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Opus 117: Opus
117: NOUS R US (June 15, 2003). Fantagraphics' plea for help out of its impending financial
contretemps was heeded in sufficient number of buyers of books that
the publisher is now out of the woods. The response to the appeal,
co-owner Gary Groth said, was "heartening and amazing," adding
that he was "deeply grateful for the people responding." A press release
noted that "we have moved from depression to elation to a state of
dizzying exhaustion over the course of [a] long, frenzied week." In
the wake of the week's success, Fantagraphics extended its appeal
to retailers, asking them to order books now instead of, er, later.
... Marvel prexy Bill Jemas announced on June 9 that, if sales
warrant, he is ready to reprint Trouble No. 1, the new comic
book that tells us, among other things about Peter "Spider-Man" Parker's
childhood, that he was conceived out of wedlock. If Marvel does reprint
the title, it will be its first departure from a policy of not overprinting
(or reprinting) titles, a policy that has frustrated comic shop owners
who have the option, with most publishers, of going back for additional
comic books if a title proves a better seller than they'd imagined
it would be when they placed their initial orders. Jemas allowed as
how he might authorize the reprinting of other issues of other titles,
if sales (or potential sales) seem to justify the maneuver. One of
the strategies of the current policy, which is to print only the number
of comic books ordered by shops, is to reduce waste, inventory, and
expense; an accompanying tactic, however, seems to be to force comic
book shops to order more of a given issue than they think, at first,
they might sell because if they need more copies of an issue, they
can't re-order them. ... Elsewhere: Marvel enters the young adult
fiction arena with Mary Jane, a hardcover romance novel written
by Judith O'Brien with illustrations by Mike Mayhew. ... This one you have to see to believe.
I fumed here awhile back (Opus 113) about the desecration being perpetrated
at newspapers where the The tv network for men that has begun
offering Stan Lee's "Stripperella," an animated cartoon starring
a Pamela Anderson simulacrum (whose super powers include an ability
to shoot sparks or bolts of lightning or some other sort of projectile
from her bosom), has taken the name "Spike"-that is, "Spike TV"; the
name is supposed to evoke thoughts of things masculine, they say,
but I can think only of Snoopy's misfit brother out there all by himself
in the desert with the cactuses. ... In Andrew Smith's column
in the Memphis Commercial Appeal for April 20, the good Captain
Comics (Smith) turns to the subject of Lee's engagement with Stripperella
and other recent projects, echoing imaginary fanboy alarm: Stripperella?
Where's the man's dignity? Well, Smith says, "My love and respect
for The Man is unsurpassed, but let's face it: dignity has never been
his bag. We may want him to be a phlegmatic elder statesman, but Stan
always has played to his two strongest suits: creativity and sheer
hucksterism. There's not a dignified bone in his body, and that's
always been one of his charms." Pointing to Lee's "incredible body
of work," Smith allows as how he has nothing to prove, so why not
"let the old goat have some fun" with another incredible body of work.
"He's earned it," says Smith. Hear here. ... And, speaking of hucksterism,
I'll be looking forward to the arrival in September of the "unauthorized
biography," Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic
Book, by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, whose
prospectus for the tome describes Lee as "a dazzling writer, a skilled
editor, a relentless self-promoter, a credit hog, and a huckster."
All of that, I'm sure, but also a cheerleader for comics storytelling
whose undeviating enthusiasm inspired writers and artists and created
a universe. ... Incidentally, the one-shot comic book that Humanoids
Publishing was going to produce this month, Stripperella, has
apparently been canceled. ... Women's groups in Tanzania have taken
up cartooning as a way of informing the female population of their
rights. The low literacy rate in the country gives comic books a potency
that the written word alone lacks. "Even those who cannot follow a
written story can get the message through cartoons," said Tanzanian
cartoonist James Gayo. Because of the effectiveness of the medium,
more women are becoming cartoonists in order to get the message out.
