Last week on toonpool.com (October 25-31, 2009)

Paul — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:24:12 +0000

As much as I would like to think of toonpool.com’s community as a happy little family, I have to admit that there has been some tension in the last two weeks. Luckily, our home-made caricature controversy seems to have come to a relatively peaceful end. The initial conflict came about when some users complained about the amount of caricatures of toonpool.com members that some members had posted recently. After we had introduced a new category of cartoons that such caricatures would be moved into, Alexandru Ifrim voiced his concerns about that decision (which he shared with a number of other users) in this forum post. This column is not the place for me to take positions, so see for yourself. If I learned something from this, though, it’s that communication in an international and multilingual web community can be a maddening project. And that Google’s translation tool only adds to the confusion.

On a lighter note: fall has come and so has the second wave of deadly Swine Flu. This also means new Swine Flu cartoons, this time mostly about the various vaccination projects. I liked, for example, new member Mert Gurkan’s take on vaccinations in Turkey. While this view seems to be shared by German Kostas Koufogiorgos, syringes seem to be a much rarer good in the US , a situation countered in Canada by alternative means of protection.

Introducing…

First, I would like to introduce new member Taravat Niki from Iran. Apart from making great use of toonpool.com’s mascot, she (she must be female – she’s wearing a ribbon) she draws some nice and funny cartoons. Check out this one on crime in heaven. Her political cartoons about her home country’s Green Movement (not the Müsli kind) are obviously not that funny. Here, she does drawn cartoons as well as collages using famous works of art to portray the brutal politics of Mahmud Ahmadinejad and his supporters.

This week’s second featured new artist is Zaliko from Georgia. Zaliko does classic caricatures in various media. It was this retro-Saddam that got me in the first place, but there are other cool one such as this one of former UN chief secretary Kofi Annan or this one of billionaire George Soros. I admit that I had to look up who Ilham Aliyev was, but I sure like his caricature and the vibrant colors Zaliko used in it.

Cartoons of Interest

My favorite cartoon this week might seem controversial at first. The caption of Til Mette’s cartoon “Mehmet” translates to “Mehmet only just learned to laugh about himself. If he does so, please don’t laugh with him.” Since Til is a German cartoonist, the dominant reading of the cartoon would be that a German couple is visiting a Turkish-German friend.
On one hand the caption refers to the stereotype that Turkish people take themselves too serious at times. So far, so good. What makes the cartoon special is the whole situation it depicts – the ridiculous pre-dinner briefing which I’m sure takes place in all cultures, the ever-so-slight condescension of the wife while at the same time she’s just trying to make the evening nice for everyone. All in all a great piece about the troubles of cultural contact.

Paul Hellmich

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Last week on toonpool.com (October 25-31, 2009)