The Hate of Our Union is Strong

The Hate of Our Union is Strong

Those of you who visited this site yesterday may have seen a slightly different version of this cartoon. There were a few things in it that I was unsatisfied with, and some comments indicated they were causing reader confusion, so I redrew the entire thing from scratch–something I don’t often do. I have to say, I’m much happier with this version, though I lost some nice, chunky brushwork that was on the figures in the other one.

Besides that, I had one other approach to this cartoon which didn’t get beyond the sketch stage. I felt it characterized the situation a little more accurately and powerfully than this one does, but I also felt it cheapened what women in abusive relationships go through by comparing that to political posturing. You can see the sketch by clicking here. The approach I fully developed is more even-handed, and doesn’t make me as uncomfortable, despite using similar themes. What do you think? Did I make the right choice, or should I have developed the other sketch instead?

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 8:19 am and is filed under Cartoons & Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “The Hate of Our Union is Strong”

By » AverageAmerican (January 29th, 2010 at 1:15 pm)

I appreciate your willingness to take the feelings of domestic abuse victims under consideration. The cartoon presented is more even handed, but drastically less accurate. The situation seems to me more like one of enabling where both parties serve the same dealer while their kid goes without…the difference is the Reps are too busy doing anything the dealer asks while the Dems will once in a while bring home some token clothes or food. It’s not really enough to foster the kid’s growth, but it ensures the child won’t starve to death.

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LMAO, this is pretty fairly close to my real life situation, the wife and I are on polar political opposits and we banter quite often, however, I feel quite uncomfortable about the child being neglected and exposed to that kind of behavior; or was that the point you were trying to get across?
To Average American, Dems are just as guilty to “serve the dealer” I notice that after a year Obama has YET to pull ANY troops out of the middle east, just move them around. In fact, he seems to be doing exactly the same thing that Bush was doing…

By » LagomorphMan (January 30th, 2010 at 12:15 pm)

I could see some people getting upset at the former political cartoon, either because of thinking it cheapens victims of domestic abuse or because they think it’s comparing Republicans to wife-beaters. I wouldn’t have been offended, but I could certainly see some people being so. I kind of want to say the sketch is more “accurate” to the situation, but that could be personal bias speaking, as I’m not very happy with the Republican’s “oppose anything even remotely related to Obama” stance (not that I’m happy with the Dems inability to simply get things done despite having a majority).

So in the end, I suppose it was a hard choice, but probably the right choice to go with the current strip, rather than one which risks confusing the message with controversial imagery.

The sketch certainly seems more accurate if the actions of Congress are taken at face value: Democrats compromise everything away, while Republicans won’t accept anything less than everything they want.

I think you should have developed the other one. The Democratic party has done very VERY little of the appliance slinging and screaming and pretty much has just spent it’s time whimpering in a corner.

By » SweetCraspy (February 2nd, 2010 at 10:34 pm)

You definitely made the right choice. The spousal abuse sketch is very powerful, but that power comes from a place that is not appropriate for making political cartoons.

I also think that the one you chose is more accurate. Both sides have the ability to work with the other, or even to just function while the other sputters. Instead, they are both choosing pointless partisan infighting. I especially like the wedding rings, signifying the betrayal of their actual purpose and duty.

Contrast that with the other sketch, where one side has no ability to fight back. That would be at odds with your excellent Democratic Supermajority comic, which shows that the problem is entirely “won’t”, not “can’t”.

i don’t think democrats think republicans mean well. i’m not either one, but i’m pretty sure about that.

i think this cartoon is better if we think of it as not just applying to politicians. the red and blue coloring helps with that and you maybe could have done without the labels (except they are useful to make the cartoon accessible for b/w printers and colorblind readers).

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