Cartoon Heroes

David Weigel | October 10, 2006

Ah, finally some entertaining anti-Iran activism from the Right. That lumpy, vaguely Captain Sternn-looking Hitler cariacature was the entry of cartoonists Cox and Forkum into Tehran's "Holocaust International Cartoon Contest." It was too weird to win, but that wasn't cartoonist Forkum's intention.

I designed and illustrated the Hitler caricature so that when turned upside down, Hitler becomes Ahmadinejad.

The world's taken a page from Dag Hammerskjold and come up short; time to take a page from Highlights?

The cartoonists (entered under the psuedonuym "Hugh Bradley") didn't make the finals, so they didn't actually get displayed on the Iranian website. But their cartoon wasn't sent back, either, so they're convinced the government hacks who pored over their image were successfully pranked.

Comments

|10.10.06 @ 11:45AM|#

They were pranked because when you flip it upside down it doesnt really look like Ahmadinejad. I mean you really really have to look, and even then its only the beard (hair upside down) that is vaguely reminiscent of the man. At most it looks vaguely like a man with a turban and a beard. Without knowing what to look for you'd be hard pressed to find the hiddent message. Neat idea though

|10.10.06 @ 11:57AM|#

I'm with val. The only thing about it that resembles Ahmadinejad is the beard. It is a handsome Hitler though.

|10.10.06 @ 12:13PM|#

Why is he wearing an eye patch?

|10.10.06 @ 1:49PM|#

I don't know, to me the upside-down version is a better likeness of Ahmadinejad than the right side up is of Hitler.

|10.10.06 @ 2:22PM|#

He looks like Jay Leno in a dark mood.

|10.10.06 @ 2:55PM|#

Looking at the Holocaust cartoons, I have two dominant impressions:

1) White paper is hard to find in Iran.

2) Sergio Aragones is way more influential than I ever thought.

Mike Laursen|10.10.06 @ 4:43PM|#

Did anybody else end up looking at the picture with their laptop upside down?

|10.10.06 @ 5:21PM|#

I did Mike. At first I didn't see it, but then all the sudden it popped out at me. That was pretty cool.

|10.10.06 @ 8:04PM|#

...time to take a page from Highlights?

Goofus blames the Jews for all the wars of history...