Left of Center

Lots of times, political cartoons just manage to get me all peeved and make me throw the paper down on the table and want to just say “screw it all” and watch Friends just to avoid being a part of the political process.

See, I hate political junkies. I hate TV pundits, I hate most political columnists, I hate political reporters who think that they’re actually writing for an audience that includes more than just a bunch of other political reporters.

That’s why Scott Bateman is so freakin’ cool.

Bateman is my political cartoonist, and your political cartoonist, and he’s part of this really cool vanguard of young political commentators that focus on how our elected leaders actually affect us, as opposed to making symbolic graphical platitudes about school violence or campaign finance reform. In a Bateman cartoon, you’ll never see a big whale labeled “foreign policy” with whoever happens to be president at the time dressed as Ahab, running after it with a harpoon labeled “tax cut,” or a cherry tree labeled “education initiative” and some senator dressed as George Washington holding an ax labeled “tort reform bill,” or something equally cryptic and completely unfunny. Reading Scott Bateman’s work, it looks like he realized a long time ago that guys like Berke Breathed and Garry Trudeau and Bill Watterson had it right: Tell a good story in pictures, and you’ll make a great point, and people will laugh. It’s that easy.

More recently, Bateman has been creating and posting his very own Web animation, which often deals with more everyday pop-culture situations, like his “Coffee Achievers” strip does. But you know what? I suck at describing this. Go to his website to find out how cool he is.

Bateman was also cool enough to answer some questions for notnews. Here they are:

KO: You’re quite obviously extremely left-wing and not too corporate-friendly. Has that been a problem in syndication, or are syndicates generally prepared to disseminate ideas that their customers might not be too fond of?

SB: Well, I don’t draw my cartoons based on some ideology. It’s not like I get a call from Lefty Central every morning saying, “OK, today we whack Ashcroft.” More than most political cartoonists, I’m drawing my own life most days. Most people I know didn’t do very well in Clinton’s putatively strong economy and are poised to do even worse in the new laid-back Bush economy, so that’s what I draw.

My syndicate makes a conscious effort to distribute work by cartoonists all over the political spectrum, and I find that a lot of newspapers are running my work, so it’s not been a big problem having an actual point-of-view.

KO: What kind of social reach do political cartoons have? How much is it safe to say that people’s voting patterns or political activism are influenced by something they read in one of your strips? How difficult is it to address complex, multitiered issues in only a few panels?

SB: Many people who read the newspaper will skip right over the columns by George Will and Molly Ivins and just look at the political cartoons, so yeah, we’re shaping some opinions, that’s for sure. I’m not afraid to do a big, multi-panel cartoon that’s text-heavy in order to do a cartoon on a complex topic. Hell, seems like I do one like that every week! Sometimes I feel like I need to spend five panels just explaining where I’m coming from.

KO: You’ve made a few comments about Bush’s cabinet, and you’re obviously not too crazy about some of his choices – particularly John Ashcroft. We’ve had some discussions here on the site about whether he’s to be trusted. Can he? Why not?

SB: I’m certainly worried about Ashcroft, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and judge him by his job performance. In his confirmation hearings he said he’d uphold all the laws, so I’ll wait and see. My hunch is, we will be able to trust him because there will be such heavy scrutiny of every damn move he makes. I do like how Ashcroft looks just like a Steve Keene painting, though–that gives him some serious street cred right there.

KO: In an explanation of why you won’t be doing too many “Bush is dumb” cartoons, you said this: “It’s always, always my goal as an editorial cartoonist to get past these shallow personality issues the press seizes on and shoves down our throat and to get into actual issues that are important to me.” Is not getting past those shallow issues a trap many editorial cartoonists fall into?

SB: Well, you know, editorial cartooning is a tough thing. You’ve got a daily deadline to say something intelligent AND funny, and then draw a damn picture of it. So it’s easy for editorial cartoonists to slip into doing what are basically illustrated jokes from Jay Leno’s monologue. It’s hard to get past the spin and stuff every day and say something profound. Not that I have once ever said anything profound in a cartoon, but still and all and stuff.

KO: You’re not the only one to express disappointment at the two major political parties, or to say that they’re starting to suspiciously resemble one another. It’s clear there’s no easy answer for legitimate third parties looking to increase their numbers and spread their messages, but what can they do? Is it just a matter of time?

SB: Well, since the Democrats have put a big fundraiser in charge of their party and are totally snubbing Ralph Nader on Capitol Hill, they obviously didn’t learn a damn thing from Nader’s strong run last year. They have no message for Nader’s voters, and aren’t even trying to court them now. So look for more third party support in 2004 and beyond.

KO: Would you have made such a strong move toward animation if not for your Web presence?

SB: No way! Before Flash, animation was simply an incredibly expensive and time-consuming hobby. It would take me months to draw thirty seconds of animation on paper, twelve drawings per second, and then spend a day shooting one picture at a time on a giant animation stand, then wait two weeks to get the film back only to discover that it was out-of-focus or overlit. Now I can make a film the same length in two days or less and see it instantly. I’m all about the instant gratification.

KO: You’ve mentioned Napster a lot, and even specifically mentioned one whole album that you downloaded before it came out, so I’ll ask the obligatory Napster questions here. As an artist who has made extensive use of the Web and its communities to promote your work, how much of the Metallica argument regarding artists’ work being distributed without their consent hold water? As a corollary, what are you going to use now that Napster’s gone? Do you have high hopes for the new service?

SB: …and I just purchased that CD this week, too!

For recording artists, Napster has been a great way for people to hear music they simply can’t find on the radio. And most people I know who like something they download run out and buy the album. Last year, the recording industry had record profits and record sales, and that’s partly due to Napster helping launch artists like Dido, whose album has been slowly rising up the charts for over a year based on word-of-mouth from Napster. I’ll miss Napster, but I’m sure I’ll find some other way to explore new music. It just won’t be as convenient.

KO: Do you feel as if there’s been a kind of community created by your site? Are there regulars in your message boards that you’ve come to know and love? Has the Web reached its potential to create worldwide “neighborhoods” (like the one we’re trying to create at Not News), or can it go farther?

SB: My daily journal acts as sort of a message board, and there’s a whole big community there that’s way cool, way supportive. Web-based communities are a super-niftoid thing.