Cartoon Violence Thinks You're A Real Prize
Mere weeks from these epic midterm elections, America's cartoonists are working feverishly to make sure you, the voter, are completely nonplussed by the political landscape. We've invited the Comics Curmudgeon to re-plus you, with the help of some of the finest of Today's Cartoons .
After the jump, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert in large cartoon pots, plus perverts.
So, you all probably think that we here at Cartoon Violence hate everything. "It's always 'crappy art' this and 'incomprehensible symbolism that,'" you say. Well, that's justnot true!Wecouldanswer your criticisms in our usual way -- by mocking and belittling you as we mock and belittle America's political cartoonists. But instead we're going toprove you wrong!Yes, this week we're actually presentingawardsto various cartoons for various achievements. They're just like the Oscars! Except that the recipients won't actually be aware that they've won, and probably won't like it if they find out. And there will be no hot people in sexy clothes chatting up Isaac Mizrahi on the red carpet. Oh, and some of the awards will actually be attempts to insult and belittle the recipients, because we hate them.
Don't say a word, you.
Anyway, on to the big show!The envelopes please!
Category: Best incomprehensible holiday-themed election analogy.
Winning qualities: Coming as it does in the first week of November, Election Day is traditionally associated with Halloween. But this cartoon shifts focus to Thanksgiving, which comes soon enoughafterthe election that most families can manage to get through seven straight hours of binge eating without getting into fights about politics -- a bold if puzzling move. The depiction of the pilgrim as bearded, when the puritans were almost universally clean-shaven, further pushes the envelope.
Nice touch: The backwards-R/ee-for-y on the Republican turkey's crude sign. It's a truism that cartoon animals can always miraculously learn to write, but only at a four-year-old's level.
Category: Best cartoon involving Dennis Hastert in a barrel (filled with dead fish division).
Winning qualities: The hideously lifelike depiction of the dead fish, with their horrifying, soulless eyes, slimy discharge, and visible stink lines, truly brings home the gruesome cylinder of rotting sea life that is our nation's legislature.
Nice touch: Hastert appears to be wearing either a wrestling uniform or a wifebeater undershirt. Either would be hilarious.
Category: Best cartoon about North Korea's nuclear test, period.
Winning qualities: Other cartoonists made light of Kim Sung-Il's hair and his stature, the UN's timorousness and George Bush and Bill Clinton's diplomatic failures. Only Danziger has the guts to take a comment on the test's impact on local East Asian politics and wrap it up in a fart joke.
Nice touch: The range of facial expressions, from feigned ignorance to open disgust -- and stinky Kim's sheepishly triumphant little smile.
Category: Best cartoon involving Dennis Hastert in a barrel (not filled with dead fish division).
Winning qualities: At last, someone finally recognizes that Hastert needs to not be condemned, or defended, or criticized, or scrutinized for what he did or didn't know, but rather harvested for his rich nutritive qualities.
Nice touch: Naked, angry Hastert is showing a sexy thatch of chest hair. Also, the cannibal elephants have visible nipples. Neither of those sentences are sentences that I ever thought I would write, and now that I've written them, I'd prefer to never write them again, if at all possible.
Category: Best depiction of anthropomorphic animals as perverts.
Winning qualities: Both Dem Donkey pervert and GOP Elephant pervert have a wonderfully depicted sheepish pervert quality: the one eye larger than the other, the feeble little wave. Subtle and classy.
Nice touch: Somewhat less subtle and classy: both had their pants untucked. Why might that be? DON'T THINK ABOUT IT ... uh-oh, too late. --THE COMICS CURMUDGEON