Political and non Political Cartoons.

Hey!

Recently we had a guest visit us. He is from the USA, he casually mentioned to me that his mum was a little shocked by some of my cartoons. To be fair they had been looking at my “old” website that I was using to try sell my cartoons. This website gave a rather unbalanced impression, for some reason the website hosts had not displayed all of my work or any of the cartoons’ descriptions.

I love flags, it is a hang over from my Scouting days, if you look at the art below you will count no less than fourteen flags. If you are really clever you will count five American flags. I am most definitely not anti-American and would be very upset if anyone, American or not, was to think that I am.

I do think that the subject of Guantanamo Bay is fair game for any politician or political artist. And judging by what the media seems to be saying, a vast percentage of the American public all the way to the president are very uncomfortable with what the prison/UN-deemed illegal detention centre means. Of course Guantanamo Bay is also vaguely supported by a lot of Western democracies, but the United States bares the brunt of such cartoons, simply because of how far she is willing to stick her head above the parapet.

The yet to be completed “State sponsored terrorism” cartoon also supports a vocal United States flag. This is essentially a cartoon about the Israel/Palestine conflict. Like a lot of art (to quote my brother-in-law), it is designed to leave you asking questions. And in this case one of the questions could be something like, ‘what is the difference between money and money?’

And lastly the cartoon that is most likely to be construed as anti-American and has the loudest American flag on it is “Let’s get Fat and Fight Wars”. This is not actually a political cartoon. It is humour and it was my first exciting attempt at cartooning. This was the painting that helped me realise that I should be looking inwards for my art rather that outward.

The painting is actually a response to listening to the BBC World Service radio news. The first two articles on the news were about the United States war on terrorism and the United States fight against obesity. I thought this was kinda funny, so with the help of the American Jan Krist’s song about this very subject, I happily went away and painted the pictures that the BBC placed in my head. I actually wrote this explanation on my art website, but for some reason again it was not published either.

So please if you have viewed my cartoons anywhere and have been offended by them, because you think that I am specifically anti a specific people group, then please forgive me. I do believe that we are all inherently racist deep down inside. And yes I do struggle with racism issues, against me and by me, but I promise you I am not intentionally racist against the United States of America or any other nation at that.

If you want to enter into further dialogue with me on this subject please feel free. Listed below this article is a very brief explanation as to what these cartoons are about. And yes this is my complete collection to date. If you click on the cartoon, most of them have explanations provided.

If you want to get tooned in to some excellent New Zealand political cartoons, then please click here.