The World of Cartoonists

Looks more interesting than I realized (Calvin and Hobbes rules!):

The most respected world cartoons are wordless; the cartoonists believe cartoons are a universal language, understandable by all. In fact, there is quite a wide culture gap – most world cartoons look strange to an American eye and we have a hard time finding world cartoonists to syndicate, whose work can be understood by our audience... 

Unfortunately, American cartoonists rarely participate in international competitions, giving many of the cartoonists around the world the idea that we are aloof elitists. When we look at these contests, American cartoonists see a foreign style that doesn’t fit with our taste. The world cartoons typically are paintings – nice illustrations of ironic scenes, contrasting the rich vs. the poor, the violent vs. the peaceful, the powerful vs. the powerless, and the oppressed vs. their oppressors. We call these “daisies in the gun barrels” cartoons. In recent years the international cartoons also focus on illustrations of technology vs. people who are not technologically advanced, and environmental sensitivity vs. insensitivity. 

In the USA we draw wordy, joke cartoons about Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears with no underwear, Obama, elephants and donkeys. If Americans were to enter the foreign contests, our cartoons would be ignored as out-of-step with the world aesthetic.  It isn’t hard to understand why we don’t enter these strange contests.

The cartoons included in the post are worth a look.