Abstract

Mightier Than the Sorehead

In this article some cartoonists tell their personal political-correctness horror stories. Art Spiegelman, a contributing editor of the periodical "The New Yorker," says that cartoons echo the most fundamental processes of cognition. The aspiring cartoonist must master the conventions of picture-writing, learning which simple marks indicate sadness, joy and anger, which marks indicate male and female, which indicate age, ethnicity, intelligence, etc. Signe Wilkinson, the editorial cartoonist for the Philadelphia Daily News and author of Abortion Cartoons on Demand says that except for complaints from schoolteachers, Armenians, the Irish, opera singers, fat people, Catholics, Italians and a few dozen other groups whose members are all perfect, beautiful and above caricature, he hasn't been affected by political correctness.