Society of Illustrators elects Pat Oliphant, Will Eisner into Hall of Fame
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Writing the introduction to Pat, Political journalist P. J. O?Rourke writes:
But when the people who are wielding the swords can be made to look ridiculous?asleep like Leonid Brezhnev, a Wall Street plutocrat so fat he can?t reach across his belly to unsheathe his sword, Jimmy Carter attacked by a bunny, Bill Clinton dueling with his pants down, or the sword is only a movie prop as per Ronald Reagan?then the battle may be, might be, can be won. ?Look, Goliath, your sandal is untied!?
Nixon resigned not because he was hated, even less because he was feared. He resigned because he was a joke?one of Pat?s best. The Berlin Wall fell after Pat drew an August, 1989, cartoon showing the footprints of 300 East Germans who?d escaped through the busted barbed wire of the Hungarian border, with a Communist border guard dropping his rifle and running after them saying, ?Hold it . . . Wait for me!? The Catholic Church did not address its holy smoke child abuse scandal until publication of Pat?s 2002 carton captioned, ?Celebration of Spring at St. Paedophilia?s?The Annual Running of the Altar Boys.? (?I?ll call the Bishop,? says Pat?s alter-ego little penguin, Punk. An equally small bystander says, ?The Bishop has first dibs.?)
I won?t give Pat all the credit for ousting Nixon, felling the Berlin Wall, and shaming the Catholic Church into some reform. Oh, what the hell, I will.
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