Customer Reviews

Killed Cartoons: Casualties from the War on Free Expression

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For the right audience, I'm sure this is a fine work. I was not the right audience. I wanted a book that presented the cartoons, with perhaps minimal commentary, and let me decide for myself. Instead, this provides pages of commentary and, actually, very few cartoons (94 in its 282 pages - I counted). If you're looking for a treatise on the myth of freedom of the press, using a few cartoons as case studies, then by all means look at this book. Just know what it is you are buying, and know that less than a third of the pages in the book actually show the "Killed Cartoons" that the title promises.

I was expecting a compilation of editorial cartoons that had been "killed" by editors for their controversial content, and to some extent, that's what this book is. But each cartoon (or group of two or three) is accompanied by a story about how and why it got cut. While some of the stories are pretty interesting, it also means that there are about half as many cartoons as I was expecting. In addition, the text often comes across as preachy (even though I largely agree with the politics of the author) and in almost all cases, gives away the punchline of the cartoon before you see it, greatly lessening the impact. As you might have guessed, I was a little disapointed in the format of this book. If you get it, I suggest looking at the cartoons first, and then reading the text accompanying the ones you want to know more about.

I enjoyed KILLED CARTOONS immensely. The work illustrates beautifully why political cartoons are important. (And why they're capable of generating real controversy.) What Wallis understands is that cartoons have a contradictory function. One the one hand they have to amuse the reader, and on the other, they have to upset his/her equilibrium--ideally to the boiling point. Cartoons reach us on a visceral level, which is why I found Wallis' commentary (captions, if you will) a perfect complement to them. Wallis is a witty intelligent and apparently well-informed writer. This book came to me as a gift, I just bought his KILLED: Journalism To Hot to Print, with my own money.

Killed Cartoons contains a good collection of censored cartoons by major practitioners like Gary Trudeau, Herblock, Mike Luckovich, and others but nothing before the 1930s. Surprisingly, there is even an illustration by "family friendly" artist Norman Rockwell. More pages are taken up with commentary than cartoons which is not really a problem except that the commentary precedes the cartoon. It should be the other way around. Disappointingly, the commentary often discusses cartoons which are not shown in the book.
Topics include abortion, sex, war, religion, pollution, corporate and government misbehavior, and the media itself. Commentary includes the varied reasons behind censorship: liberal or conservative editorial prejudices, left and right political correctness, scatological and sexual explicitness, simple bad taste, fear of reprisal by corporate sponsors, fanatics and fundamentalists, and fear of offending the sensibilities of their perceived audience. The author also points out that the nature of the cartoon as form of expression, its immediacy, and its power to evoke a gut level reaction also discourages nuance, subtlety, and "balance". This and its relative permanence as print media and its potential availability to young readers combine to make cartoons more heavily censored than, say, the routines of late night TV comedians. There is an intelligent discussion of the evolving nature of cartoons and their censorship but nothing groundbreaking here. This book is a worthy contribution to the study of media, exploring an aspect not always included in the general discussion, but it is not essential reading.

This book was not what I expected...but it ended up being better. It's does feature cartoons that have been "killed" by various publications for various reasons but the focus is more on the reasons then the cartoons themselves. That said, I found it a very interesting read.

Wherein you find examples that the press within the USA is timid and still serves the whims of people who pay the advestisements and those who own the papers and whose leaning in the political spectrum often rule over sensibilities.

A previous complaint that there is too much text is irrelevant. The substance is in the illustrations and the text. They go hand in hand.

As a sidebar to this book I'd recommend the combined collections of Stephan Pastis PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, where he has written of censorship on his own little morbid strip, showing that the fears of offending any audience still rides high.

As it is, this book is pretty good. It's funny, the land of the free still cowers at offending the guys who advertise, when a little bit of truth pokes its ugly head upright.

And the Philadelphia Inquirer was the only place USA wise that printed some of those "Muhammed" political cartoons that caused an uproar in Europe.

Boo!

None of those here though.

If you're disheartened by pusillanimous publishers who lack the sand to back up their writers and cartoonists when they come up with controversial material, David Wallis is your man. In his previous work, "Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print," he championed journalists whose articles were decommissioned by their fearful overseers; now in KILLED CARTOONS he's back with a book that does the same for editorial cartoonists. Clever, thoughtful, and brave.

What a shame these weren't printed. All were to the point, and pertinant.

The Book was good enough it just wasnt quit what I was looking foward to