Michael Jackson

Editorial cartoonists always face a challenge when drawing a cartoon of a dead celebrity. Most times, if the celebrity in question lived a "good," or quiet life, the cartoonist draws the standard-person-at-Heaven's-Gate and somebody making a smarty-pants quip that is supposed to sum up that person's life. Presto, it's Miller time!

Conversely, if the dead individual was, say, a notorious dictator, cartoonists usually feel it is fair comment to draw them in hell, with the obligatory punch line that is intended to show what torment awaits them.

Then there's Michael Jackson. I deliberately chose to ignore the controversy which surrounded his life and stick to his genius. I think there is a time and a place for detrimental comments and I think the decision to draw a negative cartoon should only be entered into with some consideration and that should reflect the context. 

Imagine my surprise when numerous cartoonists, whom I won't name here, felt it was their privilege to, in essence, urinate on his grave. I apologize for the crassness of that last statement, but I have to emphasize the extreme lack of sensitivity on the part of some editorial cartoonists. Combined with the numerous knock-offs of the first Michael Jackson cartoons and the savagery in which some cartoonists tore into his alleged personal issues, I can't really remember a time I cringed as much and was as ashamed of this profession. 

I am no angel when it comes to Michael Jackson, as I drew some very mocking cartoons of the "King of Pop" and I do not apologize for any of them, because they were all fair comment. The difference being, he was alive. There is absolutely no purpose for drawing Michael Jackson pedophile cartoons, other than to try to appeal to a very low common denominator of fellow haters. 

Part of the equation for me, always in drawing a death cartoon, is to ask myself "How will this effect those who loved him most?" If the answer is a negative, then I ask a second question, which is "How important is this statement and can it wait for the grieving process to end?" Usually it can. 

Some cartoonists reading this are going to offended and all I have to say that if you are big enough to throw tomatoes at his funeral procession, you're big enough to suck it up, princess. You're an idiot. Now live with it.

I also realize this isn't going to endear cartoonists to buy me a beer at the upcoming AAEC convention in Seattle, but you know, I'd rather live with my conscience than deal with idiots who draw well. 

Update on Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 8:08PM by Cameron Cardow

I've received a number of interesting responses via Facebook. It appears even my friends and family can't agree on this one:

Hard call, Cam.

Many characters in history have had both a good and a bad side. Many of those who are defined in history as "pure evil" have had their decent qualities, or were geniuses. Nevertheless, those redeeming qualities have never deterred humorists from poking fun at them in life or in death.

While Michael was a musical genius, in person he was more than a tad "eccentric", with personal habits that were questionable at best, and completely unacceptable concepts of sleeping arrangements for children. I suspect that his behaviors may be a byproduct of his genius, combined with a "less than normal" childhood and home environment. These are the same factors to which many of history's dark figures can also trace their abhorrent behaviours.

Bottom line is that while he was an entertainment icon loved by millions, he was still a human being, no more or less immune from criticism than Bill Clinton or Adolph Hitler, or any other public figure - in life or in death...

-Bob

While I appreciate Bob's comments and can agree with what he says - only to a point, I still buy into your wisdom Cam on this issue and your cartoon. I know that cartoonists make their living capitalizing on the eccentricities of the famous and political, Still, in tragic death - whether planned, by stupidity or by honest means, we dobetter not to stoop to the lowest common denominator of life, but hold up to a better standard. After all, who us is any better inside than they when it comes down to it! There will be lots of comments I am sure to my stance, but it is mine - not unlike yours. Thanks for being brave enough to voice it!

-Sharon

I'm sure I'll hear more comments as it seems to be a divisive and emotional issue. 

Hats off to John Larter

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything here on the “rants” portion of my blog, although I had promised myself that I would write down my personal thoughts, post winning the National Newspaper Award for cartooning. 

For you American readers, the NNA is the Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzers, so it is indeed a high honor. 

And I am honored to be chosen this year. I wasn’t at the banquet in Montreal to accept my award, but if I had been there I would have thanked the judges, as well as my paper, the Ottawa Citizen, for letting me do what I do. This includes Leonard Stern, my Editorial Page Editor, who catches me periodically with typos, questions of taste and challenges my thinking process. He’s also the person who most likely gets to talk to angry readers on my behalf. I’ve been blessed with some good editorial page editors, and the Citizen has had a string of them since I joined them in 1998. 

Now, with all the niceties out of the way, I’ll get to the real purpose of this post and that is to express my bemusement about the fact that editorial cartoonist John Larter has never won the NNA. This is a real mystery to me, as I have been a long time admirer of his work. 

