The bad cartoonist

Do you read what you post to see if it makes any sense from line to line? It’s like you’ve got three different, concurrent and sometimes contradictory conversations going on here.

You say what you’re doing is fair, but you take the stuff down. You say you’re sticking up for good work, but you’re backing down.

What’s the deal?

Of course, if or when someone files a suit, there goes BC’s cloak of anonymity.

I enjoy learning about the cartoonists’ craft from this site – the observations are interesting and thought-provoking even when I, or others, might disagree with the analysis. However, I think the use of emotionally charged language is unnecessary and unwarranted – It gets in the way of people reflecting upon the insightful and serious observations of your claims. Feel free to criticize a person’s work, but don’t attack them personally and don’t use such loaded terminology and everyone would benefit more – even those whom you evaluate. Otherwise, we have to work to look past your attacks to see if what you have to say has merit. And isn’t making the reader work hard to figure out the value of your post one of your objections about poor artistry? Cheers.

As a total outsider who is merely a fan of editorial cartoons, I found this site and the e-mail interview on DailyCartoonist.com to be immensely entertaining. I am not yet convinced that this isn’t all a grand publicity stunt for this art form, because I am enthralled. I have been clicking for more sites and learning a great deal about those involved. Why just reading the 100+ comments from the DailyCartoonist interview left me with some very useful tidbits:

A) If Wiley Miller is on fire at a Halloween party, please take off your mask before you tell him.
B) Although I usually laugh at his work, Jeff Darcy is a prick
C) Ted Rall, John Cole, Keven Moore, and Nick Anderson (and others from the thread) are undoubtedly hilarious regardless of the medium.
D) Editorial cartoonists do not seem to grasp the irony of complaining of anonymity while anonymous, nor complaining about ad homonym attacks in written form while ignoring it when it is drawn. Either that or they are excessively dry and their sarcasm doesn’t translate well into text. (which must be why they label things so damn much in their cartoons)

As member of the elusive young demographic, I again want to float the theory that this is brilliant viral campaign. Oh, and stop complaining about his anonymity. Without it, many would just now be coming down from their knee-jerk, kill-the-messenger, blind rage.

Thank you Bad Cartoonist and thank you Editorial Cartooning community.

When are you going to have a new post? Or do we have to cross-reference you not posting with a cartoonist who is on vacation to ultimately determine your identity?

Three guesses.

Guess No. 1: BC is waiting to see who bags the Pulitzer.

Guess No. 2: BC is back on prescribed meds.

Guess No. 3: BC has tired of the chase.

Bad Cartoonist, I noticed in today’s paper there was a roundup of cartoons, and three of the five were about RX drugs in the water. I went online and found many, MANY more like them. You should do a post on that.

Just a humble suggestion to prod you back into posting

…..his pants down with HEARTS on his boxers!

are you client #10?

Hmm, this blog looked promising, but appearently BC quickly lost enthusiasm…

I wonder if that chill wind Tim Robbins warned us about has cooled BC’s feet. Who would have thought that the reprisals and threats would have come from his fellow cartoonists- most of whom claim to be open minded, thoughtful advocates of debate.

“bad cartoon”

BC pointed out Matson’s knack and abuse of tuning movie posters. 10,000 BC was his latest. I wonder if he’s even aware of the formula/pattern….. and his photo makes him look pretentious….that’s my attempt at a BC zing.

Hmm…two weeks without an update.

Methinks the BC has been found out and hoist on his own petard.

Tis a pity.

Go check out the current New Yorker cover. Spitzer’s a knight on horseback with his pants off wearing shorts with hearts on them. It’s a nice painting, though.

So which brave cartoonist sent how many flying monkey lawyers to snatch BC?

Sigh…
I guess the harsh realty of Bad Cartoonist was too good to last.

I, for one, am truly disheartened that whomever Badcartoonist was has taken a powder. It’s unfortunate that such a novel approach to critiquing the work of artists that should be thicker skinned than to take real offense at having the onion of their peeled back for a peek inside. Some of the things he pointed out were very apparent, others not…and perhaps some were even nit-picky, but I thought it was done with great humor. I don’t think whoever BC was thought that he was a perfect example himself, and I do believe he was a cartoonist, though one with a bit of time on his hands.

Anyway, I’m sad he’s closed up shop and moved on…and as they used to say on a favorite TV show of mine from the past…who was that masked man?

I agree with a lot of the stuff you’re saying here. But I think you’re missing the point. You’re focusing too much on the lazy drawing style, and less on the lazy reading public. As an unpaid political cartoonist, I found that most of my readers are pretty smart, but this is only because I get the chance to also write supporting information with my cartoons. When a person just looks at the cartoon (I try to avoid labels, and overly used images) they often don’t get it. Newspaper editorial cartoonists, the one’s your most critical of, don’t get this benefit and have to get editor approval to get published. And so they have to do hack work. If readers were smarter, and brought a deeper understanding to contemporary events, then the cartoons could actually be more complex.

Here’s a collection of US Presidental race cartoons. All of them are pretty hideous.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/template/2.0-0/element/pictureGalleryPopup.jsp?id=3190981&&offset=0&&sectionName=WorldUSAmericas

Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.