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Editorial cartooning

VP candidate comments on Cagle cartoon

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The Cagle cartoon that Joe Biden mentioned

Tom Toles is not the only editorial cartoonist that is being watched by the Obama/Biden campaign. A CBS News blog reports that a Daryl Cagle cartoon was mentioned by Democratic VP nominee Joe Biden at an Ohio University rally yesterday. Biden remarked, “There’s a cartoon, I don’t know if you guys saw this, it’s John McCain and Sarah Palin standing on the corner of a building that has on the bottom corner written ‘BANK.’ And it has a group of people, businessmen dressed in suits standing on the ledge, some of them jumping off into the street. And it has Sarah Palin saying to John McCain, ‘You know, Barack Obama pals around with terrorists, you know?’ I think it best captures anything I have seen.”

Earlier this summer Barack Obama referenced a Tom Toles cartoon regarding the similarities between the a future McCain administration and the current Bush administration.

I’ve heard cartoonists joke that they often vote for the candidate who would provide the most fodder or easiest to caricature. Perhaps this round it will be based on the party that appears to appreciate the power of the editorial cartoon.

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Comments 18

  1. Yeah, who said the power of editorial cartooning isn’t a force to be reckoned with?!

    Daryl’s cartoon’s are consistently hilarious and on the mark, in my book. Way to go Daryl!

  2. Both tickets offer abundant source material, albeit for different reasons.

    And Obama’s thin-skinned reaction to Blitt’s NY’er cover leads me to suspect he’s not fully on-board with the cartoon-appreciation thing.

  3. The New Yorker cover wasn’t critical of Obama, it was satirizing the ludicrous claims of the right wing. Obama wasn’t “thin skinned” about it. It was his supporters who didn’t get it that was the source of the “controversy”.

  4. I know all that, Wiley. But thanks for the help, anyway.

    And, yes, Obama himself did pooh-pooh the cover in much the same manner as his supporters, albeit a few days after it was made public. I guess he wanted to determine the prevailing political wind direction regarding the issue.

    Unfortunately, all the googled articles about his reaction are pay-per-use now.

    I’d hoped his reaction would have been more honest — he’s a smart guy and understood perfectly well what Blitt was doing.

    But, alas.

  5. “Iâ??d hoped his reaction would have been more honest â?? heâ??s a smart guy and understood perfectly well what Blitt was doing.”

    I agree completely.

    And I was just responding to your use of the term, “thin-skinned”. Being thin-skinned would be in regard to being criticized about something, when, in fact, the point of the satire was critical of the McCain campaign for promoting those false images. And that’s what Obama should have pointed out.

  6. OK, then. I’ll retract “thin-skinned” and substitute “dishonest.”

  7. Al Gore collects political cartoons of himself. He really gets a kick out of them.
    I sent him an original of one during the 2000 campaign, and he sent back a cordial note of thanks along with a signed photo.

    The subject was some of the usual sideshow antics with Gore dancing around with a lampshade on his head. Caption was “Who says Al Gore is NOT a wild and crazy guy?”

    We’ll have material no matter what. McCain and Palin would be a treasure trove, but I can imagine the first Biden with duct tape over his mouth. Obama is easy for me to caricature, but subject wise may present an effort.

  8. “Obama wasnâ??t â??thin skinnedâ? about it. It was his supporters who didnâ??t get it that was the source of the â??controversyâ?”

    It has been my experience that unless a cartoon really hits it’s reader over the head with a clear and simple message, the average reader isn’t going to understand the focus and intent of the cartoon. God forbid people have to think about the material presented to them.

  9. Unfortunately, yes, Garey. But this was for the cover of the New Yorker, which is an intelligent magazine. One would think that the average reader of the New Yorker would get the satire of the cover. It wasn’t intended for the masses.

  10. I’d be more impressed if Biden had namechecked Daryl. He wouldn’t have forgotten Dave Letterman’s name while citing one of his jokes–and, unlike Letterman, we cartoonists write our own gags.

  11. “intelligent” magazine? Not “intended for the masses”? Jeezus H. Obama. Wiley? Did you write that w/ a straight face and a latte mustache? Should I cancel my subscription because I “get” Steven Brodner but don’t agree?

    Mellow Yellow and smokeless tobacco just shot out of my nose.

  12. So… the New Yorker isn’t an intelligent magazine, Mike?

  13. Not the point, but you knew that. Sometimes even the “masses” know a naked emperor when they see one. And I got a buck sez Joe Biden didn’t “get” NY’r cover either but unlike the Joe SixpackplumberPalin crowd, would pretend he did.

  14. “Not the point, but you knew that.”

    No, I didn’t know that. When you wrote: â??intelligentâ? magazine?, how else was one to take that?

  15. Well regardless of what you think the New Yorker is or isn’t, I feel the point is still a valid one. “The average reader” no matter what they are reading, is expecting you to chew and digest their content for them. The truly smart cartoons are completely misconstrued by the reader.

  16. “God forbid people have to think about the material presented to them.”

    I could see how someone could misinterpret the New Yorker cover. It’s the the greatest piece of satire in the world. You’ve got to admit that the bud of the joke, “the right wing attack machine” isn’t depicted in the cartoon and typically in a political cartoon the bud of a joke is not somewhere off camera. If I saw a cartoon depicting the NJ govenor, I’d first assume the joke is about the governor not his critics. Dare I say, maybe the cartoon could’ve been better?

  17. oops I meant to say “Itâ??s not the greatest piece of satire in the world.”

  18. “The truly smart cartoons are completely misconstrued by the reader.”

    So their impact is essentially the same as if they were total gibberish. Why put in the effort?

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