1/ I had the misfortune a few months ago of watching an HBO doc on the famed political cartoonist Herbert block. This got me thinking about the nature of political cartooning in general...now obviously this being HBO, it's was a celebration of another tired beltway/ny hack..
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4/ even the right wing ones, think the lolbertarianism of Ben garrison or Dees illustrations, all of it is so on the nose. The worst ones of course are the most mainstream types, the cartoonists for the New Yorker, watpo, etc.. really political cartoons are a form of popularpic.twitter.com/DBDT8lUnpY
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5/ anti-art. Why are the most popular forms of modern (anti) art inherently political? Now a lot of great works of the classics were and are political no doubt, but it is the intention of it...some feminist artist smearing her fluids on a canvas or some abstract painterpic.twitter.com/7sssBYwUHl
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6/ "representing the trauma of colonialism" by putting strokes on a map, etc. Have more authenticity in them than political cartoonists. Of course all of it is a form of propaganda but at least the ultra-prog bohemes in modern art attempt to invent themselves anew in art.
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7/ that is the modern artist's role in the age of debased metaphysics in the west, to invent ones own self in the void through art, despite a lions share of it being crass, inherently degenerative, or weird for weird's sake...contrast this to political cartoons..pic.twitter.com/3zaBqxkHhi
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8/ there is no self invention or exploration, there is only propaganda, only the poison of politics that infects/dissolves art, not in minor doses that can compliment the work of art or strengthen it, but a batch of poison in toto, political cartoons are an infected zombie body.
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9/ the political cartoonist in the modern age is a court jester, a page filler, operating under a corporatized global

apparatus, a visual replicator of ideology that lacks the profound insight of a real artist, but only possesses a vile "cleverness" by juxtaposing imagepic.twitter.com/jui6XfrsDV
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10/ metaphors, and not even in a good way, after all, it can't be art for it is meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator, not only appeal to but to make the mass stupefied audience "get it".pic.twitter.com/bfbR3ayR8B
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11/creating the political cartoon is an act of subordination and submission of ideology, rather than an honest exploration of politics through art, they do not attempt to stirr the viewer, they change nothing or attempt to make people think "differently" because the majority
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12/ of political cartoonists operate within and promote the preferred discourses and ideologies of the cathedral apparatus. Political cartoons that fall outside the Overton window never work or are effective, they don't have the backing of the mainstream, they are memes at best..pic.twitter.com/c4sxl9nJqO
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13/ ditto for Ben garrison... notice the word "effective", is art effective on a deeper level? Good art is (well unless you are Kant, and art should be disinterested beauty, that's another thread)..but political cartoons are effective in a different way..pic.twitter.com/P2AvAQmu8y
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14/ they are "effective" in a purely utilitarian and operational way, the way clickbait headlines are effective, designed to pull in the viewer and in a lot of cases denigrating the political subject matter because they create mockeries, simplified metaphors and memes, in short..
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15/ propaganda and nothing else. So at lest imo, political cartoonists of all stripes are not "real artists", as pretentious as that sounds.pic.twitter.com/fWlK6Go85k
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End of conversation
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