... Dark Horse is negotiating with Pulitzer-winning novelist Michael
Chabon about comic books based upon characters in his novel, The
Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay; as one of the characters
in the novel, I fully expect to be contacted at any moment, or at
least recompensed. ... "Finding Nemo" set a new record, $70.6 million
at the box office, on its opening weekend, making it Pixar's third
consecutive hit and inspiring talk about the computer-driven operation
supplanting the old hand-wrought animation of the Disney half of the
partnership. I enjoyed "Nemo": its story was intelligent and complex
(with two story threads interwoven) but cohesive, and the animation
was technically impressive. But I've never been very fond of fish
as comic characters: they're all face, and even if they dash about
a lot (which they do here), the principal action takes place on the
visage. That seems to me a cop-out. But there is undeniable liveliness
in this undertaking (unlike "Shrek," which seemed to me to plod into
near motionlessness)-enough to approach the comedic energy of Disney's
best films, which, in my view, diminished considerably after "Alice
in Wonderland" with notable exceptions like "Aladdin." ... British Prime Minister Tony Blair
took time out of his April schedule to record a few lines for his
guest appearance on "The Simpsons," which, throughout its history,
has featured a steady parade of moguls and celebrities (including
Bill Clinton and Elizabeth Taylor-but not together); Blair is a long-time
fan of the show. ... Doonesbury has set up shop at Slate.com,
hoping, we gather, to increase viewership of the strip. Said Garry
Trudeau's representatives: "It was lonesome out there [all by
ourselves] in the ether, and now we are happily nestled among reams
of sparkling content and bodacious commentary." Sponsor of the comic
strip site is Audible.com, a leading retailer of audio editions of
books, newspapers, periodicals, and public radio programs. Tony the Tiger, the Kellogg mascot for
Sugar Flakes, will be 50 this year, and his creator, Jack Tolzien,
now 82, wants his due. Through the years, at least five other personages
have claimed creation of the growling cereal schlepper, but while
the character was "developed" over months and years by various people,
Tolzien is the one who thought him up. He was working at the Leo Burnett
Agency in Chicago, and it took him about three months, he says. "Sugary,
cotton candy at a carnival-a little frosty snowman-clowns-a sugar-baby
cartoon with a wand-nothing was seeming to work," Tolzien said, recalling
the gestation period. Then "the animal thing started to work," he
said. "Rhinos and hippos were too fat. I settled on a tiger because
it could be colorful. He had no teeth and that made him friendly.
I had him saying, 'They're Gr-r-r-reat!'" Sounds like no contest to
me. Steve Sack at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune
just won the annual Headliners Award from the Press Club for his editorial
cartoons. Sack, incidentally, has recently taken to drawing his cartoon
in pencil with pencil shading, producing pictures with all the nuanced
grays that pencil can create (and that modern printing's enhanced
technology now can reproduce almost exactly). And Kevin Kallaugher
(Kal) of the Baltimore Sun won the Overseas Press Club Award
for 2002. Al Capp's comic strip character Li'l Abner
"doesn't live here" if we believe the title of a session at a recent
East Kentucky Leadership Conference. The leader of the discussion
group said people throughout central Appalachia are getting fed up
with being thought of as simple-minded Li'l Abners. "It's important
for people to realize that we've come a long way," said Ted Spears,
vice president for development at Pikeville College. The message,
said Spears, is directed partly at CBS, which is rumored to be thinking
about developing a reality tv series called "The Real Beverly Hillbillies"
that would transport a mountain family overnight to a life of urban
luxury. Garfield always celebrates his birthday,
and this year, he turns 25 on June 19; the orange lasagna-lover is
in 2,570 newspapers, which, combined with 550 licensees world-wide,
puts the feline on the map in 111 countries. Jim Davis, the
cat's creator, enjoys comics other than his own, and among them is
Darby Conley's Get Fuzzy, which, as we all know, involves
a bachelor's interactions with his pets, a gentle somewhat simple-minded
dog and a sadistic conniving Siamese cat. "I think it's hysterical,"
Davis said of the strip. "That cat has at least twice the attitude
of Garfield. He's a sociopath!" The fair use clauses of the copyright law were
examined, so to speak, in a recent exhibit at the Resource Center
for Arts and Activism in Washington, D.C. "Illegal Art: Freedom of
Expression in the Corporate Age" displayed many works that, were the
venue not a "research facility," would never have seen the light of
day elsewhere. And some-like Kieron Dwyer's Starbucks parody,
Wally Wood's Disneyworld orgy and satirical use of several
corporate mascots-when they were exposed to daylight in the past,
were promptly shut down. Michael Sullivan, writing about the show
in the Washington Post, makes a useful distinction about parody
and satire: "from a legal standpoint" parody is "making fun of an
artistic creation, such as Barney the dinosaur" while satire is "using
the likeness, or trademark, of Colonel Sander's face, as artist Aric
Obrosey does in a tweaking of advertising, to make fun of society." More
Funky Stuff.
