Art & Criticism

Tom Spurgeon is disappointed no comics creators were present in a NYT article about Edward Gorey:

That’s what it seems like reading this New York Times profile of Edward Gorey, anyway, as authors and designers line up to claim his influence, without a cartoonist in sight. I’ve said this before, but it intrigues me that someone whose major works embody both the Scott McCloud (sequential narrative) and RC Harvey (verbal/visual blend) definitions of comics gets so little mention by and, actually, seems to have little direct influence within, the medium in which he seems to have worked.

I wonder if this is an example of comics not claiming its own, or more a case of the NYT not letting cartoonists in to the party. Neil Gaiman is quoted, but only as the author of Coraline, not for his comics work, which has its Gorey influences as well. More generally, with a respectable cartoonist like Gorey, there is as much a tendency for the wider art world to seperate him from his comics context is as there sometimes is for the comics world to disown him. It’s a pattern we’ve seen time and again, with people like Gorey, Al Hirschfeld or Charles Addams, or even Art Spiegelman with Maus.

Obsolete ideas about high brow art versus low brow commercial product still determines the framework in which we think about comics and individual cartoonists. From a comics theory point of view whether a cartoonist’s work is published in in the New Yorker or Action Comics might not matter, but in practise it does reflect on how people percieve him: as a caricaturist/social commentator working in a highly respected tradition of satirical drawing dating back to at least the 18th century or as just another hack doing work for a medium held in contempt almost from its inception. Consciously or unconsciously, this sort of consideration will have helped shaped that NYT profile. Because Gorey was published in respectable, high art venues, the sort of people that will be asked to provide quotes for this profile will be novelists and film makers rather than cartoonists.

At the same time, with creators that do manage to break out of the comics ghetto something more insidious happens. From Spiegelman onwards, what you see is that their work is decontextualised, treated as a singular occurrence rather than as a work of art which is part of a wider tradition. Again, this is not necessarily done consciously, but just part and parcel to the way in which the respectable media ignore the low rent comic book. That usually, something like Maus or Fun Home is respected more for its subject matter than its strengths as a comic.

In the comments to the previous post, Tom Spurgeon responded to my criticism of Phil Hands and the idea he deserves kudos for his cartoon:

Martin, this still makes no sense. I’m not praising the cartoon itself in any way, shape or form, so to counter this by saying, essentially, “it’s a bad cartoon; why does it deserve praise” is silly no matter how many paragraphs you say it in. Disparaging every aspect of what a person does because you think little of their political views or their skill as a cartoonist is a Fox News tactic. It’s what Rush Limbaugh does.

To restate: if we take him at his word, this is an honest expression of a specific political idea that runs counter to his general political leanings, and, on top of that, will likely earn him no amount of shit from his readers — and, as we likely both agree, history. He’s also going to have to watch people with whom he generally disagrees praise the cartoon to the skies. Heck, he’s even having his motives disparaged in tweets and blog posts from a guy not even in the US!

I think that specific kind of honesty is brave, whether or not someone is right or wrong, and I’d prefer every editorial cartoonist work the same way even if the cartoons don’t end up hitting on the best side of an issue. We have all sorts of editorial cartoonists in this country that are so terrified of being criticized that they don’t have any opinions at all, let alone ones about which they’re conflicted, and spend their days trying to find the most politically expedient way not to say anything at all. If you don’t agree that this is a virtue, fine, but please disagree with that point, not some made-up fantasy one that I think this is a good cartoon.

That’s what I’ve been trying to do, but I think I haven’t made myself clear enough. We both agree this wasn’t a good cartoon; I never thought Tom was arguing otherwise. What I was trying to do in my original post was showing my reasons for both disliking the cartoon itself and why I thought it was wrong to single out the cartoonist for praise for sticking to his personal opinion. For one thing, I’m not convinced his justifications add up, as I said in the previous post. If it was such a personal and conflicted view on Wisconsin, why did it so badly misrepresent the situation in service of a bog standard rightwing myth about crybaby hippies? It didn’t leave me feeling charitable towards Hands, which is why my interpretation of his remarks is so much more harsher than Tom’s.

But I also do not agree that a cartoonist — or anybody — sticking to their personal opinion is necessarily a good thing, if that opinion is ignorant or malicious. As cian also noticed, Hands is either ignorant or deliberately misleading in his cartoon: not something that should be lauded just because it is his honest personal opinion. To give a Dutch example, Geert Wilders is either sincere or just trolling for votes with his Islamophobia. Should we find it admirable if the first is the case?

So if we do give Hands the benefit of the doubt, will his honesty be a good example to other cartoonists if it still leads to the same sort of cliched cartoons as the one we’ve been discussing? Because from where I’m sitting it differs little from those resulting from cartoonists “trying to find the most politically expedient way not to say anything at all”. It doesn’t tell the truth, it doesn’t say anything new and it uses the same old dirty hippie cliches any other cartoonist could’ve drawn on autopilot.

To conclude, I do understand much better where Tom is coming from and why he wanted to highlight this particular cartoonist, even if I still don’t agree. I’m glad he took the time to comment; he didn’t have to after all.

I’m not sure I understand why Tom Spurgeon thinks Phil Hands deserves kudos for drawing this cartoon. As a cartoon it’s neither interesting nor funny. The struggle in Wisconsin is about a Republican governor introducing legislation that would take away the right of public employees to organise and withhold their labour, a fundamental right of any worker without which they (we) are not much more than slaves. How does Hands depict this? By making the public employees into a a stereotypical greying hippie screaming his head off because governor Walker (bemused but resigned to the hippie’s childish temper tantrum) is going to cut off a tiny bit of his ponytail. As art it’s mediocre, a cliched, simplistic rightwing take on what’s happening in Wisconsin.

Because Hands’ cartoon is an explicitely partisan political take on Wisconsin, with little intrinsic artistic merit, it has to be judged on its political intent much more than its artistic intent. It’s therefore no surprise that most people will judge this cartoon this way: finding it funny if they agree with its message, not so much so if they disagree. There is no neutral way to view this cartoon, as it is not neutral itself. Which is why I don’t understand why we should worry that people will “discuss the cartoon as the latest salvo in an abstract, unserious political/cultural war far too many people are fighting” — it has already taken sides itself.

Which is also why it doesn’t make sense to praise him for, as Tom Spurgeon puts it “apparently sticking to his personal perspective when making cartoons about the political turmoil in his home state rather than working with points of greater consensus in mind”. Hands is putting forward a reprehensible political view in his cartoon, why should he be praised for expressing this? Especially when he also pre-emptively declares his victimhood by saying: I know this cartoon won’t make me very popular, but that’s OK. I didn’t become an editorial cartoonist to win a popularity contest. I became an editorial cartoonist so that I could use my modest drawing skills to express my political viewpoint.

That’s little different from what every unfunny bigot says at an office party: “I know it’s not p.c., but”, expecting to be praised for his bravery in telling the truth about those people when in fact it’s about the least brave thing they could ever do. It takes no bravery in repeating rightwing talking points, it wasn’t Tobey Keith whose career got in trouble for his pro-war stance, it was the Dixie Chicks for their anti-war message. Hands is not courageous for drawing this cartoon; his career won’t suffer for it. Why should we respect or defend his views when they’re lazy, rightwing cliches that take no great courage to put to the page?