Visceral beauty

April 12, 2003 12:55 PM

Visceral beautyLong-standing Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell offers some thoughts on covering the war One of the real advantages of being able to draw in this awful context is that it affords the chance to manipulate a little of this flood of imagery and turn it back on itself; since I'm certain the vast bulk of these mega-pictures constitute a campaign of deliberate obfuscation.
posted by skellum (7 comments total)

Steve Bell rules. PPOG Penguin & John the Monkey are brilliant cartoon characters.
posted by i_cola at 1:07 PM on April 12, 2003

Can somebody explain Steve Bell to me? Is he supposed to be insightful or talented? As far as I can tell he just draws political leaders as apes.

I mean 1) he isn't the only person to notice certain simian characteristics and 2) he does the same thing every day.
posted by ednopantz at 1:51 PM on April 12, 2003

Don't miss Steve Bell's Iraq cartoons.

I think he's a national treasure, but as for explaining him... hmmm... :)
posted by plep at 2:08 PM on April 12, 2003

Oops, I see skellum already linked that, sorry. :)
posted by plep at 2:12 PM on April 12, 2003

he does the same thing every day.

Best to let that particularly adroit piece of cultural critique slide...it is precisely because Bush acts like a monkey every fuckin day that Bell portrays him thus.

He is on record as saying that Hitchens' comment in his Kissinger biog - ‘ One can never eat enough to vomit enough when one thinks about Henry Kissinger.’ - pretty well sums up his modus operandus.

Ergo, hammer away at these charlatans day in day out. The John Major underpants motif is the classic case study
posted by skellum at 2:14 PM on April 12, 2003

The "information clearinghouse" seems a little crackpot-y, but the pictures at Reuters back up their claims.
posted by LimePi at 5:20 PM on April 12, 2003

Americans! Steve Bell hates you!
posted by Joeforking at 6:22 PM on April 12, 2003