Ouch, but so true.
h/t Rob Tornoe, Mike Lynch
UPDATE: The Family Guy scene isn’t really directed at Tom Toles, but was uploaded with the title, “Family Guy- Washington Post” implying his cartooning. Tom responded on his blog, “I couldnâ??t understand it because the characters werenâ??t labeled. Family Guyâ??s writers might examine my latest cartoon for guidance:” and then shows one if his more wordy cartoons.
Somebody needs to draw that cat cartoon. It sounds awesome.
Somebody already has and it’ll be drawn again. Soon.
Ha ha ha!! I hate that show, but I have to admit that was a pretty funny skit. All that was missing was a giant meat grinder labelled “ground troops.”
I remember a time when late comedians would say “wait’ll the political cartoonists get a hold of this.”
You know- there’s nothing really stopping editorial cartoonists from – oh- never mind.
I love the Family Guy because it makes my skin crawl half the time. I only wish that editorial cartoons could be as affective at getting their points across as McFarline is or that the audience was smart enough that cartoons didn’t need labels to explain themselves.
Family Guy is awful. It relies on easy snarky, sex, and potty humor. Sophomoric brat-boy humor at its worst.
I watched that episode and I think I laughed hardest during that specific skit. LOL. Yeah, the humor is snarky and low-brow but it is what it is. Seems to be working out okay for MacFarlane.
I wish I had a dime for every non-comics geek newspaper reader who has asked me why editorial cartoons use weird metaphors. Most young people don’t even understand what the donkey or elephant is.
We cartoonists can stubbornly insist that they should learn how to decode our archaic graphic style. Or we can learn to talk to the readers.
“Most young people donâ??t even understand what the donkey or elephant is. ”
Of course, most young people also couldn’t tell you where the Philippines are on a map, who Edward R. Murrow was, what happened on December 7th, 1941 or even how to find a book in the library.
I’m not sure the problem is editorial symbolisms failure to evolve. When 30 year olds are eaten up with tripe like “Family Guy” and think it’s smart and/or clever, the problem isn’t whether a label on a political drawing is hip enough…the problem is cultural ataxia.
To me- Oliphant is still the gold standard and he uses the elephant, donkey etc.
Nothing wrong with that when it’s done well.
I do try to avoid writing in big letters the message I’m trying to convey and the one thing I really can’t stand is political cartoonists having to write the name of who they’re depicting in their piece – in my eyes if you have to do that it’s an admission that you’ve failed in what you’re trying to show.