At Tom Batiuk's second strip venue, Crankshaft, which
is drawn by Chuck Ayers, Batiuk began at the end of May to
revisit the Alzheimer's issue he first explored in 1995 when he revealed
that one of the characters, Lucy McKenzie, had the disease. "It is
not lightly that Alzheimer's is characterized as the 'long good-bye,'"
Batiuk said. "I knew going in that the Lucy's story would not be a
short or simple one to tell. It would have to not only deal with the
victim of the disease, but also with the primary care giver and extended
family and friends as well. It would also have to be told in a time
frame that didn't trivialize or minimize the devastating effects of
the disease." Lucy's illness has reached a crisis point as Batiuk
took up the story again. Her sister Lillian, caring for her, tells
her neighbor how difficult it is to watch Lucy's deteriorating condition:
Lucy has always been somewhat forgetful, Lillian explains, and now
"it's hard to know where Lucy ends and Alzheimer's begins." Says Batiuk:
"My job is to present stories that will interest and engage newspaper
readers. In doing so, I try to make the humor authentic and natural
so that my characters are reacting just as the reader might. We can't
laugh off the seriousness of Alzheimer's, but humor can be a great
poke in the eye to that terrible adversary. It is to that thought
that the story of Lucy and her sister Lillian is dedicated." At
the Mouse House.
Disney's new chief of animation, David Stainton, plans to "shake it
up" at the Burbank headquarters. The animation division, the heart
and soul of the company and steeped in tradition, has suffered demoralizing
layoffs, deep cost cuts, and the biggest flop in its history with
last fall's "Treasure Planet." To regroup, Stainton favors "breaking
the mold," and he alarmed an assembly of 525 animation employees in
April when he announced that he wants to produce lush, classic fairy
tales-perhaps "The Snow Queen" or "Rapunzel"-entirely by computer.
Said veteran animator Glen Keane ("Tarzan," "Aladdin," and "Pocahontas"):
"He's trying to steer the studio in the direction that half the artists
are afraid to go and the other half are headlong racing down that
path." Stainton was picked for the job, the fourth honcho in as many
years, because of his money-making successes with direct-to-video
projects like "Lion King II" and "Piglet's Big Movie." Although he's
not noted as a creative person, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" grew
out of his idea, his outline, and his making the case for the movie
to his bosses. Among his intentions are plans to recruit live-action
movie directors with distinctive styles to help create animated films.
One thing Stainton says he knows for sure: the Studio's core audience
is 4-10 year-olds and their parents. "If you think you're making a
movie for everybody," he said, "you're making a movie for nobody."
He said that lack of clarity of focus in "Treasure Planet" contributed
to the film's abysmal showing. The Iraq invasion cost Disney: terror fears
inhibited visits to its theme parks while reporting the battlefield
action raised operational costs at ABC, leading to a 12 percent drop
in net income for the quarter ending March 31. The bright spot was
in the movie division, which logged an increase of $27 million compared
to last year, due, presumably, to strong sales of DVDs and videotapes.
Disney's effort to unhorse the Slesinger claim
to royalties from Pooh revenues got a setback in May when a
judge ruled that a Milne granddaughter could not reclaim rights to
the bear. Had this effort succeeded, Slesinger's rights would have
terminated. (Big
THANQUES, Mike Rhodes.) FORTHCOMING. Andrews McMeel has announced the
fall publication of at least eight comic strip reprint volumes, including
Doonesbury, Dilbert, Get Fuzzy, For Better or For Worse, FoxTrot,
Zits, Baby Blues, and Close to Home collections. But the
one I'm looking forward to most is Cartoon Success Secrets: A Tribute
to 30 Years of Cartoonist Profiles. As many of you probably know,
I write for PROfiles and have for over a decade, and I've come
to know and appreciate its founder/publisher/editor, Jud Hurd.
Jud will be 91 in the fall when the book comes out, and he's spent
much of the last winter browsing through 136 issues of his quarterly
magazine, culling from them the conversations he's had with such stellar
comic strip icons as Rube Goldberg, Walt Disney, Milton Caniff,
Herblock, and on and on. It'll be a treat to have all this between
the covers of one tome. ... Checker Book Publishing, headquartered
in Dayton, Ohio, where Milton Caniff grew up, will bring out
in September the first of its quarterly 200-plus-page books reprinting
Caniff's Steve Canyon. The first volume will begin with the
strip's debut in January 1947; each volume will include about a year's
worth of the strip as well as contextual and interpretive material.
