Political Cartoons 2023: We're Fine!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Political Cartoons 2023: We're Fine!

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I am finishing the collation of nominations for the 2022 Kellies today, but I also need to mention something we have to address to keep the thread going as a running concern.

About 60% of the nominated cartoons in last year's thread were posted by goon Raised by Birds, who was generally responsible for the majority of comic posts in the thread. Raised by Birds completely stopped posting on the site at the end of September, which is why there was a massive decline in content for the thread starting in October. (I'm not going to go into why Raised by Birds disappeared, only the mods can do anything about that and they seem to have decided they're fine with it).

In the meantime, I'm putting together a list of the cartoonists Raised by Birds posted; we're going to need volunteers to post those comics in the new year and new thread. Expect that list of cartoonists with the nominations thread in a couple of days.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2023 20:58

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 00:56

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

6

There's a Roe joke in this somewhere.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2023 04:01

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Note: this post transposed to 2023 thread for eligibility in this year's kellies. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3989450&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=389#post528786310

Kellies nomination: Best edit/parody
Nominator: twerking on the railroad
Image link:

Artist: Haschel Cedricson
Date: 1/1/2023

Note: Parody of

Note 2:

quote:

HAPPY ULTRA MEGA MAGA NEW YEAR
The old year is just about over and the New Year is rising over the horizon. We all made it though another year of the clown world insanity of the Biden Regime. Congratulations to everyone on surviving what was a pretty tough year for a lot of people, but you made it. Our faith, will power and shear determination carried us through the tough times and to a new beginning.

2023 is going to be a historic year with world shaking changes that will at last wake humanity up across the United States and the world.

Truth will be told and lies will be exposed.

People will realize what has happened to us over the last 100 years and see who needs to be held accountable. We, the people, will come together. Unity and truth will destroy the globalist cabal and the puppet masters.

America will become energy independent, Trump did it before and can do it again.

The Green New Deal narrative is being exposed as a fraud, a means for total control over the masses. Only the green cult members will still believe in the hoax, the majority will not.

The Trump 2024 campaign will continue to snowball with bigger rallies and a larger reach to eager audiences.

Biden will go down as the worst president in American history, destroying the Democrat party and the RINOs along with him.

Ukraine will be revealed as the most corrupt country in the world and Zelensky will be exposed as just a puppet playing his role as a begger for the money laundering globalist tyrants.

The DC Swamp levels are draining, slower than we want, but are draining. Drip, drip, flood as the Twitter Files continue to reveal the mind staggering corruption and censorship of the DC Cabal.

Once again it�s been proven �walls work� and the wall will be finished and so will be Biden and his open borders.

The January 6th protesters will be freed and pardoned as they did no wrong. Ray Epps will be exposed as a FED plant to entrap Trump supporters.

Mar-A-Lago will become the �southern White House� as �normies� slowly realize, Trump won.

America will awaken and so will the entire world.

�The best is yet to come!�

We wish you a very happy 2023. Buckle up!

We Will Keep Winning- Together!

# ¿ Jan 3, 2023 04:36

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I've finished transcribing all nominees from last year's thread (for the record, this was a process that took several months last year; I'm pretty proud of the work that went into this over the holidays). In 2021 we had 363 nominations; I'm looking down the barrel of 468 nominations. I'll need a couple days to format and tabulate these now that I've got them entered, then I'll get the Kellies thread up to solicit additional nominations. I'm taking some liberties with categories this year, since we decided midway through to split Least Concealed Bigotry into separate LGBTQA+ general bigotry and transphobia-specific cartoons; I'll be going through all the entries again and reassigning some to the narrower category.

For reference, Raised By Birds had posted comics for 204 of the nominees before they were driven off the forums; about 53% of all nominees up to that time. The number of nominations plummeted after were driven off. We're going to need a couple people to split the burden of the amount of effortpost they were providing to the thread, daily, for years (also if no single person is contributing as much they're less likely to be targeted next).

vvvv

Yeah, I'm kinda screwed- we all are- because I don't want to break the rules and I don't want to violate Raised by Birds' privacy.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Jan 3, 2023

# ¿ Jan 3, 2023 04:42

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Stultus Maximus posted:

Is there a "worst concern trolling" category?

