The Current State of Political Cartooning: Is it as bad as Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year—2007 Edition makes it seem?

I was quite eager to dive into The Best Political Cartoons of the Year—2007 Edition (Pelican Publishing Company; 2007) because there's really no better way to sum up a year's worth of national news than through a couple hundred pages of cartoons (at least, not in my book), and I'm woefully out-of-touch with political cartoons now that my full-time job is not as a newspaper writer and/or editor.

Having read through the book, part of an annual collection edited by Charles Brooks, I immediately found some problems with the title, which is more than a little misleading. First, there's the year "2007." Astute readers will of course note that it's only April of 2007, so it can't possibly contain the best political cartoons of this year. The number refers to the year the collection was published; the 'toons themselves are all from 2006.

The second problem is that word "Best," which can't possibly be true. I say this not simply based on the quality of the cartoons inside, but because of what' s not inside. The funniest, angriest and most insightful political cartoon in the universe, one that's handicap of having almost no real art at all involved in its creation, Get Your War On, is notably absent. (This could be that it's multi-panel format makes it more of a strip than a cartoon, though, which would also explain the absence of The Boondocks and Doonseberry). So too is the work of Ann Telnaes, who owns one of the best, cleanest, most elegant lines in cartooning at the moment, and whose depiction of Dick Cheney is the absolute apex of Cheney art.

Also, a lot of these cartoons are pretty bad. Like I said, I haven't been reading political cartoons as religiously as I used to—I cancelled my subscription to Newsweek, which generally printed some of the better ones each week, and I live in a city with one of the worst newspapers in the country which I avoid coming into contact with at all costs—so maybe this is where political cartooning has gotten to as of 2006, but somehow I doubt it.

The contents of Best Editorial Cartoons... is pretty illustrative of everything wrong with political cartooning in general. Specifically, a lot of them looked an awfully lot like The Onion's intentionally bad parody of bad political cartoons, by doing the exact same thing as The Onion 'toons (namely, taking the opposite of the funny side of an issue, illustrating it poorly, and then using big-ass labels on the various elements to make the joke as obvious as possible.

I'm of the opinion that these labels, are bad for political cartoons, and a large part of the reason why nobody loves them, not even people like me, who love combinations of drawings and words to the point that I obsess about them publicly online. The labels are, more often than not, unnecessarry (if the drawing is done well enough and properly captures the zeitgeist of the newscycle, a newspaper reader will know what the heck's going on without needing them), and generally just serve to telegraph the joke, or over-explain it. And, if you have to explain a joke, then chances are it wasn't all that funny a joke to being with.

Let's look at some examples, though. (Apologies for the bad scans and, as always, just click on 'em to make them nice and big).





This one's by Michael Ramirez, whose easily one of my favorite cartoonists included. It's really a hell of a drawing. The shark and fish both look great, and he gives it about 510%; clearly he didn't have to draw the coral on the bottom so well, or do that cool underwater light effect on the sharks back, but he does it because it looks awesome. The shark's tale is what really grabbed me though; that's pretty much the definition of brilliant. He symbolically transforms what is recognizably a shark into a symbol of the Soviet Union.

So why's the shark wearing the word "Putin" on it? This cartoon would have appeared in papers the same week that Putin and his governement were revealing themselves to be a much greater danger (a shark) than what they had presented themselves to be (a dolphin), which the dialogue and tail-shape lay-out. I don't know that it has to say "Putin" to hammer it home.







Similarly, this Jake Fuller cartoon doesn't gain anything from the labels, and wouldn't lose anything if it lost them. (Add, oddly enough, features a great drawing of a brilliant symbol and is also set underwater). Note the fact that the congressional jelly fish doesn't have the word "congress" on it, because it's completley unnecessarry. It's recognizably both a spineless jellyfish and congress, and the fish's dialogue sets up the joke—it's spineless, it won't do anything, don't worry. Does it matter that the fish are Gas Prices, Immigration and the Deficit? Not really. Because I assume the cartoonist's point wasn't just that congress is too spineless to tackle these three issues specifically, but just spineless to tackle any big issues in general.







