Cartoonists take aim at Iraq war

Five editorial cartoonists from across the country came to the Twentieth Century Club… Five editorial cartoonists from across the country came to the Twentieth Century Club auditorium on Bigelow Boulevard to showcase their cartoons about the Iraq War for the panel, “There’s Nothing Funny About War: Editorial Cartoonists Take Aim.”

The elaborately decorated auditorium filled with laughs as each cartoonist showcased some of their best work concerning the Iraq War, President Bush and the War on Terror.

The panel was sponsored by the Pitt Honors College and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Rob Rogers, an editorial cartoonist for the Post-Gazette, moderated the event.

Cindy Skrzycki, a senior lecturer at Pitt and a syndicated business columnist for Bloomberg News, welcomed everyone to the panel.

“I think you’ll find these are some of the funniest and most serious-minded people in the business,” Skrzycki said.

David Shribman, executive editor and vice president of the Post-Gazette, gave the introduction and sounded like a roastmaster as he poked fun at Rogers. He said the two questions he’s asked most often are “When are you going to fire Rob Rogers?” and “Why haven’t you fired Rob Rogers yet?”

Rogers’ cartoons are nationally syndicated. His cartoon, “The Gingrich Who Stole Christmas,” made the cover of Newsweek’s 1994 year-end issue.

Rogers was the first to present his cartoons, which included President Bush giving a speech to Iraq’s liberated oil wells and an army recruiter dressed as a used car salesman trying to sell a hearse to prospective soldiers.

Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News was the next to present. Many of her cartoons focused on the war’s effect on women.

“Being on a panel of men, I thought I’d show some of my estrogen-fueled cartoons,” she said.

One cartoon depicted the fictional “Miss Muslim World Contest” being sponsored by radical Islamists, with women wearing burkas and competing as “Miss Illiterate,” “Miss Can’t Vote” and “Miss Waiting To Be Stoned.”

Wilkinson said she received a lot of criticism from Muslims because of that cartoon and commented that the most controversial cartoons are ones aimed at religion, not war.

David Axe, the youngest of the group, is the military editor for Defense Technology Magazine. He presented pages from his graphic novel, “War Fix,” which is about the time he spent covering the Iraq War with the South Carolina National Guard.

Axe had a neutral opinion toward the war but was thankful for the chance it gave him to escape covering boring local events in South Carolina such as zoning hearings.

Scott Stantis, a conservative editorial cartoonist for The Birmingham News, said he supported the war at first, as seen in one of his cartoons depicting a poodle with “France” written on it being flattened by an American tank. He now believes the war was mismanaged and showed cartoons criticizing the decisions of President Bush.

Ted Rall was the last to present. His cartoons appear in newspapers across the country, and he has been called “the most controversial cartoonist in America” by the editorial cartooning site Cartoon.com. In 1996 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

His cartoons viciously attack the Bush administration and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and were gorier than most of the others, which spurred Wilkinson to interrupt his presentation and jokingly say, “You’re so subtle.”

After the presentations, the floor was opened for questions and answers. The panelists discussed difficulties in coming up with ideas and the hardships editorial cartoonists can face when their views differ from those of their newspapers.

One question that was asked was how the panelists handled criticism, claiming that editorial cartoonists only look at negatives and don’t offer any solutions to the issues they criticize. Stantis replied by quoting a fellow cartoonist who said, “Our job is to say, ‘If I were the president, what would I do?’.”

Stantis said that any cartoonist who doesn’t do this doesn’t deserve to be published.