Sep 15, 2009
POSTED BY Jay Babcock
The great Peter Kuper offered this to Arthur for publication in our anti-war/empire issue, No. 5, published in June 2003: 50,000 copies distributed free across North America.
We had it in layout format—I can’t remember if it was going to take up the centerfold spread as well as one more page—but my partner-in-Arthur at the time, publisher L**** K******, overruled me and Arthur art director W.T. Nelson. Dang! It was probably the most succinct piece—and certainly the most prophetic—that was contributed to the mag. The piece never ran. Here it is, several years too late. Read it and weep.
We’ve uploaded the pages at the largest size possible so that you can print ‘em out in high-res. Just click on each page to engorge, I mean enlarge.
hilarious! love love love it!
The best part was the first three panels which firmly establish the [phallus] as an icon to be marketed for propaganda purposes (or is it propagandized for marketing purposes?) It serves as a self-critique of how the [phallus] is used in the rest of the cartoon. There’s nowhere for the joke to go in the end but up its own ass.
After all, what’s the simplest way to get people to look at your cartoon? Put a [phallus] in it.
Not saying that it isn’t funny, but it only works as a big, fat, extended [phallus] joke. If you pull the politics, the joke still works. If you pull out the [phallus] it’s not very good.