Vote For Chicken Little
I don't consider myself a political cartoonist. I'm just trying to be funny. Still, if a cartoon carries implications beyond the obvious "gag," or if a viewer perceives a deeper meaning, so much the better. Sometimes all it takes to turn humor into an editorial statement are a couple of labels. Put the words "global warming" over the crater, and write "Bush administration" on the rooster, and voila, it becomes political commentary. Actually, there's more than one impending disaster that the crater can symbolize. The scary thing is that one could write "liberals" on one chicken, label the other "conservatives," and call the crater anything that suits your agenda. On the other hand, you could think of the rooster as "liberals and conservatives," and the crater as everything that cries out for creative solutions but gets ignored as both sides indulge in the empty rhetoric, posturing, and squabbling they think will help them in the next elections. For me, though, it's just a cartoon about Chicken Little.
posted by John M Crowther @ 7:11 AM
5 Comments:
The character of Chicken Little is often erroneously credited to Aesop, but, as Wikipedia informs us, “the basic motif and many of the elements of the tale can be found in one of the stories in the Jataka, a large body of folklore dating from the third century A.D. associated with the Theravada Buddhist tradition. However, that version features a rabbit as the central character rather than a chicken.” Somehow the image of a rabbit (Bugs Bunny?) running around shouting “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” is no where as dramatic as having a small chicken doing so, particularly that long-legged creature John has drawn.
This little guy is reminiscent of the chicks my older brother and I got as Easter presents when we were lads. Mine thrived while his got weaker and scrawnier. My chicken eventually pecked the little one to death, and was sentenced to pay for the crime. She was murdered and fried along with a store-bought chicken. I refused to eat that night, even though the family kept insisting there was a way to tell which was mine.
>>I refused to eat that night, even though the family kept insisting there was a way to tell which was mine.<<
I always wondered what Doctor Schweitzer meant exactly by Reverence for Life, and now I know. There is an old gospel song that goes His Eye is on the Sparrow. Yours was on the Chicken. God bless you!
Color, no less! And it is political, and it is funny, and you should send it to Dick Cheney.
W
Love your comments, il professore. Holy Molely, John, would not have been able to eat chicken every again so my sympathy to you on the terrible tragedy of your poor little chicken.
Your work is getting very impressive and I love the little touch of colour. Not too much but just enough. I am not sure what is going to happen to our country but know that truth, kindness and caring is considered a weakness now. I am saddened by what is happening and it is not just the right or the left, they have all gone crazy. Not much to choose from on either side. How did Hilary go from being the golden child to third in line? Instead of all of us going to the polls, why not just let the best PR agent elect the next president.
Great commentary as usual.
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