If you are following this blog you may know my mixed feelings towards cartoons about catastrophes and tragedies in general. Saturday’s mass panic at the “Love Parade” music festival in Duisburg that left 19 people dead and 342 injured unfortunately offers another occasion to think about this topic. Here are two cartoons about the tragic incident (1,2).
As you might know, “Love Parade” was held in Berlin between 1989 and 2006. This of course makes the tragic event and the subsequent announcement that there won’t be any further Love Parades feel particularly weird. Even for people who never really cared about the parade. This month two of Andreas Eikenroth’s daily cartoon about historical events mention the 1989 and 2008 parade.
Introducing…
Ferenc Szénászi AKA Szena is from Sopron, Hungary. So far, he has uploaded illustrations as well as caricatures, both of them done with pencils, some of them colored, some not. The illustrations in particular display some creative ideas and great skill. Check out the ones on censorship, nostalgia for communism, and public smiles. Ferenc’s caricatures are mostly standards – after all every self-respecting caricaturist must be able to do the Pope, Amy Winehouse, and Barack Obama. And for reasons unknown to me also Dr. House.
The illustrations posted by Romanian artist Paula Salar are worth taking a closer look. Her best works have a certain hypnotic quality to them, created by the very detailed backgrounds and the surreal subject matter often including collage items. There’s one about keyholes, one about Van Gogh on a piano, one about urinal ears, and one about Stalin and Charlie Chaplin. The only thing that bugs me is her use of standardized tags that hardly have anythig to do with the content of the image. Since I use these tags for my work I find it annoying that, for example, the Stalin one will not show up on a search for “Stalin” or “Chaplin” but when people search for “children XXX tv”. Which I certainly hope no one will ever do.
Cartoons of Interest
This week’s favorite is “Thief” by Chinese artist TTT. Absurd idea. Simple line drawing. My type of cartoon. Now imagine the two stacked thieves running away followed by the stacked cops.
Last week I posted a link to a Harvey Pekar caricature by Freelah from Brazil. He added further uncanny portraits without noses or pupils. They look like evil alien versions of celebrities. Check out Daniel Radcliffe, Cher, Audrey Hepburn and Carles Puyol.
© toonpool.comTags: last week, letzte woche, love parae, loveparade
