CSotD: If you’re supposed to draw, you won’t have to think
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Taylor Jones has set the bar high with a plain caricature of Nelson Mandela, which he admits he drew back in March when Madiba's health was in such dire straits.
And there's nothing wrong with having one ready. We knew the end was not far, and we knew it was going to be an event that required some commentary. If cartoonists weren't at least thinking of this day, they have only themselves to blame for filing quick-draw, knee-jerk responses to last evening's news.
Meanwhile, there are a couple of things that really work here, and they are closely related:
One is that, while he appropriately purloins the Lincoln Memorial statue, he doesn't slavishly copy the exact pose and the most familiar vantage point.
The second, related, factor is that, in this more relaxed, informal pose, he captures Mandela's genial presence, the sweetness of personality that so aided him in uniting a divided nation that could as easily descended into chaos with his ascension to power.
The simplicity of his piece, and its humanity, speak to a fact not every American cartoonist has grasped: Mandela is remembered and revered in South Africa as much for who he was as for what he did, and those two factors are inseparable.
When the news came, South African writer Max Du Preez posted an excerpt from his book, "A Rumour of Spring ," in which he wrote:
(T)here is a little bit of Mandela in most of us South Africans. He wasn’t a freak or a saint sent by some supernatural power. We are the products of the same history and society that produced a Nelson Mandela. Above all, Nelson Mandela brought out the best in all his fellow citizens of all creeds, colours and classes. He gave South Africans a glimpse of what they could be as a nation. He will remind them of that long after his passing. To me, Mandela was living proof that good can prevail over evil, that there actually is something such as a shared humanity. We’d better believe in that in years to come.
Point is, this is a personal loss, not simply the death of a prominent man. You don't have to overthink it, and you shouldn't. Just respond. Go with your gut.
For South African cartoonist Jeremy Nell, that gut response was far more powerful than anything the brain could have come up with:
"Tata" is, as you might guess, another term of endearment often applied to Mandela, the iXhosa word for "father." "Madiba" is the name of his clan; using the clan name is a mark of respect, like referring to Mohandas Gandhi as "Mahatma." "Tata" is more informally affectionate.
And I think this cartoon has some additional punch if you are familiar with Jerm's work, given that he is quite aggressive and edgy in his usual commentary, but young enough that he was only 11 when Mandela was released.
On his web site, he notes, "This is the most difficult cartoon that I have ever drawn. I didn’t want to do it."
It suggests where the new generation of impatient young South Africans stand today, and, again, emphasizes the larger-than-life, more-sweeping-than-mere-politics role that Mandela played in forming that post-apartheid nation.
Another South African cartoonist, Chip Snaddon, combines an iconic photo of Mandela, taken on a visit to his former cell at Robben Island, with lyrics from a Johnny Clegg song so closely linked with Madiba that I posted the video on Facebook as soon as I heard the news, and see that others also did so.
Again, you don't have to invent anything clever and new. Just tap into the zeitgeist. Everybody thought of that video. Use it.
Africartoons includes the original photo, the video and the lyrics (including translation) to the song. Clegg himself is worth checking out, both musically and in the context of this moment: It's not surprising so many have turned to him now.
So the cartoons have begun to appear, and, predictably, most of them aren't very good. Obituary cartoons are generally predictable and, while I don't agree with the cartoonists who utterly refuse to do them, I'd say this about the form:
Whenever you have a memorial service for some person of note, there are people invited to speak who were genuinely close, some known, some unknown. And then there are the prominent people who were invited out of a sense of protocol, though they barely knew the deceased.
You need only listen to their remarks to know who's who, and it's not entirely a matter of who knew him personally and who didn't, but, rather, who was genuinely moved by him and who simply was called upon to say something.
Ditto with cartoonists.
And at those ceremonies, there are those who speak from the heart and those who feel required to come up with something profound, and the former is always more genuine and more touching than the latter.
Ditto with cartoonists.
One more thing: Cartoonists who effect a breezy, cartoony style are at a substantial disadvantage when the subject is somber. The light characters whose whimsical appearance allows you to throw sharper barbs on most days will betray you when whimsy is inappropriate. Some of my favorite cartoonists are gonna whiff on this one because "somber" isn't in their paintbox.
UPDATE: But of course, Madam & Eve is not subject to that rule, or very many others. Here's their tribute, featuring their entire cast and I think every extra who has ever appeared in the strip, eloquently illustrating most of what I had said in, now, far too many unneeded words.
If I were an American editor in need of a Mandela obit cartoon, there are a couple I would pull out for consideration, and let me add here that, whatever your schedule or your syndicate deal, I wouldn't need one tomorrow or in three days or in four days. No, not even for the Sunday: It's Friday, and the vast majority of newspapers do their Sunday commentary section in advance.
I would need it no later than noon today. You simply have to be willing and able to say "We interrupt this program," because this is one of those moments.
So I'd check the server before I made a final choice around noon, but here are some American cartoons — besides Taylor Jones' — that I'd already have pulled out:
Now here's that video everyone has been referencing:
And here's another Johnny Clegg video that comes to mind, a tribute to a member of Clegg's band who was assassinated as part of a clan feud, and that — besides emphasizing the cultural preference for the term "crossing" rather than "death" – touches both on the multicultural nature of Madiba's nation and on its suspension in time.
The man's son now tours and performs with the band.
And so ever forward.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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