Cartoonists treading lightly when drawing Obama

[Chris_]

Cartoonists treading lightly when drawing Obama

Cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz was in front of a classroom full of black and Latino kids, drawing presidents. He sketched Bush, then Clinton. Next came his favorite, the man he voted for: Obama.
"Hey, those lips are big," Alcaraz heard a black girl say from the back of the room.

Alcaraz was disturbed. "I try to bend over backwards not to make him look like a cartoon stereotype," and certainly not a racial stereotype, he said.

Editorial cartoonists are bending over backwards a lot these days, as they try to satirize the nation's first black president. And when they don't, the result is the kind of outcry that erupted this week after a New York Post cartoon featured a bloody chimpanzee—intentionally or unintentionally evoking racist images of the past.

The problem is, cartoonists make their living by making fun of people—especially presidents—and exaggerating their features and foibles.

MORE

It ain't easy (or funny) being PC.

[dutch508]

Ted Rall, president of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, said that Obama's race has affected how his colleagues do their jobs: "Without a doubt, people are stepping more gingerly. People are tiptoeing their way through this."

Rall, who is liberal, said it's harder to take shots at Obama because he's smart, charming and handsome, "so when you attack the personality, people suspect there's only one reason: It's gotta be his race. My conservative cartoonist friends find it very frustrating."

Ted Rall who draws US soldiers as NAZIs, rapists and murderers? Ted Rall who's work barely qualifies as 'art'?

**** Ted Rall.

[MrsSmith]

Rall, who is liberal, said it's harder to take shots at Obama because he's smart, charming and handsome, "so when you attack the personality, people suspect there's only one reason: It's gotta be his race.

WHATEVER!   

[Ptarmigan]

Ted Rall who draws US soldiers as NAZIs, rapists and murderers? Ted Rall who's work barely qualifies as 'art'?

**** Ted Rall.

Yet Crybaby King Ted Ralls is calling it McCarthyism for New York Times removing him. He has to be so ******* clueless about the First Amendment. Is he one of those nerdy kids that got pushed around into lockers by bigger kids? He is one of those kids who actually deserved it.
http://www.progressive.org/mag_mcrall

More whiny crybaby screed from Ralls.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0311-08.htm

Hey Loser Ralls!