Q Toon: Ice Bucket List

Between the time I drew this cartoon and it had a chance to appear in print, somebody turned the idea into an internet meme featuring any female bête noire. Randy Bish went for the same idea, too. I have to assert that I like my execution of it better. I may be somewhat biased.

Daryl Cagle calls this phenomenon of one idea striking multiple cartoonists a "yahtzee," and the only reason more cartoonists haven't drawn this cartoon this week is that there happens to be so much more to be outraged about right now. If this had been your typical no-news August, there would have been more of these.

The MGM version of "The Wizard of Oz" turned 75 on Sunday, and has been a source of ideas for just about every editorial cartoonist who grew up with the movie -- drawing politicians lamenting "if I only had a brain" (or courage, or a heart) or depicting some wicked so-and-so sending out flying monkeys or drawing "Surrender (fill in the blank)" in the sky, or being exposed as Toto pulls back the Wizard's curtain. It's also the go-to reference for any cartoon having anything to do with the state of Kansas. Or not being there any more.

Dick Locher hit the bulls-eye with a February, 1979 cartoon depicting President Jimmy Carter being scolded by Dorothy for being a very bad man for not fulfilling his promises, and responding despondently, "I'm not a very bad man, I'm just a very bad Wizard!" It was such a good cartoon that Locher has drawn it again and again. Well, it's firmly his idea now, so nobody else gets to draw it.

This is at least the third time I've drawn from the Wizard of Oz inkwell. It's a cultural reference everyone can understand; and since I hardly ever get out to see new movies, I'm left to draw about old ones.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Somehow, I forgot to post a sneak peek last week. Not that anybody missed it, but I do try to post more often than once a week even if it's just to say "Next on Bergetoons...."

So anyway, here's this week's sneak peek, and just a few words to try to clarify something I wrote over the weekend -- or maybe just to walk it back a little. Plagiarism is a serious charge, and I still hope that the Steve Breen cartoon I mentioned is not in fact a case of it. I really like Breen's work, and think he's a very good cartoonist. It is entirely possible that both he and Jeff MacNelly were inspired independently by Winslow Homer's painting. I have no way to know one way or the other.

You would think, moreover, that if he had any recollection of having decided to redraw a cartoon he'd seen somewhere else, Mr. Breen wouldn't risk the opprobrium from his fellow inkslingers by submitting the thing to Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year where anyone who owns MacNelly's Directions is bound to see it.

Plagiar-Vu All Over Again

I just received my copy of The Best Editorial Cartoons, 2012 edition from the publisher the other night. Its founder, Chuck Brooks died shortly after the deadline for submissions, so one wonders how many more editions of the book there will be.

There are more on-line only cartoons in the book than ever before, and a few idiosyncratic choices -- there is only one Tom Toles cartoon, for example (aside from the one in the chapter for cartoons which won awards this year), but five by Chuck Asay. In my humble opinion, Toles is far and away the better cartoonist, but Asay's worldview is more in line with the late Mr. Brooks's.

I was struck by two cartoons: one by Jeff Stahler and another by Steve Breen. Mr. Stahler just lost his job at the Columbus Dispatch over charges of plagiarism -- charges which have relaunched a debate over what in fact constitutes plagiarism. Accusers pointed out cartoons which seemed to echo New Yorker cartoons, although some of the questionable cartoons involved ideas which easily could have occurred to multiple cartoonists independently (what Daryl Cagle calls "Yahtzees"). Cartoonists have also been debating where to draw the line between a plagiarized idea and a common meme.

The Stahler and Breen cartoons in BECY illustrate the murky of this delineation. Stahler's cartoon shows presidents from Nixon to Obama saying one word each of the sentence "We must reduce our dependency on Mideast Oil." To my mind, that recalls a Mike Peters cartoon about the Vietnam War, drawn for the Dayton Daily News and reprinted in Time magazine and other national outlets, in which presidents from Eisenhower to Ford said one word each of the sentence "Victory is just around the corner." (One of them must have had two words, but I don't remember which.) Other cartoonists besides Jeff Stahler have used the same gimmick since -- at least once on the topic of energy independence -- and it just seems to me to be lazy to swipe Mr. Peters's basic idea to rehash it as your own.

