Tom Spurgeon's Web site of comics news, reviews, interviews and commentary











April 26, 2007


Comic Strip’s Black Face Image Sparks Discussion of Appropriateness

imageThis Chris Muir cartoon's depiction of Hillary Clinton in blackface, a commentary on the presidential candidate's attempts to reach a black audience through things like inflections of voice during speeches that has been criticized by a wide variety of pundits. Here's one such article. Dirk Deppey at Journalista! has a veritable cowboy-style blogger drive today rounding up various emerging takes and opinions on the story (scroll down to Digital Media).

I think there are two thing worth noting about the issue. One is that this will be compared to a previous incident where a blogger put black face on a photo of Joseph Lieberman, which should make for some compelling distinctions between photos and cartoons and intent of satire. The other is I don't know Chris Muir or his basic set-up and situation, but I believe Day by Day is self-syndicated and gets most of his traffic on-line, where it's a well-respected veteran of the webcomics world. If that's the case, this might be the first time when a comic ended up in a story like this one without the traditional avenue for complaints through a newspaper and its advertisers or fear of losing clients through such a complaint. Okay, I admit that may only be interesting to me.
 
posted 10:14 pm PST | Permalink
 

 
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