I love this illustration but one of my pet peeves about comics is when they spell things out as if the viewer is too stupid to figure it out. Like cmon the red dragon with the Chinese characters on the tea cup and eating bats is plenty enough for anyone of average intelligence and a basic education to figure out the red dragon represents China. You don't actually have to spell "CHINA" on the dragon's belly. We get it already.
I love Ben Garrison's illustrations but he does this a lot too where he unnecessarily spells things out on his comics and insults the viewers intelligence. Let your illustrations speak for themselves, don't dumb down an otherwise clever work of art.
In 50 or 100 years, after the events of our generation are forgotten, it will still be easy for people to understand the satirical points being made by Garrison’s cartoons because of the labels and obviousness of his visual metaphors. In contrast, subtle cartoons will become impossible to appreciate with the passage of time. Just look at old cartoons from Punch or Illustrated London News and see which cartoons you can understand and which you can’t.
Even today, not everybody in every country will have sufficient knowledge of current events and persons to be able to appreciate the cartoons unless the metaphors are made obvious.
There’s value and merit in both subtle and obvious satire.
I love this illustration but one of my pet peeves about comics is when they spell things out as if the viewer is too stupid to figure it out. Like cmon the red dragon with the Chinese characters on the tea cup and eating bats is plenty enough for anyone of average intelligence and a basic education to figure out the red dragon represents China. You don't actually have to spell "CHINA" on the dragon's belly. We get it already.
I love Ben Garrison's illustrations but he does this a lot too where he unnecessarily spells things out on his comics and insults the viewers intelligence. Let your illustrations speak for themselves, don't dumb down an otherwise clever work of art.
/rant over
The average person isn’t a stereotypical hillbilly if that’s what you mean.
Obligatory George Carlin: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
An ill informed complacency fed by a diet of ideological-driven media.
In 50 or 100 years, after the events of our generation are forgotten, it will still be easy for people to understand the satirical points being made by Garrison’s cartoons because of the labels and obviousness of his visual metaphors. In contrast, subtle cartoons will become impossible to appreciate with the passage of time. Just look at old cartoons from Punch or Illustrated London News and see which cartoons you can understand and which you can’t. Even today, not everybody in every country will have sufficient knowledge of current events and persons to be able to appreciate the cartoons unless the metaphors are made obvious. There’s value and merit in both subtle and obvious satire.