September 29, 2010
Daryl Cagle On American Cartoonists Vs. International Cartoonist Redux
The objections
here and
here to
Daryl Cagle's recent essay on the differences between American cartoons and those in the rest of the world made me go back and re-read it to see what I missed. What I remembered was being grateful that someone mentioned these cartooning contests and placed them in a professional context, which I'd never read anyone doing before and had left me wondering if people in different countries simply just liked contests. On a second read, I don't really see the exclusion of UK cartoonists as any big deal except in a Nerd Court way: I think most people would understand the broad distinction Cagle was making and not nail him down on objectionable particulars. On the other hand, there is more a derisive tone about the world cartoonists that I didn't see the first time I plowed through -- the "actually" in "actually making a living" and the added description of wordless, broader-point cartoons as "daisies in the gun barrels" cartoons. The biggest weakness I see with the essay is that it conflates the idea that different cultures focus on different issues with the perhaps uniquely American appetite for a certain kind of declarative lack of ambiguity. I think those are two completely different things, and neither one of the flattering to cartooning as practiced in the U.S.
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