Yes, be sure to say �Kellies nomination� so I can find it. Including the author of the cartoon or t the date it was posted also saves me a ton of time.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2023 14:51

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Angepain posted:

sorry, hang on, are you implying that the mere act of posting cartoons to the political cartoons thread in a dead gay forum is getting people harrassed for some reason

In brief, yeah, that appeared to have been the motivating factor.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2023 21:07

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

100YrsofAttitude posted:

Also the results to their #Mullahsgetout contest (draw insulting images of the Iranian mullahs) are in so I can post those this weekend if anyones interested and it's still around. Over 30 images of rude images of Mullahs.

It's the content this thread ~~deserves~~ craves!

# ¿ Jan 4, 2023 23:38

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

J.A.B.C. posted:

I get that China Daily's whole thing is that the U.S. is the great enemy keeping noble China from benevolently ruling the world, but come on. 'America talks about the importance of a free press because America is puppeting America, to serve evil American Imperialist interests.' It's literally 'Free Speech is bad, actually' written in bold.

You could improve this by using stand-ins for Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, at least making the point that U.S. interest in those counties is just puppeteering them against their true ally, but this is just lazy as well as being bad.

China Daily propaganda routinely pursues the position that democratic elections and free speech are bad and/or futile. This position, which isn't very persuasive except to the most brain-poisoned of the online American audiences, is a necessity for the authors because of a combination of the following: a) they believe it and can't understand how such claims get perceived by their target audiences, b) they will face consequences if they use intermediate or more subtle claims that even pay lip service to the notions of democracy or civil liberties, and, critically, c) they believe they may face consequences for taking such positions. Crucially, all three of these factors apply to the cartoonists, and their supervisors, and everyone else up the chain.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2023 16:33

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

1

Yet another great skulldonkey candidate, first of the year.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2023 07:13

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Charlz Guybon posted:

This thread is neat

https://twitter.com/fakehistoryhunt/status/1611518151434579968

The comic strip thread down in BSS has, among other things, explored and discuss the entire True oeuvre, along with many other similarly cool old comic strips.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2023 04:49

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

A complication is iirc he's anti-union.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2023 05:56

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

skeleton warrior posted:

I don�t recall that; he�s often hard on bosses who don�t do well be their workers (but also hard on workers who shirk).

What really knocks him off the pedestal is when World War I starts and he goes full �how dare you sully our good boys fighting Over There by daring to question anything about the war�

Ah, right you are, I'd misremembered the issue, I think. I had to quit the comic strips thread because there's so much, and it's so, so good, that I would lose way too much time keeping up with it. One of the best threads on SA; hundreds and hundreds of dense effort-filled pages a year.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Jan 7, 2023

# ¿ Jan 7, 2023 06:46

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Medenmath posted:

You might have been thinking of this one:

Although I kind of think the specific mention of "direct action" is because he's anti-sabotage or whatever, not necessarily anti-labor. The character isn't wholly consistent across the history of the strip but he's generally just against anything that's disruptive, rude, unkind, etc. and sometimes that swings both ways. Also as far as race stuff goes, there are at least a few strips with black characters that are what you might expect from a hundred year old comic, so be forewarned. Like I think there's one where he gets angry at a black server somewhere after the Johnson�Jeffries fight.

I think that was it, yep. Gosh, it�d be cool to get some historicpolitoons in here again.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2023 18:16

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

sithael posted:

I'm really liking the old timey comics. Are there any sites that aggregate these comics like Rarebit and Everett True into dailys and RSS feeds? like GoComics but stuff that's not really commercial anymore. One a day like that seems like the perfect format for consuming these vs just reading everything at once til I get bored.

if there's not then maybe I'll make a site that does exactly that.

Not to my knowledge, but again, absolutely check out the BSS comic strips thread- the people there are a treasure trove and will know far more.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2023 05:10

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I've finished categorizing and recoding entries for the 2022 Kellies; we've had some very interesting nomination shifts, including some categories having very few entries, and others an unprecedented number. I'm going to be looking for additional nominees in the following categories to keep them viable for voting:

Best Threatening with a Good Time
Laziest Gorrell
Least Concealed Bigotry (General) (so not race, LGBTQ+, antisemitism or transphobia)
Most Any Day Now
Most Grotesque
Most Internationally Tone Deaf
Most Willfully Dense
Worst Cartoon That Could've Been Published 20 Years Ago
Worst Concern Trolling

More details in the thread OP, which should appear later this week.