John Larter belongs to an elite group of editorial cartoonists, who are also master draftsmen. This group includes people like Roy Peterson, Pat Oliphant, Jim Borgman, Michael Ramirez and the late Jeff MacNelly. The reality is, most editorial cartoonists working today are not fit to sharpen his pencils, including yours truly. 

I first noticed Larter’s work in the Toronto Star when I was attending Sheridan College in Oakville and would marvel at his ability to caricature and draw with great precision. His work had and still has an element of playfulness that is uniquely Larter. It is a reflection of his personality, which I might add is unassuming, dare I say... humble. In my opinion, as artists, both he and Roy Peterson are in league to themselves. 

It was both through the work of John Larter and Roy Peterson that I decided to become an editorial cartoonist. In my formative years, I would often try duplicating his style to no avail and in fact, I had more success drawing like Peterson. I think that would probably still be true, although I haven’t attempted it for decades now. The truth is, there's not many cartoonists would can truly match his skill for detail. 

If I could have some influence on the judges, whomever they may be next year, I would implore them to consider his work more closely. After three decades of producing work that can only be described as tear-jerkingly beautiful, he deserves the long overdue accolades that a National Newspaper Award would bring.

I may have won the award, but I tip my hat to that unassuming guy in Calgary and express my sincere gratitude. 

View his work here. 

No Choice for Israel

Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is well-known for denouncing Israel as an illegal state and for declaring that it should be wiped off the map. Combined with this not-so-idle-threat is news that Iran is 60 days away from producing a nuclear bomb.

This would not normally be a problem, since there are other enemies with nukes pointed at each other, such as Pakistan and India and they exist under the specter of "mutually assured destruction." That is to say, choosing to launch means that you too will destroyed, therefore canceling out the option to launch. The U.S. and Soviet Union lasted decades under this understanding.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a different animal. As a devout follower of a radical strain of Shi'ism, he believes that he has been chosen by Allah to set up the conditions to bring back the Twelfth Imam, or Mahdi. Those "conditions" are to bring the world to the edge of destruction so that the hidden Mahdi may return to rule the planet and restore Islamic law. Therefore, it can be assumed that the old restraint of mutually assured destruction will not work with him.

When Ahmadinejad returned from a speech he gave at the U.N. he said:

one of our group told me that when I started to say "In the name of God the almighty and merciful," he saw a light around me, and I was placed inside this aura. I felt it myself. I felt the atmosphere suddenly change, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink. … And they were rapt. It seemed as if a hand was holding them there and had opened their eyes to receive the message from the Islamic republic.

Based on the evidence, it is my opinion that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is capable of mass murder and will launch a nuclear strike against Israel if he is not stopped immediately. Unfortunately, this means Israel will need to conduct a first strike to take out Iran's deeply embedded nuclear compounds and this also means a war with the Arab world. If Israel waits, Tel Aviv will most likely be the first target. Either way, Israel loses. Ahmadinejad knows this and he is perfectly situated to do exactly what he believes he is ordained to do.

According to the London Times, Israel is currently conducting massive military exercises in preparation for a conflict with Iran. This combined with various reports of Israel taking possession of U.S.-made bunker busters, it is clear that something is up.

I am convinced that we will see a war this summer and it will be huge. Worse yet, I foresee the possible use of theater nukes in order to take out the Iranian facilities and of course, the world will blame Israel. Once they do this, the Arab world will have the Jihad they've been asking for.

There is no choice, sorry to say.

The Return of Feudalism

In case you're not up on current events, there is a revolution taking place in how we work, bank, receive information and are entertained, called -- you guessed it -- the Internet. Old paradigms are being made obsolete overnight and a new age of commerce is being formed right in front of us.

In this new age, content is king and those with the most content truly will be kings. Presently, those who have the most content are still primarily the movie industry, record labels, game developers, service providers and software makers. These are your new overlords and they will rule the land with a iron fist in order to keep what is theirs, theirs.

Vast numbers of refugees from the old places of employment, such as newspapers, hoping to find means of income from Internet endeavors, will find heavily fortified fortresses, surrounded by moats made of product activation protocols and guarded by armies of lawyers. These refugees will become the new serfs in the Age of Information, because unless you have content, you will be, as it were, out of luck and out of money.

There is still plenty of room on the Internet to carve out a niche and do well, but it is clear that intellectual property in all its forms will be the new commodity.  As it comes into the possession of the new-age kings, it will be guarded like gold. Welcome to the return of feudalism. The kings, barons and knights of the coming age will pretty much own most of the Internet real estate, as they already do, and everyone else will either pay homage, or need permission to survive.

Remember unions and guilds? Gone and if you get too uppity while producing content for your lords, they'll just give your work to eager workers based in India, China and the myriad of other third world citizens who are now coming online.