Steve Sack's cartoon is a perfect example of one that works perefectly without the labels. He doesn't put anything in the panel that doesn't need to be there to get the point across, and yet it still slugs you with it's meaning. This is due in large part, I think, to the fact that he chose his symbols so well. The Noah's Ark story is one so familiar that you notice any variations on it almost immediately. The fact that all the animals on the ship are mammals, all the ones on the raft are birds, and the looks on everyone's faces tells the whole story, with Noah's dialogue as extra insurance. A caption saying "If Noah Built His Ark Today" or whatever would have been totally overkill, and Sack realized it. I also really dig Sack's style. This is one of several 'toons in the book that just really stand out as unique-looking.








Not that the labels are always bad in all instances, as long as their done wth restraint, as in these two cartoons from Mike Luckovich, whose cloudy, line-filled style is another of my favorites from the book. He needs to label the cookie jars because, well, how else would you know what kind of jar it is (It's worth noting that, in real life, an awful lot of cookie jars are actually labled "Cookies").




He doesn't have to have "G.O.P." or "Republican Party" on the elephant's side, and he doesn't put it there.






Similarly, anyone who's ever seen a picture of Richard Nixon whould be able to tell what Nixon looks like, so there's no need for a "Nixon" placard hanging around the shadow's neck. The "W" is a little less necessary, but short of drawing the groundhog more Bush-like (and thus risk losing his groundhogishness), there's no way around it.







This image didn't really strike me as a particularly successful cartoon; it's not terribly insightful or funny. But damn, it is a nice drawing, and one that looks completely different than anything else in the book. Or just about any political cartoon I've ever seen. It really looks like something out of an art-first indy comic of some sort, and to see the style applied to Putin makes him look all the creepier and the cartoon all the more unique. I suspect the hand-written lettering, resembling actual hand-writing rather than comic strip/cartoon lettering, also contribute a lot to it's aura of weirdness.




Finally, another of the reasons I sincerely doubt that these are in actuality the best political cartoons of last year? The number of repeats. Check out these two, for example.





Despite the fact that these two images are almost word for word, image for image the exact same joke, I doubt either cartoonist stole the idea from the other. There's just so many cartoonists making fun of the same current events at the same time that overlap is inevitable, and this is just an example of it. It's a decent gag and all, but the fact that two cartoonists had the exact same idea probably disqualifies either as one of the "best" cartoons of the year, doesn't it? After all, it's quite clearly not that original or unique an idea, it's not something that seperates itself from the pack, and the evidence is right there in the very same chapter. So what the hell are these cartoons doing here, exactly?

It's not the only example of repeating jokes either. Gags involving the NSA wire-tapping in relation to Americans talking loudly and publicly on their telephones and plays on the word "habeaus corpus" as "habeas corpses" are repeated, and I lost count of the nuber of times I saw Cheney and Bush drawn as rats gnawing on the Constitution or Don Knotts in heaven.






Superman's Adventures in Political Cartooning: The Man of Steel popped up a coule of times in the book, probably driven by the release of Superman Returns making Superman even more prominent in "civilian" culture's collective mind.




Here we see Superman leaving a screening of United 93 and shedding a tear. The cartoonist uses him hear to make a statement about the people depicted by the film and their real world heroism. It's not a funny cartoon by any means, but it gets it's point across well, and in a way only a cartoon could.

Do note the tear on Superman's cheek though, whch should qualify this as another image to file under Super-Crying (Rachelle has what is probably the single greatest image of Superman blubbering).

Super-nerds should also note the graying hair. That's right, this is Earth-2 Superman.






Okay, remember Steve Sack's bird flu cartoon above? If that's the top of the heap of avian flu gags, this is definitely the bottom. First of all, I totally don't get it. I mean, Superman's not a bird. If this were Hawkman, it might be funny. But it' snot. It's Superman. Why would he be in contact with birds? Because he runs a chicken farm? (If it were Colonel Sanders, it might be funny, since he's, you know, a recognizable icon associated with beign around birds). Because he works with carrier pigeons? What? Oh, he flies. So maybe he flew by a bird. And thus got the bird flu. Is that the joke? Is that it? Because it's not at all funny.

