Making Fun of Things I Love

Hello. Today I’m going to write about something that’s been on my mind for a while, but I am worried that it’s going to come off as a bit defensive. Let me start by saying that the vast majority of comments I get from my cartoons are positive and friendly. I’m so grateful for my fans and I’m very lucky to have the audience that I do. Today’s topic however, requires that I talk a bit about the less-than-friendly comments I get, which happens to every cartoonist, it’s part of the job, and I try not to let them get to me. They do often get to me, I am a sensitive guy, but that’s not why I want to to write about them today. I swear.

I want to write about the angry comments today because I want to discuss cartoons that take jabs. Cartoons are built to jab. That’s not inherently their goal but many of them do, and they’re good at it because they’re quick and witty and often visualize a point of view that can act as an effective metaphor. Cartoons can hurt. This is often the goal of political cartoons. Just ask Boss Tweed (old example but still the best).

I don’t generally jab. I do occasionally. I certainly have with the political cartoons that I’ve drawn, but for most of my stuff I rarely ever take a swing at any one particular view or person. Often, the only person I make fun of is myself. But here’s the problem with that: sometimes taking shots at myself can be seen as taking shots at people who share my interests.

Take movies. I love movies. I love horror movies. I love all kinds of horror movies, from B-horror to “elevated horror” (a marketing term that I don’t actually love). I like the silly and the serious, the big budget and independent, I don’t care. I’m not picky. I don’t think any one of these approaches is necessarily better than any other. This is all to say that the following cartoon does not represent a hard-held opinion on the state of horror movies:

I like horror movies where the supernatural element is a metaphor for grief! I really enjoyed Late Night With The Devil, for example, which I think fits into that category. I liked Talk to Me. The Babadook is great! So I was sort of surprised to see a few comments on this cartoon that reflected a belief that I must hate movies like that. Some comments were angry about it, some were cheering me on, neither sat well with me.

I don’t blame anyone for viewing the cartoon this way. The moment you share your art, your interpretation is no longer the only interpretation, and that can be good or bad. But it did make me want to defend my point of view a little.

If you get down to the bare-bones of it all, I drew this cartoon because I noticed a pattern. I am certainly not the only person to notice it, but that doesn’t matter. The pattern is that a lot of what they call “elevated horror” takes a central concept, like grief, and pins the horror element on to it, exploring the idea visually as say, a big scary monster, or some other supernatural circumstance. It often works well! The latest example in theaters as I write this is Together (the concept in that one is codependence) which I haven’t seen yet but I hear good things.

So it was just about noticing a pattern. That alone is enough of a prompt for me to explore. But if I had to pick what that cartoon is capital-A ‘about’ I would say if anything it’s about the way a person may point out the obvious in an attempt to dissect a movie they just saw. I’m certainly guilty of that. You see? I was just making fun of myself the entire time!

I had a similar situation with this cartoon:

I listen to like, four of these kinds of podcasts. I love them. Movies and funny banter? I live for that shit. But some folks took this toon as an admonishment of them. One person on twitter was particularly unhinged about it. They read it as a attack on something they love and imagined me as a stiff, pretentious jerk. I wanted to tell them: “but I love these podcasts too!” I didn’t, because I never engage and they were particularly rude, but I wanted to.

This cartoon also started out as a inward-striking hit. I was walking down the street, thinking “would I ever want to start my own podcast? But what would it be about? Oh, what about movies, and I could also be funny.” My second thought was “Lol there are like a million podcasts like that already.”

This is not to say that I couldn’t or shouldn’t or that anyone shouldn’t start a podcast like that, it was just that in that moment, in my brain, I absurdly thought that I had an original idea on my hands. It was ridiculous, so my third thought was, “ah, that should be a cartoon.” The joke in the cartoon is not that there’s a million podcasts like the one he’s describing, the joke is that this guy is describing it as if there weren’t. That was my intent anyway!

This is all to say that hitting inwardly can have a friendly-fire effect. By commenting on the things I love, I accidentally comment on those who love it too, and when that comment is in the form of a cartoon it can be seen as an attack. Particularly on social media where everyone is ready for, or fearful of, an attack. Not sure what the lesson is, I don’t think I’ll stop making cartoons about movies. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s interesting to think about. And I’m sorry? Or I’m not sorry. I don’t know, I’ve lost the thread here which probably means I should stop writing.

You got any thoughts on this, let me know! Leave a comment, or an angry response. If you enjoy this newsletter, please take a moment to like, subscribe, maybe tell a friend. Word-of-mouth is great for newsletters. Share it on social media! But more than that: have a great weekend.

Bye!