Originally published at: Ward Sutton's faux conservative cartoonist "Kelly" goes highbrow in LA - Boing Boing
…
6 Likes
Yes … Ha ha ha … Yes!
24 Likes
I love the Mark Kelly cartoons. There’s this amazing worldbuilding going on where it becomes apparent that the “problems with the world” that the cartoonist draws are either a) Hacky decades-old political tropes from the cartoonist’s youth, b) Petty gripes about something that happened to him earlier that day that he’s still mad about, or c) Weird fantasies about personal glory and tiny past successes being blown way out of proportion. It’s pretty brilliant work.
11 Likes
As already noted, Mr. Sicko at the window is an all-time classic.
10 Likes
Given how insane real right-wing political cartoons are, parodying is a tricky business, which he absolutely pulls off.
It’s funny, I was sure that Mr. Sicko came from a Chick Tract (with false memory of the specific comic context, no less), which just shows how on-the-nose this stuff is.
9 Likes
A running bit in the 1999 book Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America’s Finest News was that every political cartoon was drawn by some hack doing a variation on “[Existential Threat] is raping Lady Liberty!”
“Kelly” carries on a similar gag in his cartoons except that each one shoehorns in a weeping Statue of Liberty to make the point. It really does capture the utter lack of creativity and nuance in many prominent right-wing political cartoons, like how Michael Ramirez has basically built a career out of drawing large and/or scary things and labeling them “National Debt.”
8 Likes
I have to wonder if the topless angels in the obituary cartoon are a nod to the Doonesbury collection Give Those Nymphs Some Hooters!, which featured Turnip on the cover and was published in 1989.
7 Likes
Am I Mandela effecting another cartoonist that “Kelly” was a parody of? Maybe I just saw one out of context and was too put off to pay attention before seeing it in the Onion.
2 Likes
Roy Doty?
1 Like
The lazy and prolific labeling is very Ben Garrison.
6 Likes
Yep.
3 Likes
Great example, thanks for excavating it. 
2 Likes
Sutton’s cartoons are brilliant, but I often find myself getting vicariously tired when I consider the effort of repeatedly getting into Kelly’s “wrong about everything, including himself” headspace.
2 Likes
Thanks! I hate it.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
