The Delicate Art of Political Cartooning

international | arts and media | opinion/analysis Friday June 23, 2006 21:49 by Liam Mullen - Freelance Journalist

The recent letter from a reader of the Irish Times crying foul on a political cartoon that appeared in the wake of the late Taoiseach Charles J. Haughey’s death is interesting, because it epitomises the raw emotions that surface in the face of this form of political expression. I must add that I am in no way connected to the cartoonist in question, but that I have had the benefit of media training, and I can understand the nuances that this type of visual journalism can manifest within the reader. Often a cartoonist who has done previous work with a political figure may be signing off on the figure at the time of their death.

In interviewing Robbie Smyth, a political lecturer with Griffith College Dublin, recently on this very topic, Robbie cited the work of Joe Sacco as highly significant within this form of comic journalism. Sacco produced two books about Palestine in the comic format that were hailed as masterpieces. This type of graphic journalism became popular at the height of Haughey’s power, and magazine articles were suddenly full of stories about the sprouting or “growing up” of comic journalism. Nor is Sacco alone in producing serious stories told through the comic format. Art Spiegelman’s Maus displayed the cartooning format to highlight his father’s experience of the holocaust, with the Jews depicted as mice and the Nazis as cats. In a very real sense, political cartooning is often at its strongest during a time of great political upheaval or during the death of a mighty politician, such as Haughey. In the mid-eighties when political cartooning was suddenly seen in a new light, Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns added a gloomy sense of realism to the superhero genre.
The recent furore over the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Jyllands Posten highlight the raw fury that can be generated by such images. In speaking with the renowned linguistic, Professor Noam Chomsky from Boston’s MIT recently, he said that the Danish cartoons weren’t so much an attack by the west on the Islamic world, but that the cartoons could be seen as an attack by the Danish Government on the Muslim community living within Denmark. According to Chomsky, a few weeks prior to the publication of the offensive cartoons, Jllands Posten had refused to publish a series of Christian caricatures that would have offended Christiandom.
Political cartooning has a long history, and dates from 1754, when Benjamin Franklin urged the British colonies to ‘Join, or Die’, in the defence against France and her Indian allies. Since then cartooning has changed with technological advancement, and cartoonists no longer work with crayon and paper, but may employ scanning and computer-generated drawings for reproducing their work. Within America, political cartooning has always been seen as an important tool, and perhaps even a cornerstone of democracy. Paul Revere’s propagandist cartooning inflamed public opinion during the Boston Massacre, but due to George Washington and John Adam’s popularity following the Revolution, it was to be some time before cartoonists turned their ire, or crayons, on political leaderships. Thomas Jefferson was attacked in this fashion, and the art form of cartooning displayed the vulnerability of top politicians to this new type of journalism.

The invention of lithography helped publishers to produce comics more effectively, and during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln found himself the butt of cartoonists jokes over his views on slavery and civil rights issues. New illustrated weeklies sprang up, Harper’s and Frank Leslie’s, and produced thousands of cartooning images. Thomas Nast became popular with his attacks against the Confederacy, and his later attacks during the 1870’s on the New York political heavy – “Boss” William Marcy Tweed.
In 1884, Joseph Pulitzer’s The New York World, became the first American daily to include cartooning in its editorial make-up. The growth of the suffrage movement brought women cartoonists into the spotlight, with Rose O Neill and Edwina Drumm making a name for themselves. The first generation of cartoonists operating for the American dailies became well-known celebrities – Homer Davenport and John McCutcheon – though they were often criticised in that their work represented the interests of their employers and their advertising back up. It remained for radical cartoonists to take up the fight on behalf of labour fighting management, socialism against democracy, and pacifism as opposed to militarism. Cartoonists of the ilk of Robert Minor, Boardman Robinson, and John Sloan produced work in this socialist vein, and the US Government indicted Art Young and his contemporaries at The Masses –a socialist journal – for sedition. Although acquitted, the US Postal Service still managed to shut down The Masses, but the acquittal was a victory for the freedom of the press.
The Second World War united cartoonists – Arthur Szyk, Herbert Block, and Rollin Kirby – amongst others. Bill Maudlin entertained audiences with his parodies of two foot soldiers, Willie and Joe, and their fight against fascism. The McCarthy era generated new satire from the pens of Herbert Block and Walt Kelly.
With Vietnam came a new generation – Paul Conrad, Pat Oliphant, Tony Auth, Paul Szep, and other cartoonists helped to turn public opinion against the Vietnam War. Lyndon Johnson retired from politics, and when Nixon dishonoured the White House, the cartoonist Paul Conrad achieved notoriety on the “enemies list” as he portrayed Nixon as a tragic figure in a Shakespearean mode. Herbert Block won a fourth Pulitzer for his contributions to the Washington Post’s investigations.
Garry Trudeau became well known during the Reagan years of the 1980’s, combining politics with comic’s journalism. Oliphant portrayed Bush Senior as a wimp, characterizing him with a lady’s purse, and the Clinton era also inspired a new generation of political cartoonists. Most cartoonists were shattered by the events of 9/11, but one cartoonist Ann Telnaes, the 2001 Pulitzer prize winner, became known for her biting work on civil liberty issues and the gulf between the church and state, following Bush’s declaration of a “War on Terror.” Garry Trudeau shocked his readers with a Doonesbury’s war story that depicted a comic hero losing his leg and his ‘helmet’ in Iraq.
Writing in the Irish Times, the objecting reader posed the question: “Is it supposed to be funny on the day a man is laid to rest?” My guess, would be no. Comic journalism is never meant to be funny. It’s just a different way of getting your message across.