DID YOU KNOW?
Thomas Nast, a famous Nineteeth –century American cartoonist, created both the Republican party’s elephant and the modern image of Santa Claus. He was responsible for repeated attacks on corrupt New York mayor, Boss Tweed. Tweed once said that he didn’t care what people wrote about him because most of his people “couldn’t read,” but that he hated “those awful pictures.” Apparently, Nast was bribed with a considerable amount of money to leave the country. He didn’t. And Tweed was voted out of office largely due to Nast’s cartoons.
In this article, you will find a power of political cartoon and how to analyze its power and message. The political cartoons reflects the humors of society, historical significance and the broader aspects of a certain issue.
Undoubtedly, the power of political cartoons is historical and undeniable. Look through newspapers and magazines for a political cartoon that grabs you, that says something you want to support or argue against.
Read the following excerpt from an article by Richard Reeves, a syndicated columnist for the Universal Press. He understands the importance of political cartoons, not only in America, but throughout the world.
A Good Cartoon Is Worth a Thousand Words
Richard Reeves
‘They tell a story about President Lyndon Johnson smiling one morning after he read a Walter Lippmann column that ripped him up one side down the other. “Why are you smiling, Mr. President?” said the least timid of his men.
“I’m glad Lippmann can’t draw,” said the president.
I wish I could – be a political cartoonist rather than a political columnist. God, how I envy them! Like much great work, cartooning seems easy if you’re not the one who has to do it. A political cartoon is simply the shortest distance between one point and one citizen.
There was a time I wrote thousands and thousands of words for the New York Times and in this column about Vietnam and Watergate, two of the big stories of the 60’s and 70’s. A few years later I flipped through a collection of the cartoons of Herbert Block and I realized, not without a sharp pain, that he, and his readers or viewer or fans, understood what was actually happening long before I and my most celebrated colleagues.
I understood then the power of a discipline that makes the creator choose. You ant really fudge it in few words. There were two sides to every story I wrote. There was one side in Herb’s work: good or bad, right or wrong, black or white.
Cartoons often say it all, answering the simplest and most complex of questions: I know what they’re saying, but tell me what’s really going on?
It’s just not fair. A columnist can write volumes, or a president can give a hundred speeches, and not be able to make sense of why the most powerful nation on the planet would celebrate its victory in the Cold War by invading the Caribbean islands or sending a half million of its best young men and women into harm’s way to restore a rich king to a tiny desert throne.
The U.S. Army has the right to keep the reporters and cameramen away from their self-defined and self-described triumphs, but there is no power on Earth capable of turning off the imagination of a cartoonist.
Factors that make cartoons meaningful
Background: What is the historical buildup to the situation that prompted this cartoon?
Target: If someone or something is being made fun of, and if so, who or what is it?
Audience and Purpose: Who or what is this cartoon directed toward? Who does the cartoonist most want to affect with this cartoon? For what reason?
Strategies: These are the humorous devices the cartoonist uses. They include irony, satire, caricature, setting, puns, bias, symbols and images. Explore these terms before you begin.
Thomas Nast, a famous Nineteeth –century American cartoonist, created both the Republican party’s elephant and the modern image of Santa Claus. He was responsible for repeated attacks on corrupt New York mayor, Boss Tweed. Tweed once said that he didn’t care what people wrote about him because most of his people “couldn’t read,” but that he hated “those awful pictures.” Apparently, Nast was bribed with a considerable amount of money to leave the country. He didn’t. And Tweed was voted out of office largely due to Nast’s cartoons.
In this article, you will find a power of political cartoon and how to analyze its power and message. The political cartoons reflects the humors of society, historical significance and the broader aspects of a certain issue.
Undoubtedly, the power of political cartoons is historical and undeniable. Look through newspapers and magazines for a political cartoon that grabs you, that says something you want to support or argue against.
Read the following excerpt from an article by Richard Reeves, a syndicated columnist for the Universal Press. He understands the importance of political cartoons, not only in America, but throughout the world.
A Good Cartoon Is Worth a Thousand Words
Richard Reeves
‘They tell a story about President Lyndon Johnson smiling one morning after he read a Walter Lippmann column that ripped him up one side down the other. “Why are you smiling, Mr. President?” said the least timid of his men.
“I’m glad Lippmann can’t draw,” said the president.
I wish I could – be a political cartoonist rather than a political columnist. God, how I envy them! Like much great work, cartooning seems easy if you’re not the one who has to do it. A political cartoon is simply the shortest distance between one point and one citizen.
There was a time I wrote thousands and thousands of words for the New York Times and in this column about Vietnam and Watergate, two of the big stories of the 60’s and 70’s. A few years later I flipped through a collection of the cartoons of Herbert Block and I realized, not without a sharp pain, that he, and his readers or viewer or fans, understood what was actually happening long before I and my most celebrated colleagues.
I understood then the power of a discipline that makes the creator choose. You ant really fudge it in few words. There were two sides to every story I wrote. There was one side in Herb’s work: good or bad, right or wrong, black or white.
Cartoons often say it all, answering the simplest and most complex of questions: I know what they’re saying, but tell me what’s really going on?
It’s just not fair. A columnist can write volumes, or a president can give a hundred speeches, and not be able to make sense of why the most powerful nation on the planet would celebrate its victory in the Cold War by invading the Caribbean islands or sending a half million of its best young men and women into harm’s way to restore a rich king to a tiny desert throne.
The U.S. Army has the right to keep the reporters and cameramen away from their self-defined and self-described triumphs, but there is no power on Earth capable of turning off the imagination of a cartoonist.
Factors that make cartoons meaningful
Background: What is the historical buildup to the situation that prompted this cartoon?
Target: If someone or something is being made fun of, and if so, who or what is it?
Audience and Purpose: Who or what is this cartoon directed toward? Who does the cartoonist most want to affect with this cartoon? For what reason?
Strategies: These are the humorous devices the cartoonist uses. They include irony, satire, caricature, setting, puns, bias, symbols and images. Explore these terms before you begin.
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Write “Follow smzaidi” send to 40404
https://www.facebook.com/Fascinator.Captivator
Write “Follow smzaidi” send to 40404
https://www.facebook.com/Fascinator.Captivator