Also, Superman can't get the bird flu. Not only because he's not a bird, but because he's fucking Superman. He's invulnerable to everything this side of kryptonite. He sure as hell doesn't get sick.

The Apocryphal Superman: Humorist Mark Russell's look at a hero who's less super and more man

Superman is the first and most well-known superhero. Everyone knows all about him, how his parents sent him to earth in a rocket ship to escape the destruction of Krypton, and how he’s dedicated to fighting for truth, justice and the American way.

And how much Superman enjoys bowling. That his worst enemies include Lex Luthor, Dr. Simius, robot criminals, leopards and circuit judges. That his best friend is Aquaman, but that they’re currently not speaking to one another over a disagreement regarding democracy versus monarchy. And, of course, that Superman once turned a yellow Labrador retriever named Ketcham into Superdog using Kryptonian science, but he had to put him down when he proved to be a greater menace than the crimes they fought.

Sound about right? If not, you obviously haven’t read Mark Russell’s The Superman Stories, a self-published, 48-page prose parody about Superman. It’s a comedy, but an existential one—Russell purposely, even gleefully gets most of the details of Superman’s fictional life wrong, from the name of his best friend back in Smallville to Superman’s growing problems with loneliness, alienation and anger management.

It’s a comedy and a parody, but it’s also a story of existential panic and, by tale’s end, a story with an important lesson about human nature. And Kryptonian nature. And Kryptonian/canine hybrid nature.

Or, as Russell puts it, it’s a novella “kind of about Superman suffering from stressed cop syndrome.”

Russell calls Portland, Oregon home, and, when not working at his day job, is a cartoonist and humorist, who self-publishes The Penny Dreadful. His work has also appeared in McSweeney’s and Too Much Coffee Man Magazine, but in the wake of the release of the new Superman story that is Superman Returns, I wanted to know more about his super-work.

Can you tell me a little bit about the origin of The Superman Stories, and why you chose to explore Superman like this as opposed to some other superhero. Is this sort of look at Superman’s life inherently funnier than it would be if you were dealing with, say, Batman or Spider-Man?

Other superheroes may or may not be funnier source material, I don’t know. The reason why I’ve latched onto Superman is because he is so powerful and iconic.

I got the idea to actually to start writing The Superman Stories after watching an episode of the old George Reeves TV show. It was about these mobsters who got the bizarre idea to dress up like robots in order to rob banks.

I immediately thought, “Bad idea. If Superman thinks you’re a robot, he’s liable to tear your head off without realizing it’s just a costume.”

It occurred to me that while Superman has all these godlike physical powers, his power to make good decisions or understand what’s going on around him really isn’t any better than yours or mine. Which is a scary proposition, if you ask me. This disparity kind of lies at the heart of a lot of the problems Superman encounters in the book.

The note at the beginning refers to “the good-natured people at DC Comics.” Have you ever had any interaction with anyone at over the existence of The Superman Stories?

I have not. In fact, I put that bit of appeasement in there in hopes of avoiding such contact. Kind of like how someone who comes face to face with a man-eating kodiak might pet it nervously on the head and say, “Nice bear!”

Do you think the fact that these are prose stories in a little black and white ‘zine instead of comics-comics helps differentiate them from their Superman?

I think so. I’m approaching Superman as a literary character rather than as a comic book character. And legally speaking, I think my work constitutes parody and thus is protected free speech, but I’d hate to have that opinion tested in the expensive battlefield of jurisprudence. It’s never really been a big ambition of mine to become a First Amendment martyr.

What about fans of Superman’s? Have you had any negative reactions from that quarter?

I get a few people who are irritated by the liberties I’ve taken with the Superman canon. You know, someone who wants to argue about whether or not Superman keeps extra capes around the house, things like that. But most people seem to understand that mine is not a traditional depiction of Superman.

It occurred to me when reading that note that if Superman were a real person, one wouldn’t have to be so careful about potential legal repercussions—it seems much easier to parody real public figures than fake public figures, even though someone like Superman or Mickey Mouse are much more popular and well-recognized than someone like the president or the pope.

