Editorial cartoonists
and comics artists are often viewed by newspaper readers as oddballs
at best and deranged psychopaths at worst.
The best word I've heard applied to a cartoonist may be ``clever.''
I've never heard journalists or friends characterize cartoonists
as ``brilliant,'' or ``challenging'' or ``highly intellectual.''
Gary Larson, creator of ``The Far Side'' is a particular favorite
of people I work among and with whom I socialize. I have heard
Larson characterized by usually rational and kind people as ``a
warped mind'' or ``a deeply disturbed person.''
Ironically, such comments follow a chuckle or a broad smile of
enjoyment.
I've seen and heard a colleague at work check the daily Larson
cartoon that runs in this newspaper, laugh heartily, then comment,
``They must lock this guy up each night and let him out to draw.''
I confess I've harbored similar thoughts about Larson when I've
encountered one of his frequent cannibalistic themes.
Cartoonists
frequently get in trouble with readers and editors when they treat
sensitive subjects or take risks. Occasionally, editors -- who
review cartoons about a week before they're published -- keep
a cartoon out of the newspaper, deeming it offensive.
Recently, several newspapers across the nation chose to spike
a popular comic strip that introduced an openly gay character.
Some permanently canceled the syndicated strip.
Cartoonists' freewheeling attitudes and opinions often give the
impression they are crude, unthinking louts who have to be censored
and reprimanded repeatedly.
If I may paraphrase comedian Rodney Dangerfield: ``Cartoonists
don't get no respect.''
Let me try to convert such lack of respect by relating an incident
involving a well-known cartoonist.
Doug Marlette, cartoonist for New York Newsday, greeted
the news of Pope John Paul II's reiteration of church policy barring
women priests with a cartoon of the pope wearing a button on his
vestments that read ``No Women Priests.''
Above the
broad forehead of the papal caricature, Marlette inserted the
message, a text from the New Testament: ``Upon this Rock I will
build my church.'' An arrow ran from the text to the pope's pate.
Marlette's cartoon brought numerous complaints to New York
Newsday.
The drawing was called sacrilegious, anti-Catholic and offensive.
A few days after the cartoon ran, New York Newsday published
a ``memo'' stating its regret ``that many readers were given an
unintended message.''
Marlette, startled at the first apology ever published for one
of his cartoons in his 22-year career, countered with a lengthy
response that Newsday published about ten days later.
Unless you read New York Newsday or the journalism quarterly
where I discovered Marlette's article, you never saw or heard
of his reasoned article, a reply that elevates respect for thinking
cartoonists.
First of all, Marlette doesn't back away from the controversy.
In fact, he goes on the offensive, saying his cartoon is not offensive
to Catholics.
"The
Catholic Church I know is big enough and secure enough to laugh
at this cartoon,'' Marlette wrote.
He argues that 70 percent of Catholics polled support the ordination
of women, and passionately adds: ``Catholics should know better.
Theirs is a faith which has suffered historically for its right
to express its views freely.''
Therein is the crux of Marlette's anguish. His gripe is not with
the Catholic Church; his concern is freedom of expression. In
fact, he saves his powerful barbs for New York Newsday.
He offers this startling indictment: ``Since moving to New York
five years ago I have run into more censorship and timidity about
free speech than I ever encountered in my native South. Surprised?
I suspect it is because my editors in Charlotte and Atlanta, though
by no means perfect, took these matters more seriously. Because
they were Southerners they took their religion more seriously.
They certainly took the First Amendment more seriously.''
He saves his sharpest cuts for the news room: ``Censors no longer
come to us in jack boots with torches and clubs and baying dogs
. . . . They come to us now in broad daylight in bow ties . .
. with yellow legal pads and marketing surveys, with focus-group
findings and concerns for advertising dollars and bottom lines.
. . . They are known not for their bravery but for their efficiency.''
The editors
apologized to readers, he notes, because they believe he offended
the pope. ``I drew the cartoon,'' Marlette -- a Southern Baptist
-- counters, ``because I believe the Pope offended all Catholic
women.''
Marlette rolls on against his editors: ``Since Newsday
management is mainly a boys club, not famous for its empathy with
the concerns and strivings of women, their lackluster support
of women priests is not surprising. . . . But what I find most
disturbing and beyond comprehension was the lack of fealty of
professional newspapermen to the First Amendment.''
When Marlette's editor told him it was ``a mistake to run the
drawing,'' Marlette's response hit the mark: ``How can expressing
an opinion be a mistake?''
Marlette finds his editors neither serious about religion nor
serious about freedom of the press.
In that identification, he has told us who are the truly warped
minds in journalism, and there's nothing comical about it.
Allan R. Andrews can be contacted at arandrews@aol.com