Jun 15, 2008

Russert Obits

Today is the first Sunday in a long time I haven't listened to Meet The Press. It was part of my routine while inking and coloring Wednesday's strip. I'm a little sad. I often found myself yelling at Tim to lay in a little harder, but he will be missed. (I only had the opportunity to draw him once.) Although he was somewhat of a conventional wisdom monger, he was one of the better talking heads out there. He certainly deserves all the tributes he's getting in the media. But when it comes to cartoonists paying homage to important people, they dropped the ball as always.

So far, my colleagues aren't pumping out as many bad cartoons as I thought. News of Russert's death happened on Friday so maybe they couldn't get to it in time. All the clichés have already been done at least once so there's something to plagiarize when they get back to the drawing table on Monday.

Sherffius was first out of the gate on Friday with the Creator of Heaven and Earth glad to finally "meet the press." And there were a few pointless portraits of Tim that offered nothing. I'll even give credit where credit is due and say that I thought Scott Stantis had a good one. Then there's the worst.

It should be said up front that the following are at least the first bad cartoon obits of Medium Russ. When people start releasing comics on Wednesday of next week that tread the same ground they are truly miserable hacks.



MStreeter
Savannah Morning News
Jun 15, 2008


I don't know if there's a dead person who MStreeter hasn't drawn at the Pearly Gates. I draw wordy cartoons but, my god, keep it pithy with the obits. Please!




Bruce Plante
Tulsa World
Jun 15, 2008


Standard Pearly Gate hackery here. I suspect some sloths to pump out near-identical cartoons early in the week. What's the point? I almost find this tripe insulting to the dead. I mean, does anyone think this happens when you die? You stand in a bad suit in front of the gated cloud community of heaven while an old guy with a book goes through your life to see if you get in or get the trap door to hell. "Well Tim, I'm looking over these Meet The Press transcripts and we are very pleased. The book you wrote on Fathers was great...in fact, The Father Who Art in Heaven would like to meet you!" ROFLMAO.


Gordon Campbell
Freelance
Jun 14, 2008

A crying corporate logo. You've truly touched the Russert family--and the whole NBC peacock family--with this one. Alright hacks, here's some valuable info: Instead of tracing logos, there's a helpful website called logotypes that every first year design student knows about. It lets you download a vector image of most any corporate logo. Download that puppy, slap a tear on it, and hit the golf course for the rest of the day!

To see how easy it was, I gave myself 10 minutes to open my browser and Photoshop and recreate Gordon Campbell's cartoon with as many additional corporate cry babies as time would allow. Here's how I did:




10 minutes! And now when one of these brave companies experiences a loss in the family, I'll have a tribute cartoon ready to go!

3 Comments:

Blogger david essman said...

I didn't realize there were that many already...

Obit cartoons are downright depressing in the worst way. Do these cartoonist feel good about these, trivializing someone's death. Do they think the family of Tim Russert is going to be like "oh a crying NBC logo... they DO care, and that makes us feel all the better" please. NBC news' coverage was way more heartfelt in remembering his life, instead of making obvious pearly gate drawings.

I remember thinking those China earthquake fortune cookie cartoons were dumb, but then I started to think about it, and I found them pretty offensive(in looking at it in a country where a Tom Toles cartoon about a quadriplegic veteran is offensive). I tried to think of the September 11th equivalent of those cartoons, and I just thought 'if they drew cartoons like that about 9/11 wouldn't people be offended?"

11:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gordon Campbell's creations are some of the most horrible things I've ever seen.

3:05 AM  
Blogger John Kovalic said...

Bravo!

Simply, Bravo.

7:13 PM  

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