Editoonews

Editorial Cartoons on Billboards

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is under fire and being ridiculed in a new political cartoon commissioned by the Sussex County Republican Committee. The cartoon shows the governor dragging a boy from his family and indoctrinating him into changing his gender identity.

Sussex County Republican Chairman Joe Labarbera announced that the satirical artwork would be featured in public advertisements across more than 50 locations in northwest New Jersey. The campaign is scheduled to run throughout the election period.

Shore News Network carries the story. Then Fox News gave it national coverage.

The group is also planning a social media push and displaying the image on billboards along major highways.

The Daily Cartoonist could not discover who the cartoonist is.

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Picking on the Aged and Disabled and Jewish

Letters castigating editors for publishing cartoons.

An R. J. Matson cartoon for Roll Call brought a lengthy and explanatory objection from Adam Veale, the communications director for the Disabled Congressional Staff Association:

Last week, Roll Call published a “Capitol stair lift” cartoon illustrating members of Congress utilizing a chair lift and mobility aids. It featured a flippant depiction of the United States Senate as a “Senate Assisted Legislative Facility.” 

The cartoon was ableist and careless. Regardless of its intent surrounding a wider public discussion about the age and critical faculties of members of Congress, the cartoon implies that disability and the use of mobility aids impede one’s ability to effectively legislate and serve the American people.

Up in Maine there was also complaints about how the aged were depicted:

I am shocked to view last Sunday’s Steve Meyers cartoon, showing a hunched-over person pushing a walker (Sept. 10, Page D2).

Just what the heck did cartoonist Meyers have in mind? Is he implying we seniors are immigrating into Maine in excess? Most of my peers grow old in Maine and stay here by choice, contributing, as best we can, until the end. We deserve an explanation and apology.

Couldn’t find that Steve Meyers cartoon; but did find the Dick Wright cartoon that brought a letter.

From The Portland Press Herald:

I was dumbstruck by the Dick Wright syndicated editorial cartoon in the Sept. 8 Press Herald, featuring a caricature of Merrick Garland with a partially clad Hunter Biden in his ear (Page A6).

Wright’s cartoon image of Garland’s profile played to antisemitic tropes of a Machiavellian Jew (complete with hooked nose) out to injure the wider society through his machinations, in this case in partnership with or being manipulated by an evil cad.

In caricaturist Wright’s defense.

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Elsewhere in the World of Mean Caricaturism

BBC News reports:

BBC Scotland has removed satirical cartoons of politicians from social media following criticism online.

A clip depicting Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater from Radio Scotland’s Noising Up was described as “unnecessarily nasty” by an MSP.

Animations of First Minister Humza Yousaf, Tory leader Douglas Ross and Labour leader Anas Sarwar were also deleted.

BBC Scotland said it was reviewing Noising Up’s social media output.

Spineless BBC has forgotten our proud history of mocking politicians

The Daily Mail is a bit nastier describing the BBC’s decision in an entertaining read with a little British caricature history:

In these islands we have a long, joyous and venerable tradition of sending up those who rule over us; tearing assorted paper tyrants from their cardboard thrones. The caricaturist Gillray pitilessly slammed the Prince Regent, and the late Michael Cummings made hay with Harold Wilson…

However, the knockabout has always been accepted as part of public life’s rich tapestry. 

Until now. 

Yesterday it emerged that BBC Scotland panjandrums, panicked by the Tweeted invective of some of the most pompous bores in Holyrood, have axed social media animations promoting Radio Scotland’s Noising Up.

A more neutral (?) look at the uproar from GBN:

BBC Scotland has axed several satirical cartoons of politicians following a furious social media backlash.

The cartoons were released as a promotion for BBC Radio Scotland show Noising Up.

The show describes itself as a “riotous mix of sketches, gags, spoofs, quickies and take-offs”.

Bado’s Blog:

The assault on ‘nasty’ cartoonists and the censorship of their work continues unabated. The latest bowing to political pressure and culling of satirical commentary comes from BBC Scotland.

_{feature image by John T. McCutcheon/The Chicago Tribune}