I read the editorial page of the Virginian Pilot most mornings to get my dose of Liberal Spin – it’s a habit I have, like taking a vitamin pill in the morning – not sure it does any good but its part of my routine. This morning we have proof that William Raspberry has finally donned a tinfoil hat so that space aliens won’t be able to take over his brain. Of course, it’s too late. Space aliens have conspired with George Bush to steal the election in Ohio.
But enough of tinfoil hatters. Have you noticed that editorial cartoons are getting poor and tired? They are, of course, Leftist. But, like the political Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” and the non-political Cathy Guisewite’s “Cathy” they are utterly, boringly, stupidly predictable.
James Lileks has an excellent summary of the state of cartooning.
Our Sunday paper runs a selection of syndicated luminaries, and this week they just made me feel . . . tired. The entire genre disappoints. There are practitioners past and present who rose above the medium, but in general, over the years, editorial cartoons are obvious, tendentious, simplistic, wrong, unfunny, self-righteous and annoyingly small-minded. Ask them to do a cartoon on the completion of Michelangelo’s Pieta, and they’ll draw something on the world’s depleted marble reservoir.
From this Sunday’s page:What did you think of when you considered the horrid human toll of the tsunami? Well, if you’re like WaPo cartoonist Tom Toles, you immediately thought of a man standing on a battered beach reading a newspaper story forecasting increases in CO2 emissions. “Does it say what the West will be sending?” says the Innocent Urchin. “A six-foot increase in sea level,” says his father, who is too poor to afford an article. (China’s contributions to global warming are apparently irrelevant.) The dingbat in the lower right-hand corner has the standard passive-aggressive towel-snap: “The U.S. is pledging the biggest share.”
No comments:
Post a Comment