Each and every Friday, we invite local cartoon expert the Comics Curmudgeon to come and have a go at Today's Cartoons. Why? Because we hate fun, yes, but also because these guys get Pulitzers for drawing the president with really big ears and a trucker hat with an American flag on it.
This week: Violence! Bombs and rocks and, uh, fishing. It's all after the jump.
You know, back when Cartoon Violence was a kid, the most exciting show on TV was the A-Team. It had disguises and special plans and escapes from mental institutions and "Dirk Benedict" and lots of gunplay but nobody getting killed. And this satisfied us.
But today! With the shooting and the killing and the maiming and the torturing right on the television in prime time! So ugly and unnecessary! What about the children? Won't somebody please think of the children?
And even the newspaper -- which used to be our refuge from a violent world, with its articles about the fall fashion line and lovable dogs who kind of look like the President -- is full of nasty, nasty violence, and the editorial pages are no exception. This week, Cartoon Violence names and shames the most violent editorial cartoons out of a gruesome lot.
Type of violence: Explosive.
Victim: Our sleepy, sleepy legislative branch.
Perpetrator: Unknown. Based on the type of bomb used, we can only assume that it's an anarchist from the 1910s, or a Warner Brothers cartoon character from the 1950s.
Message: Sure, blowing up a Congressman would be bad, but wouldn't it be funny if the bomb they did it with bounced into the room with a little BOINK BOINK noise? Ha ha! BOINK! The little loop-de-loop of fuse smoke is funny too. But, um, blowing up Congressmen: still bad. Can't emphasize that enough.
Type of violence: Looming.
Victim: The much beleaguered metaphorical GOP elephant. C'mon, guys, it's just an elephant! It's not responsible for anything! It can't even vote!
Perpetrator: One lone and heavily armed U.S. soldier, here standing in for everyone involved in fighting the Iraq war. Nice work if you can get it. Sure beats, say, patrolling the streets of Ramadi.
Message: Hey, GOP, bet you wanna get all Geneva Convention now that the M16's pointing at you, eh?
Type of violence: Sisyphean.
Victim: The fair flower of youth, and probably the slightly withered flower of middle age.
Perpetrator: The extremely withered flower of senescence.
Message: Kill the old now. We can't afford them. They will pelt us with massive boulders if given half a chance.
Type of violence: Apocalyptic.
Victim: The UN -- specifically, its headquarters.
Perpetrators: Iran, with its well-known world-destruction plans.
Message: Protected by its indestructible forcefield, the UN building is the only survivor of our shattered planet. As it journeys through space looking for a new home for the last remnant of the human race, tensions rise between Secretary General Kofi Annan, who seeks to build consensus among the survivors, and US ambassador John Bolton, who sees the bureaucracy as an impediment to the crucial search for an inhabitable planet. Whose vision will prevail? Find out this season on the Sci-Fi Channel, Tuesdays at 9 p.m., right after Farscape.
Type of violence: Slapstick; suitable for an over-the-top late 80s/early 90s family comedy starring, oh, let's say Richard Dreyfuss.
Victim: A drowned and shoeless Tony Blair.
Perpetrator: In one sense, George Bush. In a larger sense, a hard-to-foresee series of events. And, in an even larger sense, Tony Blair himself. But mostly George Bush.
Message: Do you think that Tony Blair showed up for one his summits with George Bush, and Bush was wearing a blue baseball cap with an American flag on it, and he gave Blair a red baseball cap with a British flag on it, and Bush was really, really excited about it, and Blair basically had to wear it the whole time, but it made something die inside him? Because that would have been fucking awesome. --THE COMICS CURMUDGEON