Steve Breen's cartoon is more disputable. He substitutes President Obama for the hapless boatman in Winslow Homer's painting "The Gulf Stream." Breen duly credits Homer, as he ought, but I was instantly reminded of the 1974 cartoon by the late Jeff MacNelly depicting President Nixon in the exact same painting.

Is that plagiarism? Just about every editorial cartoonist in the country, myself included, has drawn some parody of Grant Wood's "American Gothic" to comment on every topic from the weather to inflation to marriage equality. The same with several of Norman Rockwell's paintings, da Vinci's "Last Supper" and James McNeill Whistler's "Arrangement in Gray and Black: The Artist's Mother." But any first grader is bound to recognize those paintings to some degree or another, whereas many adults are not familiar with the works of Winslow Homer at all. Some cartoonist, forgotten to history, was the first to draw each of those parodies, and the rest of us have, let's face it, swiped those ideas.

Does the fact that an image is already well-known make it okay for a cartoonist to swipe it? Aside from paintings, many cartoonists have borrowed and re-borrowed many images from movies. I have no idea who the first cartoonist was to draw Toto pulling the curtain aside to reveal the humbug behind whatever politician is projected as the Great And Powerful Oz, but many have drawn that same cartoon since. (There's one in the new BECY about Newt Gingrich, who has also inspired a new round of Grinch Who Stole Christmas cartoons for anybody who missed them back when he was Speaker of the House.)

We cartoonists traffic in cultural images all the time, so it makes sense that we'd reuse images that everybody knows. The tricky part is reusing less well-known images that only Art History majors and other cartoonists will recognize.

Oh, and I have one cartoon in the book, by the way. Most of my favorite 2011 cartoons before the book's deadline were about flash-in-the-pan stories (does anybody remember the Craigslist Congressman any more?) which would have required a paragraph of explanation, so I'm not at all disappointed.

Where's My Weiner?

A friend of mine asked me why I drew this week's cartoon about Roger Ailes's bomb-proof glass office instead about Congressman Anthony and his famous Weiner. After all, everybody is doing Wiener jokes this week.

To a significant extent, I thought that the Roger Ailes story, from an article in Rolling Stone, deserved more exposure than it has gotten.

The Weiner story, on the other hand, has gotten so much exposure that it's hard to find some angle that hasn't already been bludgeoned to death by cartoonists for daily papers. This is one of those stories where the cartoon practically draws itself -- which means that several cartoonists let it do just that. I've seen seven or eight cartoons of the congressman singing some parody of the Oscar Mayer Wiener song, for starters. "I can't say with certitude" is the punch line of a handful of others, and, of course, In more cartoons than one can legally shake a stick at, Weiner appears in his undershorts, flashing passers-by, and in the company of the crowded field of other male politicians who have been caught in sexual shenanigans.

Daryl Cagle calls this phenomenon a "Yahtzee" whenever it happens, and it happens a lot. Take the recent World Health Organization report that cell phones might contribute to cancer risk. That spawned several cartoons in showing Death (that hooded figure with a scythe) on a cell phone saying "Can you hear me now?" The other common approach was to draw someone talking or texting on a cell phone about the WHO report while driving, immediately prior to a car accident. As Editorial Explanations noticed, these cartoons were alike right down to the color of the car. (I have to wonder if the driver in the John Cole cartoon is receiving the text message sent by the driver in the Gary Markstein cartoon.)

We cartoonists also have to compete with the Daily Show, Colbert Report, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and all the other late-night hosts, whose teams of writers can snap up all the easy jokes and have them broadcast before our ink is dry. I've rejected several cartoon ideas because one sounds like something Saturday Night Live would do, or another is bound to be on a graphic over John Stewart's shoulder.

Those graphics over John Stewart's shoulder really get me, sometimes. Why oh why can't they just settle on one over-the-shoulder joke? Why do they persist on some of the best stories in showing one joke after another there? At least David Letterman has the decency to pace himself, even telling the same joke night after night for months on end.

So, anyway, my apologies for disappointing all those readers who were relishing the prospect of another Weiner cartoon. I'll catch up on the Weiner jokes later.