I’ve been looking at Dr. Seuss’ editorial cartoons for PM and thinking about what it is that makes them so great. Partly, of course, it’s just that Seuss is such an energetic and imaginative artist, capable of generating infinite numbers of goofy monsters and preposterous contraptions (check out this circus tower of Nazi dachshunds for example.)
But a lot of the cartoons’ interest/power/oomph/what-have-you comes from the fact that Seuss is a propagandist; he’s got a set of strong beliefs which inform all of his cartoons. He wants the U.S. to go to war against Hitler and beat him. That’s where he’s coming from, and it gives his opinions urgency and his bile real bite — this cartoon may be goofy, for example, but it’s also ominous; Seuss actually believes the apocalypse is nigh. It’s not like I agree with him all the time (the carton below, for example, is both racist and factually inaccurate) but the passion, however jovially presented, really matters.
In contrast, look at Kevin Kallaugher’s cartoons for the Economist Kallaugher is clearly a very talented artist; his caricatures are fabulous, and he’s got a fantastic visual imagination; that giant, over-muscled simian football player is a delight. But…I don’t know. You kind of look at it and go, so what? The ultimate point of the cartoon (and of a lot of Kallaugher’s stuff) just ends up being…oh, this or that politician is in trouble now! He often seems to deliberately be avoiding partisan identification; last week make fun of Obama, this week make fun of Bush…. Certainly, there’s no coherent message or ideology working here. It’s just well drawn, mildly funny pictures. There’s no heart.
(Of course, you can have the opposite problem too…Ted Rall, for example, has lots to say, but lacks the wherewithal to put it across effectively.)
Maybe that’s why there seem to be so few editorial cartoonists whose work excites me. It’s hard to find the right mix of ideological passion and aesthetic talent. When it happens, as with Seuss or Art Young it’s fabulous…but that’s the exception, not the rule.
Update: Edited; it’s PM, not PN. Duh.
Those Seuss cartoons are great. So are the Young cartons, though I’d hate to see a kid’s book by him.
One thing, it’s PM, not PN.
Your basic point sounds plausible to me, though I’d have to look thru a lot more editorial cartoons to make sure. I was complaining about Oliphant before, but the problem with him isn’t that he lacks passion but that he’s so discombobulated. He winds up making no intelligible point at all and the mind is left standing on one foot, anxious and frustrated, like someone waiting for a rhyme that never comes (hickory, dickory … table).
The thing is I remember enjoying the SNL sketches about the 2000 election, and those were all plague-on-both-your-houses, Bush-is-dumb, Gore-is-a-douchebag, don’t-they-talk-funny stuff. It was still well observed and the actors were good, so I loved it.
So go figure.
I think it may be easier with performance; editorial cartoons are so compressed — it’s a demanding form.
Your take on Oliphant sounds rather like my take on Ted Rall.
Art Young is probably one of my two or three favorite cartoonists ever, and one of my favorite artists. I wish he was more known and influential. I think the socialist thing hurt his reputation, though…
I gotta say, I understand where you’re coming from with the Kal criticisms, but I’m a huge fan of the guy. The art is just outstanding. I wish he’d push it, sure, but I guess that’s not his thing? I don’t know his work outside of the Economist stuff, so i’m lacking on the history.