I hope the latter will be more accurate than the press release announcing
the project: it asserts that Caniff syndicated Steve Canyon himself
"under his own copyright." Not quite. He owned the strip, but it was
copyrighted by Field Enterprises and distributed by King Features;
once distribution ceased, the copyright would revert to Caniff. In
any event, having the early years of this masterwork in circulation
again will be gratifying. ... At from Top Shelf, BOP!,
more Box Office Poison stories from Alex Robinson; it's out
there already. IS
CRITICISM OF ISRAEL ANTI-SEMITIC? On Thursday, June 5, about Said Abraham Foxman, the national director
of the Anti-Defamation League (quoted by David Astor in Editor &
Publisher Online): "The image of the stereotypical, greedy, hooked-nose
Jew who is motivated by money has been a persistent theme in anti-Semitic
literature through the centuries." Foxman's view was echoed in the
uproar that ensued in print. Reader outrage prompted response from
editorial writers at the Tribune and elsewhere, and most of
them claimed that Locher had somehow crossed from pointed legitimate
commentary to blunt bad taste. The Tribune's ombudsman, Don
Wycliff, fell all over himself in his haste to condemn the cartoon.
Allowing that the "best editorial cartoons have all the nuance and
delicacy of a stick in the eye" (the "best," mind you), Wycliff asserted
that "there are lines that a cartoon should not cross." And Locher's
cartoon, he averred, crossed them. Locher, a 1983 Pulitzer Prize winner,
disagreed with the charge. "I had no slur in mind whatsoever," he
told Astor, adding that he was surprised people interpreted the cartoon
as anti-Semitic. He's not anti-Semitic, he said, and to inject an
anti-Semitic message into the cartoon would "dilute its message."
Said he: "I was trying to go to bat for the American taxpayer. Israel
is a good friend, but let's get an accounting of where the money is
going." In pondering the assorted editorial
comment on the cartoon, it's annoying to note how much verbal energy
is expended in blaming the cartoon (and, by extension, the cartoonist)
rather than the editors who published the cartoon. I'm reminded of
a story told by Jeff MacNelly, the Trib's editorial
cartoonist until he died three years ago. MacNelly didn't like attending
editorial board meetings much, but he came to them anyway. One day
after one of his cartoons had provoked outrage among readers, his
arrival at the meeting was greeted by his editor's saying, "Here's
the son-of-a-bitch whose cartoon cost us hundreds of subscribers."
To which MacNelly, not turning a hair, rejoined: "And you're the son-of-a-bitch
who published the cartoon." Yes, the cartoon was the cause of the
outcry, but the decision to publish it was taken by editors, not the
cartoonist. Most editorial comment on the Locher cartoon got around,
eventually, to assuming some measure of the responsibility (but, typically,
only after spending paragraphs deploring the unfortunate imagery of
Locher's drawing). In his rush to proclaim editorial innocence,
Wycliff managed to contradict himself, fore and aft. The intended
message of the cartoon, almost everyone agreed, employed the "road
map" analogy with the road going over a bridge. The Trib's
editorial page boss, Bruce Dold, is quoted as saying, "I think Dick
Locher intended to comment on the influence the U.S. can exert through
the foreign aid it provides to Israel. ... It also implied that the
U.S. is bribing Israel to support the road map to peace, but there
is simply no evidence to support that." And Wycliff agreed: "... money
has never been the decisive issue in the Middle East dispute." Then,
almost immediately, he offers evidence that, decisive or not, U.S.
aid to Israel is an issue. Dold was out of town at the time Locher's
cartoon was picked from a supply of syndicated cartoons to which the
Trib subscribes; the selection was made by his deputy, Wycliff
explained, John McCormick, with the help of another editor, Dodie
Hofstetter. Said Wycliff: "McCormick said he settled on the Locher
cartoon because the policy issue it depicted-the use of U.S. aid to
influence the Israeli government-was one that had often been discussed
in editorial board meetings." There may be, as Dold says, "no evidence"
to support the contention that the U.S. is bribing Israel (although
the Bush League pretty clearly did some bribing in March to enlist
multi-national support for the invasion of Iraq, so there is precedent
for the assumption), but there was evidently debate a-plenty on the
issue, so making a suggestion about the financial leverage the U.S.
has in the Mideast was clearly not an exercise in wild improbability.
