The
Blockchain Age
In the 1920s legendary artist
Windsor McKay was earning as much as $100,000 per year
for his editorial cartooning, which was a pretty good
wage for its time. This was wayyy
before
TV was invented, and before radio was popularized,
so newspapers
were
the hot media ticket at that time.
Some of you might
have heard of newspapers. They are like printed copies
of Google news feeds that, in early times, were delivered
to your door every morning by a boy on a bicycle or,
more
contemporaneously,
by illegal aliens making a few extra bucks before they
began their second or third job of the day.
The newspaper provides news, sports,
weather,
comics, recipes, government
approved propaganda and advertising. Lots of advertising.
They also have a comment section, just like web sites,
though the time lag between
creation and approval can be days or weeks.
But I digress. Back to Mr. Mckay.
In the early 1900s editorial cartoons like Mr. McKay's
had the power to shape and alter public opinion
because the daily newspaper was almost entirely the
source for all topical knowledge. And a cartoon could
be easily
understood even by illiterates. If the editorial cartoon
in the latest edition of the Morning
Herald
& Tribune
suggested that sending
gunships to Cuba was in America's best interest then,
by golly, send a dozen.
Today, in case you're wondering where I'm going with
this nostalgic gambol, this graphic form of political
punditry no longer has the authority it once commanded
as there are
too many competing online venues for information. As
a result, newspapers are closing, budgets are being
cut,
and
cartoonists are being laid off.
The question I often ask myself these days
is: Are editorial cartoons any longer relevant?
And, after some consideration I say "Yes" as long as
there are both Nobel and Pulitzer Prize awards for
the craft.
Which
leads
me
to believe someone still thinks they're pretty dang
spiffy.
I'm sure news journalism will adapt to a future paperless
society but the editorial cartoon, along with the daily
comics
as we know them, will no doubt go the way of the internal-combustion
engine... except for web sites like this one. Because
even it's not in print Americans will always enjoy
images of the latest oligarch publicly lampooned.
------------------
Note to friends of Lefty: I apologize
for the delay in cartoon creation this
past week. My excuse this month is,
uhhhhh, zombie aliens! Yeah, that's
the ticket!
=Lefty=
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