Also, my thanks to Intoluene and Skeleton Mom for coming up with the idea of a separate Least Concealed Bigotry (Transphobia) category.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Jan 9, 2023

# ¿ Jan 9, 2023 03:05

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Pants Donkey posted:

Ben is going to make a comic sympathetic to Bolsonarno�s personal coup attempt, isn�t he?

I'm not sure; he'd need an enemy to cast it as opposing, and there's not one that clearly aligns with his usual views.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2023 19:46

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

idonotlikepeas posted:

It's been pointed out a bunch of times, but if you put the loving personification of a year in your comic and have that person die on New Year's Day... like, maybe make those things line up? It's not like you don't know the new year is coming. You know, when you switch the calendar over to December or maybe even November you might want to make a plan about how you're going to handle this.

I think this year death might actually be more on time than an earlier one.

edit: gently caress, sorry for the double post.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2023 19:50

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

idonotlikepeas posted:

Lee Judge

Kellies nomination: Worst Label

# ¿ Jan 10, 2023 08:40

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

100YrsofAttitude posted:

I don't think I've ever seen them do legit caricatures so I'm going to say it's just an everyman.

This may actually be policy; they really like reusing old cartoons in subject compilations.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2023 14:46

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

100YrsofAttitude posted:

China Daily

Imaginary target by Cai Meng

Kellies nomination: most incomprehensible

# ¿ Jan 12, 2023 21:00

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I'm swamped and behind, so I'm crossing Cross off the 2022 Special K list and adding him to 2023

edit: crap, that's from last August. nvm, he'll be in the 2022 thread.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Jan 12, 2023

# ¿ Jan 12, 2023 22:04

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Adenoid Dan posted:

Oh cool it's that old Mel Gibson anti regulation vitamin ad again. It's just as honest now as it was when it first aired.

Ah, a classic of the form.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2023 19:44

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

The 2022 Kellies nomination thread is now live! Nominations close February 18. :siren:

# ¿ Jan 15, 2023 22:10

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Trapezium Dave posted:

Rall: Maybe You Should Go Easy Next Time

Kellies nomination: worst caricature

# ¿ Jan 18, 2023 08:52

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Space Cadet Omoly posted:

Is there anything he can do? Serious question, because the egg people aren't the first company to do the whole "Raise prices just because we can, gently caress you this is a monopoly" thing and it definitely feels like it should be illegal, but is this one of those "obvious harm is being done but no law is being broken because our laws mainly focus on protecting corporations not people" situations?

A lot depends on underlying facts about how and whether actual collusion is occurring. FTC might be able to do something, depending on the subsidy situation USDA might be able to act. That's why the original tweet about this is from a letter forthcoming (meaning not sent yet) to the FTC, tweeted by an attorney presumably preparing to submit the letter (and who, I need to emphasize, is working for a different set of industrial interests). You should not accept such things uncritically.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Jan 20, 2023

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 03:18

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

VitalSigns posted:

Consumer protection, unfair trade practices, antitrust law, etc still exist and were never repealed by congress.

Unfortunately the current president does stuff like put a literal corporate bread price-fixer in the Cabinet, so I'm not sure how eager anyone in the administration is to crack down on that sort of thing.

What the gently caress are you talking about, the FTC is the most aggressive it�s been in generations. What is this price fixing nonsense?

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 15:43

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

seiferguy posted:

Anyway, Allie is trying to present this as bipartisan (it's not) and Manka Dhingra, the chair of the law committee, was right to not bring it to a vote. Future 42 is some conservative think tank that pumps money into dipshit podcasters and other weird things, so I guess they got themselves a cartoonist now.

To be clear the group's specifically targeting Washington state, and they've got remarkably little public info. I'm very curious who's funding them. Their privacy policy indicates they're planning to take donations and transfer donor contact lists to other groups, so it may just be an R proxy group. They're targeting broadly libertarian economic issues.

edit: interesting, one of two "your story" articles on their site is from the perspective of a gay couple opposed to eminent domain. This may be a Koch network state proxy.

edit 2 : ah, just needed to seach differently:
https://www.pfortytwo.com/

Here's an article on the group, which appears to be a project of the conservative Washington Policy Center:
https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2021/08/17/washington-policy-center-ceo-will-step-down.html

I've not got a full read on their backing but it could be several different conservative groups. There's a strong overlap with staff from marketing firms, which explains some parts of their design.

edit 3: ah, yep, part of the State Policy Network. Note that the group specifically has created a fake news outlet, Franklin News, to launder articles and positions into local and national press.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Jan 21, 2023

# ¿ Jan 21, 2023 15:13

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Guavanaut posted:

Kellies nomination: Best edit/parody, best OP

# ¿ Jan 21, 2023 23:47

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Kellies nominations are open until February 18!