At the Denver Post, which also published the cartoon and was
deluged with reader objection, editor Sue O'Brien said the cartoon's
implication was "seriously incorrect" factually; but she also said
that "this newspaper has urged on several occasions that U.S. aid
be conditioned on Israel abandoning its policy of building settlements
in the occupied territories." We may safely conclude from the Wycliff
and O'Brien testimony that using U.S. monetary aid to Israel as an
inducement to the Israeli government to conform to U.S. wishes is
a matter of discussion and commentary. Locher's supposition about
the role of U.S. aid in the Mideast is therefore entirely within the
realm of legitimate comment. His imagery, however, is undeniably flawed.
But so is the judgement of the editors who chose to publish his cartoon.
(As one editorial cartoonist, commenting on the brouhaha, said: "As
every reporter knows, the job of editors is to protect journalists
[and editorial cartoonists] from their own mistakes.") The reaction at the New York Daily
News was pretty even-handed in apportioning blame: "Granted, Locher
and his editors should have recognized that the images are familiar
ones in Nazi propaganda. They didn't because political cartooning
is a form of pictorial assault that depends on exaggeration, and editors
tend to get used to over-the-top metaphors from cartoonists. Because
the possibility of going too far is built into the business, it's
important to know a cartoonist's track record before screaming for
his head. Locher has no reputation for anti-Semitism. Another cartoonist,
Steve Kelley of the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, told
me: 'He would have had to be an idiot to deliberately insert an anti-Semitic
message into the Tribune, and he is not an idiot.' One obvious
problem with a controversial cartoon is that you can't fix it by taking
one or two things out, as you can with a column or a news report that
goes too far. You have to kill it or let it be. This means editors
are often torn between a form of censorship-like monitoring and an
anything-goes acceptance." The caricature of Sharon, if that is,
indeed, who Locher intended to depict, is scarcely up to Locher's
usual standard of deft depiction. But, as at least one other editorial
cartoonist suggested, the hawk-like beak, while distorting beyond
recognition the Sharon caricature, may have been intended to suggest
a hawkish (that is, militaristic) stance with respect to terrorism,
surely a fair representation of Sharon's policy. But it was the use
of the Star of David on Sharon's coat that probably sent the cartoon
veering off toward anti-Semiticism. Said one cartoonist: "Putting
the Star of David on a character in a cartoon doesn't just indicate
Israel but also Jews in general." (I'm quoting without giving names
here because I'm resorting to online conversations, and I didn't get
permission to quote everyone; at the same time, I don't want to claim
for myself the perspicacity of others more articulate on the issue
than I.) Steve Greenberg, editorial cartoonist
at the Ventury County Star in California (whose permission
to quote I asked and received), had the best over-all analysis of
what went wrong: "The problem with Locher's cartoon mostly has to
do with the Jewish star as the label, indicating Jews in general as
opposed to Israel in particular. I think he's supposedly drawn Ariel
Sharon (a weak caricature, and the sharp nose doesn't fit) but what
he needed to do was draw an Israeli flag-which includes the
star but also a white field with stripes above and below the star-and
not just the star. The flags of Greece and Norway have a cross
in them, but that's different from Christianity as a religion, and
the flags of Turkey and Algeria have a crescent and a star, but that's
different from Islam as a religion. A cartoon about a money-oriented
Israeli politician is fair game, but one about money-oriented Jews
isn't. By errantly using a symbol of a religion instead of a somewhat-similar
symbol of a nation, Locher brought the cartoon into shaky territory.
The moral: draw the correct symbol." While Sharon's nose probably compounded
the offense by seeming to employ another of the aged visual devices
for demeaning Jews, the nose alone wouldn't have tipped the scales.
As Locher himself observed, "Editorial cartoonists work with exaggeration."
