Friday, October 17, 2008

Never mix your passions

I realized something the other day, which was previously apparent but hadn't really registered: I'm a cartoonist and a purveyor of outdated slang! That's pretty neat. The deciding factor was the notion that all that separates the amateur from the professional is payment, rather than degree of skill. Consequently anyone who produces a cartoon, however crude and humor-deficient, is by definition at least an amateur cartoonist - that is, a cartoonist. Just so for blacksmithing (blacksmithery?), cooking, philosophizing, antelope-elephant-hybrid-breeding and so on.

Of course the most obvious and resource-rich realm (really) from which to draw for comics these days is the same one as for any other type of humor, that of the political scene. That said, it takes a certain talent and know-how, or perhaps just lack of shame, to enter the overpopulated arena of political cartooning. I prefer to keep my own efforts well within a specific domain of personal expertise, and my relatively-new awareness of what's going on politically is not enough to justify the expansion of borders.

Still, if I were to illustrate exactly why I'm not a political cartoonist, it would probably look something like this (click it for a larger copy):





Actually I think that's pretty hilarious, but I claim artist's prerogative.

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