Killed Cartoons: Casualties of the War on Free Expression

By: Wallis, David

Book Overview

Think you live in a society with a free press? These celebrated cartoonists and illustrators found out otherwise. Whether blasting Bush for his "Bring 'em on!" speech, spanking pedophile priests, questioning capital punishment, debating the disputed 2000 election, or just mocking baseball mascots, they learned that newspapers and magazines increasingly play it safe by suppressing satire.

With censored cartoons, many unpublished, by the likes of Garry Trudeau, Doug Marlette, Paul Conrad, Mike Luckovich, Matt Davies, and Ted Rall (all Pulitzer Prize winners or finalists), as well as unearthed editorial illustrations by Norman Rockwell, Edward Sorel, Anita Kunz, Marshall Arisman, and Steve Brodner, you will find yourself surprised and often shocked by the images themselves--and outraged by the fact that a fearful editor kept you from seeing them. Needed now more than ever because of a neutered press that's more lapdog than watchdog, Killed Cartoons will make you laugh, make you angry, and make you think.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393329240
• ISBN13: 9780393329247
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

editorial cartoon hell

Wherein you find examples that the press within the USA is timid and still serves the whims of people who pay the advestisements and those who own the papers and whose leaning in the political spectrum often rule over sensibilities. A previous complaint that there is too much text is irrelevant. The substance is in the illustrations and the text. They go hand in hand. As a sidebar to this book I'd recommend the combined collections of Stephan Pastis PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, where he has written of censorship on his own little morbid strip, showing that the fears of offending any audience still rides high. As it is, this book is pretty good. It's funny, the land of the free still cowers at offending the guys who advertise, when a little bit of truth pokes its ugly head upright. And the Philadelphia Inquirer was the only place USA wise that printed some of those "Muhammed" political cartoons that caused an uproar in Europe. Boo! None of those here though.

Antidote to editorial timidity

If you're disheartened by pusillanimous publishers who lack the sand to back up their writers and cartoonists when they come up with controversial material, David Wallis is your man. In his previous work, "Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print," he championed journalists whose articles were decommissioned by their fearful overseers; now in KILLED CARTOONS he's back with a book that does the same for editorial cartoonists. Clever, thoughtful, and brave.

Kartoons that did not see print

What a shame these weren't printed. All were to the point, and pertinant.

Funny, but you don't want to laugh

I enjoyed KILLED CARTOONS immensely. The work illustrates beautifully why political cartoons are important. (And why they're capable of generating real controversy.) What Wallis understands is that cartoons have a contradictory function. One the one hand they have to amuse the reader, and on the other, they have to upset his/her equilibrium--ideally to the boiling point. Cartoons reach us on a visceral level, which is why I found Wallis' commentary (captions, if you will) a perfect complement to them. Wallis is a witty intelligent and apparently well-informed writer. This book came to me as a gift, I just bought his KILLED: Journalism To Hot to Print, with my own money.