The ever traveling Daryl Cagle returned recently from a trip to Columbia to attend a conference of cartoonists.
I gave lectures at colleges, to the public and to groups of journalists in Bogota, Medell’in and Cartagena. I was impressed with the audiences; they understood everything and laughed at all the same things an American audience would laugh at. (Here’s a nice Colombian interview of me with a video in English.) There were lots of questions about censorship and about where cartoonists “draw the line” on topics they won’t touch. I encouraged everyone to think of editorial cartoons as a barometer of freedom. In many countries, cartoonists never draw their leaders; cartoonists in Venezuela aren’t allowed to draw Hugo Chavez; cartoonists in Cuba never draw Fidel Castro. In Colombia the cartoonists ridicule their president Uribe every day and their lack of respect for their president speaks well of healthy press freedoms in Colombia.
Cartoons are important in Colombia and it is great to see the respect that cartoons command and to see how they have an important spot in so many newspapers and magazines; even so, Colombian cartoonists complain about many of the same business problems that plague American cartoonists. Business is bad for newspapers and cartoonists are poorly paid.
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Well, I put this dumb thing up a year ago to have fun with the whole Mike Peters/Coffegate scandal, but I just can’t let a shabby joke go. So here it is again, but updated for Daryl Cagle:
***The Colombian Hillbilly***
Come and listen to a story about a man named Juan
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his coffee farm,
Then one day he ran clean out of luck,
‘Cause he saw a hundred keys being loaded on a truck.
Dope that is, nose candy, Andes marching powder?
Well the first thing you know
‘Ol Juan’s a’ disappeared,
Cartel said ?Mr. Juan we need a volunteer,
This Folgers can is the place you really ought to be!?
So they packed him up & shipped off to your local grocery?
Kroger’s that is, Save-A-Lot, Piggly Wiggly.
But it’s also time to say goodbye to Cagle out dear friend,
‘Cause he spoke too much ’bout blood and guts that Bogata swam in.
He got ‘invited’ to stay long term with Senor Uribe,
And have a heapin’ helpin’ of his hospitality!
Like Enrique Camarena that is, suffer a spell, take your ears off.
He’ll never come back now, y?hear?