Snake & Bacon take on the Grey Lady... and get slaughtered

January 12, 2015 5:11 PM

New York Times n'est pas Charlie? In which Michael Kupperman (previously here) relates his own "freedom of speech" experience when he and David Rees (previously here) were hired to create editorial comics for the Week in Review section of The New York Times.
posted by oneswellfoop (19 comments total)

pat me down with a paper towel to remove excess grease
posted by Ratio at 5:16 PM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

All of the cartoons in this post are hilarious.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:22 PM on January 12, 2015

The front cover of Wednesday’s edition of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the first since last week’s attack on its offices which left 12 people dead, is a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad.

Newspapers around Europe, including Libération, Le Figaro and Frankfurter Allgemeine have used the image online. The BBC showed it briefly during a newspaper review on Newsnight. In the US, USA Today and the LA Times ran the cover but the New York Times did not.
posted by dng at 5:22 PM on January 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

well, previous Charlie Hebdo cartoons were not published by the NYT, but that's kind of a derail. Let's see if we can find a place to publish more Kupperman (besides the web, which he used before)
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:32 PM on January 12, 2015

every one belittles the times...and everyone continues to read it
posted by Postroad at 5:55 PM on January 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

"like being edited by hobbits..." Heh...
posted by jonp72 at 5:57 PM on January 12, 2015

I <3 Kupperman
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:05 PM on January 12, 2015

I've always loved this piece by David Rees on Colin Powell from November 2004: Which of these things is not like the others (Get Your War On 43 #6). But looking back through the GYWO archives, he was all over the War on Terror as early as October 2001 when everyone was busy wrapping themselves in giant American flag security blankets: "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War on Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore? It'll be just like that!"

The fact that his work was too relevant, modern, and biting for the New York Times shouldn't be surprising.
posted by zachlipton at 6:30 PM on January 12, 2015 [12 favorites]

Seems to me that the NYT giving them grief and eventually firing them probably boils down to the cartoons not being very biting, clever or funny. Portraying whining, MRA douchebags as ... babies? Muddling the point of the Easter one by showing a bouquet of weed buds and then having to explain your punchline panel with a ponderous explanation? Stereotyping Botswana as a nation of Khoi hunter-gatherers... none of this is very good, certainly not compared with the brilliant GYWO, or your average Tom Tomorrow or Ruben Bolling strip. They weren't too 'edgy', they were too sophomoric.
posted by Flashman at 6:46 PM on January 12, 2015 [6 favorites]

So can I still get this pencil sharpened or what?
posted by aaronetc at 8:13 PM on January 12, 2015

every one belittles the times...and everyone continues to read it
posted by Postroad at 5:55 PM on January 12 [+] [!]

#noteveryone
posted by chavenet at 11:49 PM on January 12, 2015

"like being edited by hobbits..." Heh...

Hey! The Shire has a rich history of political cartooning! Mostly about the endless pipe weed scandals in Bree, but still....
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:22 AM on January 13, 2015

Portraying whining, MRA douchebags as ... babies?

I thought that one was the best of a pretty bad bunch.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:11 AM on January 13, 2015

I'm pretty uncomfortable drawing parallels with the trouble these cartoonists faced at their NYT gig and what happened to the people at Charlie Hebdo. This seems in really poor taste.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:43 AM on January 13, 2015 [3 favorites]

"I couldn’t help but think of all this again this week as the images from Paris appeared online. Cartoonists had given their lives for the freedom of speech their work represented. It still means something over there."
posted by palindromeisnotapalindrome at 8:15 AM on January 13, 2015

Geez, I love David Rees and Michael Kupperman, but these comics are... just terrible. Way below Reuben Bolling at his worst, which can get pretty bad. I wonder if they choked under the much greater visibility.

And yes, comparing being over-edited and eventually dropped by the NYT to being murdered with your colleagues and various Jews is appallingly self-centered.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 8:32 AM on January 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

@ThatFuzzyBastard From the context of that sentence, I gather it was meant to express admiration and respect for the victims.
posted by halonine at 5:34 PM on January 13, 2015

Sky News refuse to show front page of Charlie Hebdo
posted by homunculus at 4:40 PM on January 15, 2015

Do Tech Companies Really Support Free Speech?
posted by homunculus at 4:41 PM on January 15, 2015