Mon Apr 30, 2007 — by Elayne Riggs

Bloggers respond to cartoon hate

Blackface-using artist gets comeuppance

One of my favorite bloggers, Jon Swift, stepped out of satirical mode for a post to excoriate Chris Muir, a radical reactionary strip cartoonist who recently drew Hillary Clinton in blackface to mock a recent speech given by the Senator in which she quoted a Negro spiritual by affecting a cadence that didn't sound quite right coming from a white upper-class woman.  (Lots of folks from all ends of the political spectrum were able to mock that same speech snippet without adding insult to injury.)

Swift noted, "If Chris Muir drew Charles Schulz's Peanuts, for example, he wouldn't have bothered drawing a panel showing Lucy pulling the football away at the last minute when Charlie Brown tries to kick it. That would be too Old School for him. Instead, Muir would just have Lucy say, 'Democrats always pull the football away at the last minute when you are trying to kick it, Charlie Brown.' Lucy and Charlie Brown would also probably be in their underwear."  His commenters responded by issuing a challenge to bloggers to "Show us how Chris Muir would do your favourite newspaper, comic book or web comic!"

Lots of popular liberal bloggers have already responded, including Chris Clark (For Better or For Muir), skippy the bush kangaroo (who riffs on Muir with Mutts) and Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, who I think captures Muir's zeitgeit perfectly with this apology to Aaron McGruder:

Can the liberal comics blogosphere rise to the occasion as well?  Stay tuned!

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