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Explanation of yesterday's cartoon
It's the nightmare of every cartoonist--a reader looks up blankly and utters the dreaded words, "I didn't get it."
That's all well and good as long as it's just somebody who hardly ever reads the paper or is in other ways uninformed. It's less good when that person is your editor in chief, who collared one of my colleagues yesterday after viewing the page proof, and asked him to please explain this one to him.
I then polled my opinion page colleagues and found that a majority of them hadn't been able to unlock the mysteries of my thought process, either.
So, for the record, the planet Earth in the window of the spaceship has morphed into the (in my opinion, highly recognizable) Obama campaign logo from the last election.
What threw me off was that the opinion editor, Tony Fins, just happened to be one of the people who saw it my way, so I happily trotted off to my drafting table.
I'd set up an online poll to find out what readers think, but that is so diabolically difficult to accomplish, and so far above my technical pay grade, that I'll just settle for comments from anyone who wants to weigh in on my singular lack of communicative skills.
CHAN LOWE
Comments
It seems pretty obvious in color, but I could see how it might be harder to figure out in black and white, which is the way it appears in your paper.
Posted by: George | April 7, 2009 10:46 AM
I understood the cartoon
without explanation, and
thought it was great!
Posted by: johnctryon | April 7, 2009 11:12 AM
All of your excellent cartoons are pretty funny and obvious to me too. Although they sometimes refer to US domestic concerns (which make your personal side comment very useful for some of us not familiar with, say, Florida politics) I rarely miss the opportunity to check if there’s a new one.
This one, comparing the entire planet to a place in the universe where Obama is, sort of, still campaigning may have put some in the situation of your puzzled alien observers.
Using the "O" to fit in the shape of the Earth was, I guess, a tempting graphic trick.
The successful logo, though, refers to a time , if not for dedicated democrats (or graphists) already a bit outdated for some. It may be a bit risky to rely on the ability of all the audience to stay focused on such "details" too long after the official campaign was over.
Not sure that this really makes sense but it could be an explanation amoung others...
Sorry for my poor english, I'm from Belgium :-)
Posted by: Phil | April 7, 2009 1:30 PM
Thanks for following the blog all the way from Belgium, Phil. Your English is better than that spoken by a lot of people around here. Have a Stella Artois for me. My favorite brew.
Posted by: Chan | April 7, 2009 4:19 PM
I remembered when I returned home from work to ask my wife if she had seen your cartoon in the day's paper. She hadn't, so we dug up the paper and both laughed (me for the second time). I do agree, as mentioned in an earlier entry, it is great in color. I love the cartoon that is at the top of this blog, Once again, good stuff!!!
Posted by: A.J. Weldon | April 8, 2009 5:57 AM
Actually, something like it could be real someday. Have you ever read Robert Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold the Moon"? The central character at one point was talking up a scheme to land an un-manned ship on the moon which would then fire off rockets to spread carbon black powder on the moon in the shape of a company logo. Considering what superbowl ads cost and how private companies are now getting into the satellite launch business, how far off can this be? :-).
Posted by: Tom | April 8, 2009 7:38 AM
Obvious to me. Course I don't take the paper so I only see the color version. ;-)
Posted by: Lois Lane | April 8, 2009 1:45 PM
I got it too... first time... without any help even. Can I get that opinion editor's job?
Posted by: Cooter | April 14, 2009 8:14 PM
Got it, load and clear, all the way from Berkeley. Brilliant and needed no color!
Posted by: Kathy | April 15, 2009 12:56 AM