Arafat's nose is big, too, he said, "but nobody said that was a slur." Mike Miner in the Chicago Reader
made note of the inconsistency: "Locher's big-nosed Jew was vastly
less derisive and, if you will, [less] anti- Joseph Berger in the New York Times
quotes Alex S. Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on
the Press, Politics and Public Policy, who said "it was difficult
to 'imagine a cartoon that isn't offensive in some respect to someone,'
adding that the subject of the Mideast is 'one of the most radioactive
in terms of creating offense.'" And some groups of the historically
persecuted have better protest organizations than others, Jews first
among them. Not that they are not entitled, or justified, after centuries
of benighted persecution, to have the means of protecting themselves
against the abuses of bigotry. I'm not suggesting that Jews (or African-Americans
or Mexican-Americans or any other similarly abused ethnicity or race)
shouldn't have agencies the purpose of which is to protest the defamation
of the group. They all clearly should have such organizations. The
lot of Jews has doubtless improved because of the efforts of organized
protestation. At the very least, public consciousness about bigotry
and its evils has been raised. Not enough, probably-given the evidence
of the present embroglio-but some. Arab-Americans, on the other hand,
have yet to mount an effective operation for protesting the stereotypical
imagery so often employed against them in our culture. The U.S. cultural
detritus is rife with demeaning images of unkempt, bearded Arabs wearing
sheets and towels on their heads and riding comical camels. Seeing
paved streets in Baghdad was, to many of us, a surprise. So there
is work to be done yet on behalf of humanity in all its variegated
manifestations. In the meantime, what happens to commentary
on the Mideast? The New York Daily News stated the issue bluntly:
"Suppose you think Bush really is bribing Israel to go along with
an unworkable peace plan? Is it anti-Semitic to have this opinion?
Or is it okay to think it but not okay to do a cartoon about it?" One cartoonist, pondering the problem,
opined that "editors will be very wary of putting anti-Israel cartoons
into their papers. Pro-Israeli activists are on the alert to make
sure to intimidate any anti-Israel cartoons that might possibly slip
through the cartoonist self-censorship/editorial censorship process
because it's obvious that intimidation works." Another cartoonist commented: "It's
simply a reality that certain stereotypes (hooked-nosed money-obsessed
Jews, watermelon-eating blacks, sombrero-wearing snoozy Mexicans)
are far less acceptable than others (dim-witted pot-bellied rednecks,
fat corrupt and sunglass-wearing Arabs, Quiche-eating lily-livered
French). There are lots of good reasons for this, most having to do
with the history behind the aggrieved groups. Several years back I
was in a meeting with editors wherein we discussed our company's anti-harrassment
policy, which in part strictly prohibited 'written or graphic material
that denigrates or shows hostility or aversion toward an individual
or group because of race, color, religion, gender, national origin,
age or disability.' That's when I realized I commit a fireable offense
at least three to five times a week. Most cartoonists do, I guess." That's going a bit far, I ween. Most
political and social commentary doesn't, three times out of five,
denigrate or show hostility or aversion toward an individual or group
because of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age or
disability. Denigration abounds; ditto displays of hostility. But
not because of "race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age
or disability." Still, I persist in the hope that most cartoonists
will continue to commit as many fireable offenses as they can by making
their commentary as uncompromisingly and fiercely biting as their
muse and political inclinations dictate. Intimidation must not work.
Reason must. Editorial cartoons might, occasionally-given the human
frailties that infest both editorial cartoonists and their editors-cross
the line in terms of taste. In such instances, editors, like the Trib's
Lipinski, might have to issue apologies, as did she: "I take exception
to the imagery used in the cartoon and deeply regret the anguish it
has caused some of our readers. At the same time, I know that hate
was not the intent of the cartoonist or the editors who selected it."
On June 8, the Trib carried a full-dress editorial admitting
that "we failed to recognize that the cartoon conveyed symbols and
stereotypes that slur the Jewish people and that are offensive. The
editors of this newspaper regret publishing the cartoon." At last,
the editors unequivocally take responsibility. The editorial concluded
with the sort of commonsensical observation that should always be
a guide: "The paper is put out by fallible human beings. It is written
and edited by people trying their best. We regret when those efforts
fall short." In assessing the alleged damage a cartoon
may inflict on the public weal, as Alex Jones observed, "you have
to calculate the intent and the context, and a Nazi organization issuing
an offensive image is not the same as the Chicago Tribune." And editoonists would do well to remember
Joseph Berger's remark, casually made but potent with unintended advice,
that "there is an art to hitting the mark without causing what the
military might call 'collateral damage.'" At the same time, editors must take
the ultimate responsibility instead of trying to shift the blame to
cartoonists. Astor reported that, as of June 5, no newspapers had
canceled their subscriptions to Locher's syndicated cartoons. If they
did, they would be misplacing blame-or, if not misplacing it, at least
trying to slough it off. Five months after 9/11, at the Concord
Monitor in New Hampshire, editooner Mike Marland drew a
cartoon showing Bush flying an airplane into twin towers labeled "Social
Security." The cartoon was widely condemned as blatantly insensitive
to a nation still in shock. Marland, appropriately, apologized. His
editor was fired. Appropriately. Editorial cartoonists are paid to present
opinions in the form of visual metaphors that will stick in the backs
of the minds of their readers and influence them. They should not
shrink from the obligation to make the metaphors as vivid, as memorable-as
outspoken-as possible. Editors are paid to determine what goes into
their newspapers. They decide. And they should be held responsible
for that. CIVILIZATION'S
LAST OUTPOST. Those
who opposed the recent FCC rules changes point to radio as the canary
in the coal mine that died. After the FCC relaxed radio station ownership
rules in 1996, according to the Columbia Journalism Review
(March-April 2003), 4,407 of the nation's 11,000 radio stations changed
hands. "Two companies, Clear Channel Communications and Viacom, now
attract 42 percent of radio listeners and industry revenue." Clear
Channel owned only 36 stations before deregulation; it now owns 1,225
in 50 states. The music industry is alarmed because
corporate ownership can dictate play lists for station disc jockeys.
