CSotD: You’re not you when you’re serious. Samizdat satisfies.
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As we begin what appears to be an inevitable shift to electronic format, political cartoonists find themselves increasingly at the mercy of deadlines.
The shift may be inevitable. Letting it impact the overall quality of work doesn't have to be.
After all, political cartoonists produced brilliant topical pieces back in the days (not so long ago) when syndicated cartoons were mailed to local papers. And they can — and do — still produce brilliant work when they focus on trends and policies rather than attempting to comment on specific events.
But the immediacy of the on-line world has created a taste for immediate commentary, and, no matter how you transmit the final work, the process takes enough time that it's hard to compete in that category with the cut-and-paste wise-assery that abounds on-line.
The result is that, if you poke around on the syndicate sites or at Cagle, you'll find some cartoons that were drawn up before last night's debate and that attempt to comment on the overall topic of debates or to predict what was going to come about.
Some are insightful, some are lame, some simply take the cop-out route of "Boy, aren't these debates something!" without actually making a point.
None made the cut here.
Again, there is plenty of room for well-thought-out, intelligent, insightful cartoons, and I'm sure we'll see some in the next 24 to 48 hours.
But even 24 hours is a long freakin' time these days, and, unless cartoonists are going to nap during the day so they can draw and post overnight, the quick-take response is increasingly out of reach.
Fact is, even then, drawing a cartoon takes longer than writing up the Monday Night Football game so you can provide next-morning coverage.
Meanwhile, while they aren't "cartoons" and they don't require a lot of artistry to create, the immediate commentary is being carried forth by the cut-and-paste gang, who were already merrily posting work last night while the debate was still ongoing.
Here's some of what popped up on Facebook last night. Think of it as a form of samizdat.
And, when I say "popped up," that's what I mean — a new page called "Horses and Bayonets" already had 1,998 "likes" as of 7 AM EDT.
I copped a few of these pics from there, but most were just in the general stream and, like good samizdat everywhere, it's hard to tell the original source unless it's embedded. So, here's a sampler and let's assume that those who wanted credit added it:
The guns-and-bayonets theme certainly dominated:
And it wasn't confined to that part of the exchange — they also picked up on Obama's "This isn't a game of Battleship" crack.
(Another similar graphic pointed an arrow at the women on this old game box, but didn't mention binders and cluttered up the graphic with more stuff. Cleaner is better and this makes the main point without distractions, even worthy ones. Anyway, this next one outscores them both.)
Romney's analysis of why Syria and Iran are such good friends did not go unremarked, and he can't blame Obama for this unforced error:
This one is more nuanced; in the op-ed, Romney does call for the auto industry to go through Chapter 11 rather than accept a bail-out, and suggests that the government could guarantee post-bankruptcy financing. Point to Romney that Chapter 11 is not Chapter 7, and that he didn't rule out all government help. Point to Obama that he opposed the bailout and that securing private money for a Chap 11 rescue in the middle of a crash was just not gonna happen.
What Obama did appears to have worked. Romney needs to back away from his position, not defend it.
Obama landed another stiff jab, and the crowd roared:
Overall, this graphic sums up a lot of the comments I was seeing throughout the night:
And then there was this summation:
Someone is going to ask — and it's a fair question — why I'm not posting pro-Romney graphic commentary.
The answer is that, while I have over 700 Facebook friends and they certainly come in all political hues, I didn't see any pro-Romney graphics.
I'm sure he will get ample back-up from conservative syndicated cartoonists in the next day or so. But this is the stuff that was running during the debate, and the conservative commentary was largely of the "did not!" variety, which suggests that they didn't see a lot of entry points.
And, just to show that it's possible for an actual artist to respond fairly quickly, Joe Sutliff had this up before seven this morning. That's not as instant as the above pieces which appeared during the debate, but the timing is not bad, even if his commentary was somewhat anticipated by the wiseguys:
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