Which brings me to the Swedish court's decision against the Pirate Bay. I think it is a clear indication of the power the new-age kings in the entertainment industry have to enforce copyright laws in a country like Sweden. It is also clear that Sweden's government was forced by external forces to make an example of the four young founders of the Pirate Bay. There is no doubt in my mind, that in order to show their power to other invaders, the prosecutors acting for the movie industry, asked for and received, impossible penalties for the offenders to pay. It reminds me of how Vlad the Impaler would stick corpses on poles around his castle as an example to anyone else who crossed him.

Back in the day, barons and other lords could pretty much do what they wanted to serfs. Of course, we're more civil now, so instead of public crucifixion, they just sue them into oblivion.

Now the question is, how will the entertainment industry go after Google, since Google has the same ability to track illegally uploaded torrent files? My guess is that, unlike the Pirate Bay, a concession will be made by Google on this, as they too are a new-age king. It's easy to kill a serf, or two, but going after another king is a bit more risky.

The whole point of caste systems is to maintain the ability of the few privileged to herd the much larger masses of those in lower classes. Lords will happily negotiate with other lords because it is in their interest to do so, because they are, in a way, enabling each other to maintain control.

I have no problem with content producers protecting their content, but I do have a problem when the case is based on a dubious premise and where another much-larger offender exists who remains untouched. It is bullying and intimidation to prove a point to the rest of you serfs.

And you are all serfs.

Survival techniques for editorial cartoonists

It’s no secret that newspapers are facing the biggest crisis they’ve ever experienced, particularly in the U.S. and that they way they are handling the drop in advertising revenue is to lay off staff. Particularly hurt are editorial cartoonists, who are not considered essential to the production of the paper. If you read Cagle’s blog with any frequency, it is becoming an obituary for cartoonist’s careers, with layoffs occurring at an extraordinary rate.

It is difficult for many of us who have been in this business to witness this in light of what editorial cartooning used to be. In the golden years, which I think occurred in the late ‘70s to early ‘90s, editorial cartoonists were highly-esteemed and well-paid members of the editorial board, often answering only to editors. The perception was that editorial cartoonists were fly boys, while the rest of the staff considered themselves as doing the grunt work. Ah, yes, the glory years...

Well, those days are over and newspapers no longer esteem us the way they used to. Syndicates such as Cagle Cartoons and Artizans in Canada, have brought cheap, plentiful cartoons to newspapers seeking to fill a hole in the text and editors have been inundated with similar cartoons on similar topics. There is very little to esteem, it seems.

The fact of the matter is and while many cartoonists will deny this, thievery is an everyday occurrence. You can blame the Internet for this, just as you can blame it for the demise of newspapers. Unfortunately, there is no going back to what used to be and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better and the bad news here is that I doubt it will get better.

In fact, I envision a future world of editorial cartoons being produced by very untalented people for very little money. That is, of course, they can convince the editor to replace the photo many papers are now running in place of the cartoon. Most talented kids coming out of college are not going to waste their time investing their lives in a career that provides little reward and will be attracted to where the money is. Right now, that is in video game production, animation and the like.

So, the question is, faced with almost-certain demise of this once-proud profession, what is an cartoonist to do? Let’s face it; there isn’t a lineup of employers looking to hire professional cranks who can draw funny-looking people. Some editorial cartoonists do have transferable job skills and may indeed find employment somewhere, but the vast majority are, as they say, up the creek without a paddle.

Some, such as Halifax cartoonist, Michael DeAdder, after losing his job when the Halifax News closed its doors, reinvented himself by expanding his repertoire to include weekly cartoon videos for the local CBC. The cartoons have been popular and DeAdder has blazed a trail for other cartoonists to consider -- video production.

Of course, the problem with video is that it takes an enormous amount of time and requires a completely different skill set than what is needed to draw static drawings. But video production and Flash animation ability will be tremendous assets for new online economy and should be considered by any cartoonist who wants to survive this revolution.

The other assets will include the ability to self-promote using the Internet. Heck, the way I figure it, the Internet got us into this mess, it should get us out. This will include setting up a website, blogging, podcasting, selling merchandise and whatever else the enterprising cartoonist is capable of doing.

I’m not going to lie about this: This is going to be a very hard time for many editorial cartoonists to transition from and this year will be difficult to watch, as so many more good cartoonists will be forced to consider new ways to support themselves.

The point is, now is the time to prepare. Even if you, as a cartoonist reading this, manage to survive this economic crisis, it is in your best interest while you still have a good income, to invest in some job skills other than drawing people with big noses.

As for editorial cartooning, it may survive, but in a different format. Think online.