Play lists can make bestsellers-and destroy them. The sad fate of
the Dixie Chicks in the wake of their criticism of George WMD Bush's
foreign policy is a vivid demonstration of the power of radio dj's.
The Chicks' virtual disappearance overnight from the musical airways
of the country cannot be purely a reaction to their fans' disapproval
of their denunciation of the Bush League. Public opinion polls showed,
at the time, a significant division of opinion on the Iraq Invasion;
presumably as many people sympathized with the Chicks as those who
did not. But those folks did not own the radio stations. Nor were
they likely to be country music fans, I suppose. But whether or not corporate ownership
of radio stations played a role in the plummet of the Chicks' fortunes,
it could have. And that's scary enough. In all this discursive brouhaha about
the FCC, however, the truth has yet to emerge. All the hand-wringing
about the concentration of voices and the consequent elimination of
the diversity of viewpoint essential to the informed body politic
that guarantees democracy, all the pooh-poohing of these alarms by
contradictory others who say, with condescending confidence, that
the variety of information sources is a sufficient hedge against a
monolithic view (which it isn't because this assertion assumes the
Internet as a source, and its news niches are either operated by news
media giants or by individuals whose reliability is questionable)-in
all of this, or, rather, in none of it, are the two chief motivating
opinions acknowledged. The real reasons for all the excitement?
On the one hand, Democrats opposed the changes because they fear the
proliferation of more Fox-like media outlets. And the consolidation
of media ownership opens a definite opportunity for Rupert Murdock
and other conservative moguls ("mogul" actually means "conservative"
these days) who have the wealth and power to acquire more outlets
to do so. We can only shiver in anticipatory horror about what would
happen to the Democrat party if other Fox networks cropped up and
began actively indoctrinating viewers in the conservative point of
view. But none of the Democrat critics of the FCC rules change said
anything about this, their most basic fear. On the other side, Republicans said
nothing about the real reasons for changing the rules. They say the
old rules are outmoded by technological advances, but the real reason
they advocated the change was because the big four broadcast networks
need to expand their sources of advertising revenue in order to make
up for the loss of income caused by the viewer-desertion to cable
tv. The more outlets a company owns in a city, the more enabled it
is to rake in advertising dollars. In other words, from the Republican
perspective, the issue is not about politics: it's about money. It's
about the fiscal health of big business (which, as everyone knows,
is the backbone of America). While we're flailing around about The
Media, let's consider the conservative strategy on the subject of
the so-called "liberal media." The strategy is to keep calling the
media liberal so that all outlets, print and broadcast and cable,
will be defensive about it and bend over backward to avoid seeming
to be liberal. And that effectively eliminates the voice of opposition.
