip from their
papers. It's not censorship, as so many would have it -- it's
editing, and the steward of a newspaper has the responsibility
to decide every day what content to publish for his community.
I may have a strong quarrel with an editor's justification for
cutting a particular strip, but the fact is I have no fundamental
right to appear in his paper every day of the year.
With Garry's permission, we'll
post the embattled strip here in our BLOG when it is released
on Sunday. Read more on this in
our BLOG below.
September 2, 2003
We all know Dr. Suess for his children's books, but most people
would be surprised to learn that he was also a political cartoonist.
During World War II, Dr. Seuss drew over 400 cartoons for the
New York newspaper "PM." The Mandeville Special Collections
Library at the University of California at San Diego has put
together an interesting collection of Suess' war cartoons. Click here to see Dr. Seuss' take on the Nazis.
A couple of readers directed
me to the Comics Journal
Blog, "Journalista" and I was impressed. They do
a great job of rooting out references to all kinds of cartoon
related news from around the web (even quoting our own Cagle
Blog) with an emphasis on comic book related news. Here are a
couple of interesting stories I found today through the Comics
Journal BLOG.
A controversy over cartoons in a Swiss
Mathematics textbookhas led Swiss education
authorities to cough up $300,000 to reprint textbooks omitting
the offending cartoons by French cartoonist, Thierry Barrigue.
One cartoon showed a professor, angry with a pupil who has put
up a poster saying, "Wanted dead or alive math teacher,
$10,000". Another cartoon, depicting two white children
asking a black child about his roots, was criticized as being
racist.
Here at the Cartoonists Index
we love to post cartoons that have caused controversies. If any
of you, our readers, know how to contact the cartoonist Thierry
Barrigue or have copies of these cartoons, please
send us an email. We'll post them just to drive those
politically correct Swiss educators mad.
Cartoons caused a riot in South
Korea according to a report
in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper on Sunday. About fifty supporters
of President Roh Moo-Hyun (from the Roh Moo-Hyun fan club) were
"enraged" over a cartoon by cartoonist Shin Gyeong
that ran in the newspaper last Friday. The presidential fans
stormed the Ilbo's headquarters. A retired army officer, who
was scheduled to have lunch with the editor of the Ilbo, felt
threatened by the crowd and shot his pistol into the air, causing
the demonstrators to wrestle him to the ground. There were some
scrapes and bruises. The cartoon that angered the presidential
fans depicted Roh as a "drunk at a nightime food stall."
Representatives of the demonstrators said that it was 'profane
to portray the president chomping on a cigarette and kicking
a liquor bottle, 'This defiles the people" they said."
The Chosun Ilbo further reports
this reaction from the Korean Political Cartoonists Association.
The Korean Political Cartoonists'
Association was critical of the pro-Roh protesters, saying Sunday,
"We impeach the outrage of the members of the People's Power,
whose main forces are from Nosamo, for holding demonstrations
opposing a political cartoon that satirized the president. In
the process, they violated the rights of an innocent civilian
en masse."
The statement continued: "Their
acts derive from a lack of understanding of the satire of political
cartoons, and threaten the diversity of the press and freedom
of speech. Their acts are that of totalitarianism and we are
deeply suspicious as to whether there is anyone working behind
the scenes. The authorities must punish those responsible for
this incident to prevent further outrages that threaten the freedom
of press, ideas and conscience."
It sounds like there are some
short fuses in South Korea. If anyone has a copy of this cartoon,
please email it to us.
Monday
September 1st, 11:00am
Our controversial neighbor on Slate, Doonesbury,
is embroiled in another imbroglio. Next Sunday's installment
features references to masturbation, a newspaper "no-no."
The Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel surveyed 34 newspapers of which 19 reported
that they would not print the strip and would run an inoffensive
substitute cartoon. I was surprised to read that more than half
of the newspapers decided to kill the strip. Usually these controversies
involve only a handful of stodgy newspapers.
It is also interesting to see
the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel taking the lead in stoking the
fires of controversy by conducting this survey. The Journal-Sentinel
championed another cartoon controversy over these
cartoons that Pat Oliphant drew in a series of advertisements
for Northwest Airlines. The ads gave the impression that
Oliphant, the independent editorial cartoonist, was endorsing
Northwest's position in a debate over restrictions on airline
routes. The Journal-Sentinel's position was that editorial cartoonists
are journalists who should be unbiased by commercial interests,
and they didn't want their journalists to be paid spokesmen for
commercial companies. The Journal-Sentinel loudly cancelled their
subscription to Oliphant's cartoons and encouraged other newspapers
to do the same.
The Journal-Sentinel is also
unusual in that it employs two editorial cartoonists (Gary Markstein
and Stuart Carlson), at a time when most newspapers won't hire
one. Although I may not agree with their views on cartoons and
cartoonists, it is refreshing to see a newspaper that takes a
strong interest in our profession.
Monday, September 1st
I received this note from Malcolm Evans:
Dear Daryl,
It's a week since my last note and so here's an update. The principle,
that no cartoonist can allow an editor to direct what issues
he may or may not address, has been strongly supported by
most of the many hundreds of people who have written. And although
fewer now, many e-mails still continue to arrive each day and
all are being collated into a permanent file.
Since the story broke on cagle.com, it has spread around
the world and been featured in a variety of print, radio, TV
and electronic media. Haaretz, the main Hebrew language paper
in Israel has run a comprehensive story as has La Nacion, in
Argentina and newspapers in Australia have also been similarly
following events.
The New Zealand Herald still refuses to print any of
the many hundreds of letters it has received and also
continues to refuse to comment on the background to its
issuing of a "pink slip," for alleged legal reasons.
All letters written to the paper receive a form letter in return
which includes an editorial written at the time the "Apartheid"
cartoon was first published.
Earlier this week about fifty people braved a cold and wet
winter's day to protest outside the offices of the paper here
in Auckland. Many other people have expressed their concern in
a variety of ways with some even cancelling their subscription
to the paper.
Thank you and all the many thousands of visitors to Cagle's Cartoonists'
Index who have expressed support for the
very important principle that the free expression of ideas
in all mediums must not be genetically engineered to fit
any pre-determined agenda.
September 29, 2003
Our profession is often accused
of growing old and stale. I'm delighted to showcase the work
of artists who are doing new and exciting political cartoons.
There is not much of a market on the web for original content
and I would like to see "Forever Dada" succeed. We
need more of this stuff! 
September 25, 2003
September
23, 2003
You
are one of a relatively small number of cartoonists who consider
themselves conservative. Why do you think it is a majority of
cartoonists tend to lean to the left or are centrists? And really,
what is it with all this left-right crap? Whatever happened to
the idea of the cartoonist as an "equal-opportunity offender."
You've stated a number of times you actually
have a more libertarian bent, and in the last year you took the
big step of leaving the Republican party. What was it that finally
pushed you to quit? 
Unlike
a union, the AAEC was not originally designed to be a full-blown
advocacy group for editorial cartoonists. Yet in the past few
years, the Association -- and its presidents -- have taken a
more activist role, speaking out publicly in support of cartoonists
under fire, and against cartoonists getting fired. Is this something
you hope to continue? And is this an idea the AAEC should advance
even further in the future? 
Technology is changing the format of cartooning
at an increasing pace. Where do you see editorial cartooning
going in the 21st century? 
What is more important in a good cartoon: the
drawing or the writing? 
September
18, 2003
September 11, 2003
