Cartoon Violence Destroys The Treasured Myths Upon Which Your Reality Is Based

January 26, 2007 03:05 PM

Each week, the Comics Curmudgeon helps explain Today's Cartoons.

Cartoons are an undeniably great way to transmit concentrated bursts of information and making them stick the minds of the simple reader. Unfortunately, only the cartoonist's code of ethics prevents him or her from using that power to spread truth instead of lies. Do you think the Soviet Union stayed afloat for seventy years because its populace was familiar with and supportive of Marx's economic theories? No, it was all the socialist realist art with ruddy-cheeked peasants harvesting grain under the beneficient gaze of Uncle Stalin! Similiarly, many of us who grew up watching Warner Brothers cartoons believed that rabbits travel rapidly across the country by digging tunnels just under the Earth's surface, and sometimes dressed in drag and kissed men, only to find out in college biology class that none of that was considered accurate by scientists.

Too many political cartoonists have decided to spread a pack of lies across America's editorial pages. This week, Cartoon Violence fights back with its own patented brand of truth.

Vicious lie: Vice President Cheney is an angry old bastard who would kick an innocent dog.

The real deal: Vice President Cheney is a soulless monster who is spearheading a secret NSA program that seeks to genetically alter our household pets, turning them into monitor drones and/or killing machines. These transformed entities are valuable assets and must not be harmed.

Vicious lie: Americans are still well acquainted with the minutia of the Starr Report and of Bill Clinton's sexual relationshop with Monical Lewinsky, such as the fact that he gave her a copy of Leaves of Grass.

The real deal: Americans hate poetry, literature, and all forms of culture other than Girls Gone Wild so much that they refuse to read or even remember the existence of Leaves of Grass despite the fact that it's all about blow jobs.

Vicious lie: A good idea for a cartoon is one in which the president and and a random citizen have a boring, wordy discussion against a blank background that mainly serves to lead up to an awful, pointless alliterative quasi-pun.

The real deal: This is not, in fact, the case.

Vicious lie: The average newspaper reader will see the abbreviation "MSM" and know right away that it stands for "mainstream media" -- specifically, the libero-communo-Islamofascist media conspiracy that wants to run the president down from the behind.

The real deal: The average newspaper reader, unfamiliar with this newfangled blogspeak, will see "MSM" and assume that it retains the meaning it has had in public health discussions since the early 1990s: "men who have sex with men." They will assume that the two behatted gentlemen in the truck have just finished sodomizing one another. They will understand that they want to run the president down from behind, though.

Vicious lie: Barack Obama is a literally Christ-like figure, who is capable of walking on water.

The real deal: This is really more of a misunderstanding than a lie. Like most Chicagoans, Obama enjoys a pastime known as "strolling the lake." During the Windy City's eight and half month winter, many locals like to saunter out onto the icy surface of Lake Michagin in a tradition that got its start when thousands of impovershed Irish immigrants fled the Great Fire directly onto the frozen lake. Less than one in ten "lake strollers" end up dying of hypothermia, keeping the gene pool of the "City of Big Shoulders" strong. Chicago native Hillary Clinton looks on enviously, as her adopted home of Chappaqua has banned all colorful traditions, claiming they lower property values.

Vicious lie: When the Arctic icepack vanishes due to global warming, adorable polar bears will find themselves on dry land and will be forced to adorably strap ice trays to their darling little paws, making cute little sad faces to register their utterly charming discomfort.