Turd Awards: Harry Potter and Goblet of Turds

I did a Michael Jackson cartoon this week and felt guilty. At least I didn't cover Harry Potter. Usually blockbusters are forced into some crappy political metaphor by drawing a poster for the movie and labeling everything with current political problems. But the following cartoonists forgot to do that. Some of them almost seem like promotional material from Warner Bros. Good news: there is still two more summers of Harry Potter releases so cartoonists can phone it in.

We are up to are eyeballs this week. Let's plop some poop!

David Fitzsimmons does good work. I really love his drawing style. Even in this cartoon, I'll admit, I like some of the jokes. It's the best Harry Potter cartoon I've seen. But being the least-foul nugget in a sea of rancid poo still gets you a turd award: let's call this one The Half-Turd Prince.




I can imagine thousands of soccer moms cutting this one out to put on the fridge--a sure sign of a great editorial cartoon. One problem: it's on the editorial page where soccer moms won't see it because editorial pages are supposed to contain cartoons with opinions. I've seen more trenchant commentary in a Zits strip.

But perhaps there is more to this. It could be a criticism of how the West measures their distance from death in relation to summer blockbusters. Our ties to the changing seasons and lunar calendar are gone, replaced with a fantasy world of Hogwarts and Mugglesomethings. Probably not. Two turds.




I hope Luckovich got paid by at least one of the products he is shamelessly whoring in this comic. If you have a character in your movie drinking a Pepsi before a Decepticon breaks down his bedroom wall, it's all part of a business arrangement. Rueben Bolling recently announced he is auctioning off space in his comic to advertise a product. Mike should follow his lead and start charging. Until then, this cartoon gets three turds and an ifart app.





Finally, the steaming motherload. Two crappy movie franchises based on books for children and teens drawn by an adult to be printed in a newspaper aimed at old people. Brilliant! The icing on the turd is that this crappy mash-up cartoon serves no purpose, political or otherwise. The good news is that I can't smell the turds anymore because the noxious fumes coming off of this one melted my nose.

I'd knock off a turd if it at least made a ham-fisted attempt to say something--anything! Let's label the kids "GOP", the girl "Latinos" and the guy "Obama." There. Average crappy cartoon with three seconds of thought. This is our reigning champion for this week. The Goblet of Turds!