Spring seems to have finally arrived in Berlin. There’s rain instead of snow and birds occasionaly sing. It’s not quite humppa blossom party, but I think this one by GB catches the mood. Uh… the bird. Not the guy.
Another thing that isn’t quite there yet is the American Health Care reform. Whatever the outcome of this vote, I don’t think it will affect me personally. Since this is true for the majority of toonpool.com’s members, there aren’t too many cartoons on the issue – apart from the daily rant by Joel Barbee. Still, I thought it was really interesting to follow debates on domestic policies in another country. Makes it harder to stick to simple stereotypes, since it shows the lines of conflict inside a nation. Here are last week’s health care reform cartoons: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. Cartoons 3 to 12 are by Barbee.
Introducing…
Roman Silka AKA Romi is from Slovakia. His cartoons look like they are pretty quickly drawn, but don’t get me wrong – he’s a professional. There’s just a certain flow in the lines that you don’t get when you take your time. Roman’s subject matter is mostly conventional – He even did a tree frog in a jar cartoon. Among others, I liked the inflatable desert island and the time consuming suicide. Sometimes, however, his cartoons get a little weird – as if there’s an important part of the narrative left being left out. For reference check out the angel taking a leak and the “fly my pretties” moment.
Cartoons of Interest
I really like Scharwel’s portrait of megalomaniac composer Richard Wagner. I could say that it was his squiggly beard, the fluffy hair, or the hypnotoad eyes.. but what really got me was that little lock of hair. Since I am a sucker for black and white art, I would also like to point out a classic Xavier Salvador version of athlete Jesse Owens.
Each week, there will be a number of cartoons that I really like but that just don’t translate well. Most times I don’t mention them because, you know, we’re an international site and all. This week I do: check out “the Nuschel” (intranslatable pun), “Pastoral letter No. 2″ (refering to German news items) and “Reichtum ist keine Schande” (the actual dialogue could easily be translated, but it just isn’t the same without the title).
These kinds of things wouldn’t happen if only everyone was like Rex May, who is now offering his art in Esperanto.
© toonpool.comTags: health care reform, last week, letzte woche