If we assume that Fox News is the standard for "fair and balanced
news," then the nature of the accusation becomes clear: any news outlet
that does not reflect the biases of Fox is assumed to be biased in
favor of the liberal position. Since unbiased, objective reportage
would not reflect the Fox bias, objective reporting is perforce labeled
"liberal." Cute. And it's working. Incidentally, speaking of (or at least
alluding to) accuracy in reporting, there were no panoramic shots
of the square in Baghdad where the emblematic (and highly photogenic)
toppling of the statue Saddam took place-nothing filmed from far enough
away to reveal that the bawling multitudes applauding the symbolic
fall of Saddam consisted, actually, of a knot of probably 50-150 persons
in one corner of the square not a teeming mob of square-filling dimensions,
the impression of the pictures to the contrary notwithstanding. The
toppling took place, conveniently enough, right in front of the hotel
in which international journalists were housed, making "reporting"
the event a simple matter of sticking a camera out of the window. But the news media are beginning to
perk up, to reassert their claim to being the Fourth Estate in the
governance of the land. Long acquiescent in shadow of the Bush League's
march to totalitarian rule, the news media now sound, occasionally-increasingly,
even-an inimical note. In magazine
after magazine, we see the Bush League claim that Saddam had Weapons
of Mass Destruction being questioned, now that they are nowhere in
evidence. If, as Boy George and his minions have
begun to assert, the much touted Weapons of Mass Destruction were
destroyed just on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, why didn't anyone
in the Saddam regime say so? Surely they would have. After all, their
country was being invaded in order to eliminate those WMD; so if they
themselves eliminated WMD, then there would no longer be any justification
for the invasion, right? Why, then, would they stay silent on the
subject? There was only silence because WMD were not destroyed just
before the invasion. Probably, they were destroyed years and years
ago, just as the Iraqis have always said. And since they were never
believed by the Bush League, they saw no point in trying again. What
then, was Saddam up to with his endless gamesmanship, his balking
and then complying, back and forth, back and forth, his tirades of
defiance and protestations of innocence? Perhaps he really was hiding
WMD, and perhaps we'll eventually find them. Perhaps he was merely
maneuvering, desperately, to forestall a foreign take-over of his
country. Perhaps the ambiguity he fostered by seeming to have WMD
when he actually didn't (or vice versa) gave him, in his own mind
at least, power or political stature he felt he didn't otherwise have.
Who can say? And until we understand the Arab mind and sensibility
better, it'll be difficult for us to say with certainty anything much
about Saddam without hard, physical evidence in hand. He was a butcher;
we have evidence of that aplenty. On June 12, Ted Koppel's "Nightline"
examined the history of the WMD issue as a cause for the Invasion.
I don't doubt that the Bush League felt Saddam had the weapons; but
it's now likely that their feelings on the matter colored their thinking,
leading them to overlook all intelligence except that which supported
their conviction. Iraqi defectors told administration officials that
Saddam had WMD; other defectors told them he did not. But we never
heard about the latter. UNDER
THE SPREADING PUNDITRY. It's never been about oil. That's what the Bush Leaguers say. And I believe
them. Iraqi oil money will be used, they say, for the benefit of Iraqis-specifically,
for the purpose of reconstructing the country. Well, yes. And most
of the reconstruction, it appears, will be done by U.S.-based multi-national
companies like Cheney's Halliburton and Bechtel and others. In this coy circumstance the real nature
of the utopian neoconservative operation is revealed. It's never been
about oil. It's been about power. Whoever controls the world's oil
fields will have the power to dictate terms to others. And what does
the U.S. intend to dictate? Just this: it aims to create on a global
scale the environments, social, civic and financial, that are hospitable
to U.S.-based mulitnational companies whose sole object is to make
money for their owners and stockholders. Thus, the invasion of Iraq
is about capitalism, about entrepreneurial enterprise, simple and
not-so-pure. Not about oil. Oil is merely the symptom. For a society like ours that has thrived
on capitalistic principles, what is the harm in foisting off onto
all the rest of the world the same organizing ideas? Certainly in
the U.S., we can have little to carp about when it comes to the social
influence of capitalism. Capitalism has been the drum-beat that has
kept cadence for the march of civilization. It has brought us unprecedented
standards of living, comforts and amusements beyond the most frenetic
imaginings of, say, Third World citizens. Capitalism also gave us
Enron and Worldcom. It is, in short, not an unmixed blessing that
we seek to impose upon the peoples of the world. We have not yet quite
mastered it ourselves in this most advanced and powerful of the world's
nations. And for the effect of capitalism on
the human psyche, witness the American tv industry which dumps onto
its eager consumers a half-year of re-runs. And we have no objection.
We make no complaint. We have been numbed into submission, into happy
complaisance. Where's the outrage? We are truly robotic couch potatoes,
and as such, deserve no better. Alas. And if you are not, by now, satiated
with diatribe, you can find more about comics and cartooning lore
by starting out on our Front Page, which you can reach by clicking
here. Stay 'tooned: tour the website. To find out about Harv's books, click here. |
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