While I've harvested a lot from last year's thread, all users should feel free to stop by the 2022 Kellies thread and nominate for any or all of the below categories. Don't worry about whether you are nominating something someone already selected- I'll handle it. So far, we've had no additional nominees- and I know that there was plenty of, ahem, mud that passed under our radar!

Categories for the 2022 Kellies include:

Most Threatening with a Good Time
Laziest Gorrell
Laziest Non-Gorrell
Least Concealed Bigotry (General)
Least Concealed Bigotry (Antisemitism)
Least Concealed Bigotry (LGBTQ+ other than pure transphobia)
Least Concealed Bigotry (Transphobia)
Least Concealed Bigotry (Race)
Most Any Day Now
Most Easily Reinterpreted
Most Grotesque
Most Incomprehensible
Most Internationally Tone Deaf
Most Opposite of Reality
Most Willfully Dense
Worst Concern Trolling
Worst Gaslighting
Worst a Thing Happened
Worst two Things Happened
Worst Cartoon about a Tragedy
Worst Cartoon about Ukraine
Worst Queen Elizabeth Cartoon
Worst Roe Cartoon
Worst Cartoon That Could've Been Published 20 Years Ago
Worst Label
Worst Caricature
Best Edit/Parody
Overall Best
Overall Worst

Stop by and nominate your "favorite" politoons today!

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Jan 22, 2023

# ¿ Jan 22, 2023 03:12

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Club as in the weapon, not as in the group of people.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2023 19:28

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Fister Roboto posted:

Absolutely no idea how this is supposed to be read as anti gun control. Pretty sure we killed off all the big apex predators!

e: unless it's a "minorities are predators" thing.

It's attacking the idea of limiting magazine sizes, combining a couple faulty arguments used to derail gun control - a common reactionary futility argument ("criminals will ignore the law") and an ultimatum variant intended to divide and sap gun control support ("the proposed action is insufficient, and so we should do nothing").

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Jan 23, 2023

# ¿ Jan 23, 2023 06:17

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Trapezium Dave posted:

Rall: Full Faith and Credit

ah, good old investm

# ¿ Jan 23, 2023 11:00

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Skios posted:

Michael Ramirez

I remember when Sisyphus had to lift a big ball of mud uphill on his shoulders

Skios posted:

Tom Stiglich

Kellies nomination: worst cartoon about a tragedy

# ¿ Jan 23, 2023 11:02

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

100YrsofAttitude posted:

To be honest? Probably yeah. I mean they're undoubtedly probably better than other forms of energy acquisition, but we're just sort of awful all-around you know?

No. Unless there's an actual, supported basis to believe something, we should not automatically believe claims by bad faith actors.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2023 23:29

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

I don't understand this comic.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2023 05:23

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

The only thing I can think of is

1) "why did they choose hockey players?" refers to the idea that some nebulous "they" had a pick of different sports to "force" the atheletes to wear LGBTQ jerseys, and
2) there's something about the race of the athlete that would justify it, either that white athletes are being targeted, or that there's some stereotype about how nonwhite athletes would respond.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Jan 24, 2023

# ¿ Jan 24, 2023 05:34

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

idonotlikepeas posted:

Clay Bennett

Good to see you Bennett, it's been awhile.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2023 06:24

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Trapezium Dave posted:

Rall: Top Secret: Operation Distraction Is Go!

Kellies nomination: Worst Overall

I think most Gorrells are closer to political cartoons than this.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2023 09:16

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Skios posted:

Mike Luckovich

[timg]https://i.imgur.com/C2bevdG.png[/img

missing a ] here.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2023 09:17

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 00:56

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

rodbeard posted:

Stole this from another thread no clue who the artist is:

Adam Douglas Thompson, for the New Yorker

# ¿ Jan 26, 2023 09:11

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