Jan 19, 2008

Labeling: It Bugs The Shit Out Of Me



Dick Locher
Chicago Tribune
Jan 19, 2008

Today's cartoon by Dick Locher illustrates the need many mainstream editorial cartoonists have to label things that simply don't need it. Look at the two panels. One is captioned "Airline travel," the other "Campaign trail." It's clear that two pilots and a candidate are seen in their respective panels. But why is the candidate labeled "candidate?" Why aren't the pilots labeled?

I get that daily papers want all their readers to get the comics so there's pressure to make it very clear by putting big badges on people with their names. But if a man who is on the "campaign trail" standing at a lectern with an American flag behind him talking about his opponents is not recognizable as a generic candidate then you shouldn't be allowed to read the paper. I also think it's insulting to assume your readers to be that dumb.


Update: As Kevin Allman notes in the comments, "He also misspelled "campaign" as "campaiagn," and "collision" as "collison" -- two out of 25 words in the whole cartoon."

3 Comments:

Blogger Brubaker said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

6:47 PM  
Blogger Kevin Allman said...

He also misspelled "campaign" as "campaiagn," and "collision" as "collison" -- two out of 25 words in the whole cartoon.

9:32 PM  
Blogger Matt Bors said...

wow. I didn't even catch that. That really propels this cartoon to a higher level now.

1:37 AM  

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