Customer Reviews

Oliphant's Presidents:: Twenty-Five Years of Caricature

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The best editorial cartoonists are people of true genius. Their ability to exaggerate facial and body features to make a point can at times be astounding. Pat Oliphant is such a person, having drawn some of the best cartoons of presidents Johnson through George Herbert Walker Bush. The best in this collection is one where a cowboy on a movie screen is riding into the sunset and giving the audience a hearty wave. Only two people are in the audience, one male and the other female. Even though we see only their backs, it is clear that they are Ronald and Nancy Reagan. This demonstrates Oliphant's ability to represent a person using a very small number of characteristics. Of course, this only works if the reader is aware of the people of the caricature.
All good editorial cartoons have a bite to them, and these definitely are in that category. They show the presidents at their weakest, accurately describing their failures using absurd circumstances. While the cartoons are funny, if you do not understand the historical context, by itself, the cartoon will not be understandable. Fortunately, there is companion text that explains the circumstances at the time the cartoon was published.
I love reading editorial cartoons, part propaganda, part political and social commentary and always part of that wonderful gift of free speech; they represent the best qualities of America. Genius and the right to speak your mind, even about those who run the country.

Oliphant is among my favorite political cartoonists even if I do not always share his opinions about a given subject. He is a master draftsman of caricature, to be sure, and -- in most instances -- allows his drawings to speak for themselves without benefit of a caption. What we have in this volume is a collection which spans a period of 25 years during which he attempted to provide, as he explains, "a graphic distillation of the personality of the strutting popinjay on last night's news. [His audience] wants a visual rendering of immediacy and endurance that can be cut from the printed page and saved on the refrigerator, or if disliked, can be ripped from the page, have rude recommendations scrawled upon it, and mailed back to the artist. Such people, pro and con, possess awareness and opinion, and as such are to be blessed." Reactions to Oliphant's work confirm the success of his efforts to achieve one of two reactions which Lucy Shelton Caswell has so aptly described as an "ah" of agreement or an "argh" of disgust.

Credit Alan Fern with providing an especially informative Introduction to this collection. Also credit Wendy Wick Reaves with providing the narrative which accompanies the caricatures of six Presidents, beginning with Lyndon Johnson and concluding with George H.W. Bush. That said, the selections themselves really require little explanation. The subjects are immediately recognizable and Oliphant's point-of-view toward each is never in doubt. Of special interest to me is the series of color plates, of which I was previously unaware. They are assembled in a special section. (Their item numbers are 13, 28, 29, 42, 49, 57, 73, 83, and 84.) We are also provided with a series of rough but quite clever sketches, reproduced from Oliphant's notebook.

I agree with Reaves that he "manages to scratch some personal itch arising from our own frustration with government leaders. But some of the enormous satisfaction we derive from his cartoons can be explained by his ability to go beyond the specific to elucidate the general trends in our national life." Frankly, writing a brief commentary on Oliphant's art poses many of the same challenges as would describing a performance by the Cirque du Soleil. They really need to be seen to be appreciated.

Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Oliphant's other published works as well as Attack of the Political Cartoonists which provides representative selections from almost 150 of Oliphant's contemporaries. They and we are in his substantial debt, especially as frustration with government leaders is, if anything, greater now than ever before.