Yay!

[Callie]

I won first prize for my grade category in the national NewsCurrents Student Editorial Cartoon Contest. The prize comes along with a savings bond, though I don't know yet how much the bond is.

 

Here is the cartoon.

[The Mystic]

Cool!

[jecowa]

So, in this pic the US government is trying to get the terrorists, but the terrorists keep hiding in their holes?

[cfgauss]

Originally Posted By: jecowa

So, in this pic the US government is trying to get the terrorists, but the terrorists keep hiding in their holes?

But still, you have a lot to learn in terms of making your cartoons overly convoluted and nonsensical:





I DARE you to figure out what these mean without looking them up!

[Dantius]

I'll guess only on the first and third one.

 

The first one is about the slave trade and the dangers of it, most notably how any spilt between the north and the south on the donkey would also have to cause a split in democracy itself.

 

Is the third one a fifteen puzzle with mob bosses?

[Enraged Slith]

To be honest, I think it ceases to be a cartoon once you have to label anything.

[Ephesos]

I am so glad we turned image posting back on.

[Triumph]

It really tough to figure out these cartoons when you can't read the stuff written in them. Kind of not fair.

 

Number one is a post-Civil War cartoon (several little details seem to indicate that), such as all the references TO the war or postwar stuff (a ship called Alabama, a sign that I think says KKK, a reference to Jefferson Davis supposedly dressing as woman, etc). My guess would be something about...maybe U.S. Grant becoming president in the post-Civil War/Reconstruction era, and the mess he faced?

 

I'll guess Number 2 is also something to do with the Grant presidency and the corruption associated with some members of that administration?

 

Number 3 I'll guess has to do with political party/machine bosses, not mob bosses.

 

The fourth...no idea.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Triumph

Number 3 I'll guess has to do with political party/machine bosses, not mob bosses.

Maybe Tammany Hall?

Also, am I the only one who thinks #2 is reminiscent of Robin Williams?

[The Ninjas Doom]

Quote:

Also, am I the only one who thinks #2 is reminiscent of Robin Williams?

no you're not.

 

i think number three is about the C.E.O. trying to figure out what positions to give everyone in a company.

 

me think that number four is about how chicken the presedents can get now.

[VCH]

I think they're a bit out of context as well

[Student of Trinity]

Excalibur, that cartoon deserved to win a prize. It's brilliant. As soon as I saw it, I thought, "Yeah, that's exactly what's so frustrating and ridiculous about the War on Terror!". It's a cartoon that crystallizes an insight. But it isn't one of those propagandistic cartoons that simply pushes a viewpoint — looking at it, I feel no particular message about whether or not one ought to be playing the game, just a precise sense of how the game is annoying. Bravo.

[waterplant]

Originally Posted By: Optical Illusion Doom

i think number three is about the C.E.O. trying to figure out what positions to give everyone in a company.

Or perhaps an elected leader shuffling his Cabinet.

#4 could be a comment on women being elected to parliament.

[Callie]

I believe the fourth cartoon has something to do with the 1884 election cycle; hence Grover Cleveland in the white dress and James G. Blaine in the black dress. Though, I'm not entirely certain as to it's meaning. Perhaps it's referring to the sheer number of candidates named in both parties' conventions by comparing it to a beauty pageant.

 

Samuel Tilden was notable for fighting the corruption of Tammany Hall, and for losing against Hayes. Grant was a president, of course. Blaine was a representative from Maine who lost against Grover Cleveland. Bayard and Butler were people who ran against Cleveland for the Democratic nomination (Tilden's name was mentioned. Bayard also became Cleveland's secretary of state). How Grant is related to those other names is beyond me.

 

(<<has read Grover Cleveland's biography)

 

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

Excalibur, that cartoon deserved to win a prize. It's brilliant.

Thank you.

[cfgauss]

Cartoon #1

Click to reveal..

"Inspecting the Democratic Curiosity Shop"

(copy/pasted from the website I got it from which discusses it at length)

Originally Posted By: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA96/PUCK/182a.html

[...]

Each of the objects found throughout the Democratic Curiosity Shop are associated with different elements of Southern/Democratic culture; if general categories were constructed for them, one group would pertain to slavery and another to the Confederacy as a political and military system. (There are also a handful of stereotypical cracks at the South as a regional culture, like the stuffed alligator and the banjo in the upper-center area of the image.)

[...]

 

Cartoon #2

Click to reveal..

Originally Posted By: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA96/PUCK/part3.html#gallery

The dapper Conkling was a perennial target: in "The Only Baby", by Keppler's first assistant artist James A. Wales, the New York Senator can be seen with Pennsylvania spoilsman Don Cameron as nursemaids. The matronly indulgence of these two plain-jane nannies is a funny enough picture in itself, but the image is also a commentary on the relationships between prominent Republican presidential contenders and the powerful GOP managers. Roscoe and Don ignore James G. Blaine, John Sherman, and others who sought the 1880 nomination because of their infatuation with baby Ulysses; in addition, the cartoon implies that as long as they keep on feeding the baby his "3rd Term Pap" he will come to recognize their authority over him. The message about the internal affairs of the Republican Party is thus conveyed to the viewer in a familiar gender-bending context.

 

I'll leave it to you to figure out what #3 and #4 mean .

[inni]

yikes, i haven't been on for a while, great job on your cartoon, it definitely deserved 1st place.

[Drew]

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

I am so glad we turned image posting back on.

I shudder in remembrance of why it was turned off.