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Tom Toles nails it again

Thanks for the link. I wasn't familiar with his stuff, and some of it is darned good.

His record on this subject would be perfect if he would publish a cartoon describing the coresponding childish behavior by the Democrats during the recent budget fiasco.
 
sarge said:
Thanks for the link. I wasn't familiar with his stuff, and some of it is darned good.

His record on this subject would be perfect if he would publish a cartoon describing the coresponding childish behavior by the Democrats during the recent budget fiasco.
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He bangs Dems sometimes too, but his bar for that is a little higher.
 
BenBurch said:
He bangs Dems sometimes too, but his bar for that is a little higher.
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A little higher? I'll say!

BenBurch said:
For example;

http://www.gocomics.com/tomtoles/2011/04/10/
http://www.gocomics.com/tomtoles/2011/04/06/
http://www.gocomics.com/tomtoles/2011/03/16/
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Two of the three examples are generic "both sides are stupid" chestnuts, and the third goes so far as to accuse a Dem politician as displaying "cautious pragmatism" in place of their previous "inspiring change". Ouch!

Let me know when Mr. Toles deigns to depict Dems as hostage-taking gunmen.
 
BenBurch said:
He bangs Dems sometimes too, but his bar for that is a little higher.
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After following your link and enjoying that one, I browsed back through older cartoons. He has a sharp wit and a good style of drawing that seems to get his point across. Good cartoons can often get the point across without text. In my opimion, his qualifies.
 
theprestige said:
A little higher? I'll say!



Two of the three examples are generic "both sides are stupid" chestnuts, and the third goes so far as to accuse a Dem politician as displaying "cautious pragmatism" in place of their previous "inspiring change". Ouch!

Let me know when Mr. Toles deigns to depict Dems as hostage-taking gunmen.
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He produces political satire, and seems to be good at it. There is no "equal time" requirement for satire. Mr Toles is no less proficient for not treating each party the same.
 
sarge said:
He produces political satire, and seems to be good at it. There is no "equal time" requirement for satire. Mr Toles is no less proficient for not treating each party the same.
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You say that Mr Toles seems to be good at political satire. But he also seems to be biased. To me, political satire is good in the same measure that it is true. Bias and truth being at best uneasy partners, I can't help but think Toles is only good at political satire in the same measure that he is unbiased in his satire.

But BenBurch has found more examples to counter the appearance of bias. I've no complaints about depicting Obama as a witless nincompoop. But then, I am biased. I'd make a terrible political satirist. Probably a better propagandist, but I find that I generally don't enjoy lying enough to do it well.

Anyway, thank you, Ben, for the contributions.
 
theprestige said:
You say that Mr Toles seems to be good at political satire. But he also seems to be biased. To me, political satire is good in the same measure that it is true. Bias and truth being at best uneasy partners, I can't help but think Toles is only good at political satire in the same measure that he is unbiased in his satire.

But BenBurch has found more examples to counter the appearance of bias. I've no complaints about depicting Obama as a witless nincompoop. But then, I am biased. I'd make a terrible political satirist. Probably a better propagandist, but I find that I generally don't enjoy lying enough to do it well.

Anyway, thank you, Ben, for the contributions.
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Satire can be simultaneously true and biased, and if your standard for "good" satire is that it merely be true, then you can enjoy Mr Toles satire even though it may be biased, so long as the bias extends only to targeting the foibles of one party while ignoring the other.
 
BenBurch said:
Political cartoon is political.
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Yeah, but as with all writing and art, there's good and there's bad. If your punch line is "[object of scorn] is stupid", then you will play only to a limited audience. You will not win the respect of moderates and independants, or any Pulitzers.

I'm a liberal, but I don't want to just read things that agree with me. How can you ever test your opinions if you never have them challenged and aren't able to admit that the opposing side may have some valid points?
 
Tricky said:
I'm a liberal, but I don't want to just read things that agree with me.
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It isn't even just whether or not you agree with it. If I read something that I agree with completely, but which only tells me stuff I already know and presented in a manner that about as cliched as possible, then I've wasted my time. Even when reading material I agree with, I still want new information or at least a new take on information I'm familiar with. And with a cartoon, I also want humor. I want it to be funny, which means there needs to be some degree of surprise, some unexpected novelty to the presentation.

And that's pretty much absent from that Toles cartoon. Even if you agree with its perspective, it just isn't really novel or funny. It's stale.
 
BenBurch said:
http://www.gocomics.com/tomtoles/2009/03/31/
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I'm going to pick this one apart, not because I disagree with the message, but because it's another example of what I think doesn't work as a cartoon.

The problem is that what's metaphor and what isn't is completely screwed up. Obama's on vacation in Europe, and he's looking at these ancient ruins, and comparing them to our own ruined banks. Cute enough idea. After all, banks frequently use classical architecture to convey an impression of wealth and stability. The comparison thus implies that this impression was illusory to begin with, and that our banks have more in common with the downfall of ancient civilizations than with their glory days.

But in order to try to convey the message, he has to label the ruins "bank", because otherwise the point might be too easy to miss. But the ruins he's looking at are not the ruins of banks, but actual ancient ruins. The ruins back in America, where he is not, are the bank ruins. But by labeling the ruins "bank", the reader is left wondering what connection American banks have to European banks. And they're both struggling. But the comparison of American banks and European banks doesn't really have anything to do with architecture, making Obama's question seem pointless. That confusion spoils the humor which should be there if the concept had been pulled off successfully.

Good political cartoons are hard to make. And a political cartoonist with a regular schedule probably can't be expected to turn anything but mediocrity most of the time. But this one, and the original post, aren't successful cartoons. They're trite and boring.
 
Ziggurat said:
It isn't even just whether or not you agree with it. If I read something that I agree with completely, but which only tells me stuff I already know and presented in a manner that about as cliched as possible, then I've wasted my time. Even when reading material I agree with, I still want new information or at least a new take on information I'm familiar with. And with a cartoon, I also want humor. I want it to be funny, which means there needs to be some degree of surprise, some unexpected novelty to the presentation.

And that's pretty much absent from that Toles cartoon. Even if you agree with its perspective, it just isn't really novel or funny. It's stale.
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Such is the difficulty of political cartooning. Politics is so consistantly partisan that it is often hard to satirize it without making the same repetitive jokes . You often see partisan cartoonists make the same caricatures over and over again. True, the pols do the same things over and over again, but that's no excuse for lack of originality.

And here is where Doonesbury steps outside the boundaries of ordinary political cartooning. It is a strip about people living in a political system. It sometimes is about politicians, but probably less than 10% of the time. It records what is happening in America, not just what is happening in politics. Hell, the current story is about the royal wedding and how Americans are in love with the British monarchy. That's true. That's funny. That will resound with you if you read it thirty years from now. Heck, I remember clearly the strips about the wedding of Charles and Diana. I don't remember what the "crisis du jour" was during that time.

You are absolutely right about strips needing to be funny. They also need to be funny even if you disagree with the political angle. I have no problem laughing at myself. But you need to make me laugh.
 
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