Well, for one thing, Superman is somebody’s intellectual property whereas somebody like, say, Abraham Lincoln is not. You can write a book accusing Lincoln of being a serial killer who made time machines out of the buttocks of his victims. Nobody’s going to sue you. But also in terms of the public’s imagination, I think it’s easier to make a sacred icon out of something that’s obviously fake.

Would you be able to pick Krishna out of a lineup if not for the fact that he’s blue? Christ spent most of his time talking, and said some wonderful things, but would anyone care if it weren’t for his magic tricks? The less real a figure seems, the easier it is to make an enduring icon out of them. And once such an icon has been established, you mess with it at your own peril. Write that book about Lincoln and write a similar one about Mickey Mouse and see which one gets you the most angry letters.

As you noted in your introduction, there are some pretty big differences between this Superman and traditional Superman lore, like there not being any Clark Kent, for example. Were these differences all more or less conscious ones on your part, or did some just stem from ignorance of the minutiae of Superman history?

I did embarrassingly little research. I worked largely from my memories of Superfriends cartoons, old comic books and the black and white TV show. Most of the differences between the Superman of my book and traditional Superman lore result from the fact that I’d simply forgotten so much. And this was partly intentional. I didn’t want to do much research because I wanted to avoid being too tied down by the holy scripture, if you know what I mean.

One difference which was entirely intentional was the lack of a Clark Kent alter ego, which never made much sense to me. Britney Spears could put on a beekeepers’ outfit and she’d still get mobbed by fans the second she stepped out the door. The notion that a world famous and damn near omnipotent guy like Superman could put on a pair of glasses and a bad gray suit and simply melt into the crowd just struck me as ridiculous.

I’m currently at work on a sequel and there’s a part about how Superman once tried to forge a separate identity in the form of Clark Kent, but it was a miserable failure. Kind of like when Garth Brooks tried to perform under the name Chris Gaines. Nobody bought it.

It seems these differences only add to the humor of things too—like, it’s just inherently funnier to hear a couple having a discussion about their relationship, and Lois referring to her partner as “Superman” instead of “Clark.”

Yeah, that too. There’s also a brief moment in the sequel where his parents tell him that calling him Superman makes them feel weird.

I was struck by how deep things get in The Superman Stories, like Superman’s lecture from a circuit judge about the nature of evil and the bits with God and Heaven and Hell near the end. When you began the project, did you see it as something that would occasionally get existential, or did it start out as a sort of a gag thing and veered that way on its own?

As a boy, I grew up on Superman comics and the Bible. It was easy to get them mixed up. Just as God always seemed like a superhero to me, Superman has always had these deep theological and moral implications.

Does being all-powerful make you worthy of veneration, even if you do some crummy things? If you have absolute power, is it better to use that power to make things right, or to refrain for fear of becoming a tyrant? I’m not sure that I have a snappy answer, but those are the kind of questions I wrestle with when I think about Superman, God, politics or the law.

You wrote in your introduction that as a kid being punished at recess, you’d wish Superman was there to secure justice for you. Having thought about what Superman would really be like if he were real, do you now find yourself glad there is no Superman? Would we be better off with or without Superman, do you think?

I think we’re probably better off without Superman. He’s certainly better off without us. As much as he might like us at the moment, eventually he would get sick and tired of human beings. I feel that way sometimes and I am one.

Superman would go through periods of depression, despair and cynicism, as we all do. And during those times we’d just have to hold our breath and hope he didn’t do anything rash.

Of course, if I found out that there was a comet hurtling towards Earth from which only Superman could save us I might very well change that answer.

You mentioned that you’re working on a sequel? Can you tell me anything about that?

Superman’s relationship with Lois Lane undergoes some changes. Lex Luthor starts working out in order to compensate for his lack of hair. The supernatural storyline continues. God, who sees Superman sort of as the popular, good-looking, varsity-quarterback son he never had, asks Superman to take Jesus under his wing in hopes that Superman’s manliness and derring-do will rub off on him a little.

To get a copy of The Superman Stories, you can send $4 to Mark Russell at 3148 SE Salmon Ste #C, Portland, OR, 97214, or click to powellsbooks.com