Steve Brodner

Most of you probably aren't into cartooning enough to buy a 10 dollar mag like The Comics Journal, but the interview and accompanyng illustrations for political cartoonist Steve Brodner were so much of a treat of both brain food and eye candy, I'd recommend the current issue (262) to others. His book Freedom Fries is out now which I'm considering picking up soon. I'll include some quotes below just so you know what kind of cup of tea the guy serves.

On Kerry: "He's been in politics for 30 years. I don't know what being in politics for that long would do to anybody. I'm not a huge fan, but he's an interesting study. If you read the testimony he gave before Congress when he returned from Vietnam, you will see that he was an extremely sensitive, honest young man. He didn't go then into the oil business, or buy a baseball team, but he went into public service. He thought he could change things by joining the system. Now he's an old man, but he's struggling to appeal to mainstream America while maintaining true to views that contain subtlety and nuance that mainstream America would never understand. So he's walking around with a mask on, and he can never take it off. He cannot be professorial, he cannot use ten-dollar words, he can't ever speak French in public."

On Bush: He's in the wrong job. If you met Bush you'd say, this is just like some guy with an autodealership. If his name was George W. Bernstein he'd have a dealership in Houston. He'd have friends, and they'd go golfing on the weekends. He's a tortured soul. He's in so over his head he can't see daylight. So he needs to constantly posture, to pump himself up. 'I'm the leader of the free world.' It's all unearned."

The "Liberal Media": I got a call from an editor at the [Wall Street] Journal about a month ago. He said he really liked what I was doing for the entertainment side of the paper and he'd like me to do something on the editorial page. I said 'that's very nice, but my politics are not exactly the same as the Journal's editorials.' He said 'no, no, no, there's no problem,' and he starts to talk about this story that he wanted an illustration for. The story was about the decision to ban headscarves in French schools. I asked him if I could see the article. He said, 'Why do you have to see the article?' And I replied, 'Why do I have to see the article? I always see the article.' I'm incredulous. After all, I might get a good idea for an illustration from the article, and I also told him that I might disagree with the article, in which case, I wouldn't take the assignment. He said, 'I don't understand, you have to OK the article?' I said, 'Is this concept foreign to you?' Then he said, 'I don't have time to be bothered by this. You're an artist, you are being given an assignment, this is your assignment, just do it.' And he says, 'What are you going to do, mug me on deadline?' And I said, 'Oh no, I'll mug you way before the deadline.' He didn't laugh. I could see he was going to hang up the phone. So I said, 'Let me say something before you hang up. I have a new book coming out, called Freedom Fries. This book is going to detail 30 years of my efforts to drag political commentary into the world of magazines and newspapers. I suggest that you get the book when it comes out, so you will see that there are such people as myself and that not everybody is just for hire.' And he hung up the phone."

The last quote segues to the efforts of the editor to slander Brodner. I'll link and/or reprint the articles here later.

For now, look here for Brodner's work.