To link to a posting on Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, some notes on Watterson’s favorite political / editorial cartoonists, Pat Oliphant and Jim Borgman.
On Oliphant, from Wikipedia:
Patrick Bruce “Pat” Oliphant (born 24 July 1935) is an Australian editorial cartoonist whose career spans more than fifty years. His trademark is a small penguin character named Punk, who is often seen making a comment about the subject of the panel. In 1990, the New York Times described him as “the most influential editorial cartoonist now working”.
Two Oliphant cartoons:
(#1)
(#2)
#1 is on climate denial; see my recent posting on the topic. #2, on immigration reform, visually incorporates the metaphorical idiom beat/flog a dead horse.
On the idiom, from Wikipedia:
Flogging a dead horse (alternatively beating a dead horse, or beating a dead dog in some parts of the Anglophone world) is an idiom that means a particular request or line of conversation is already foreclosed or otherwise resolved, and any attempt to continue it is futile; or that to continue in any endeavour (physical, mental, etc.) is a waste of time as the outcome is already decided.
In the flog variant, the idiom traces back to English politician and orator John Bright in the mid-19th century.
On Borgman, from Wikipedia:
James Mark Borgman (born February 24, 1954) is an American cartoonist. He is known for his political cartoons and his nationally syndicated comic strip Zits.
… His body of work has included the weekly comic strip “Wonk City,” which ran from 1994 to 1996 on the editorial pages of The Washington Post. A surreal send-up of inside-the-beltway mores during the administration of Bill Clinton, many of the cartoons featured a cat involved in behind-the-scenes political skullduggery.
Borgman treats the Cincinnati Enquirer as his home base and produces regular cartoons for the paper on very local subjects. Meanwhile, readers of this blog will have seen a great many of his Zits drawings. And here are two of his political offerings:
(#3)
(#4)
In #3 we have Obama’s advisers coaching him in George W. Bush’s speech style, to appeal to Texas voters. #4 is about the effects of the way information is presented: bigger size, bigger substance.
Leave a Reply