I couldn’t resist making a comic strip about this article by Tom Pappalardo in which he posits that the streamlining of technology is making objects less iconic and therefore harder for cartoonists to represent simplistically. Thanks a lot Steve Jobs (and Obama. Why not).

I personally don’t agree. If cartooning is about representing ideas and objects as simply as possible, wouldn’t a natural streamlining of technology make things easier on us as cartoonists? And what kind of cartoonist worth his salt can’t find a way to represent a person reading news, watching TV or talking on the phone?

Let’s use Star Trek as an example. In classic Trek, the Captain communicated with his ship via a walkie-talking looking device he held to his mouth and spoke directly into. It flipped open and chirped and had a physical movement and functionality to it. When Next Generation came along and Picard tapped his chest and started talking to the air did anyone lose track of the story? Who is that bald man talking to? Where is his communicator? Shit, on the ship there is no object at all. There’s a chime and then he starts talking to the air.

Is the whole world going nuts lately? Cartooning is over 100 years old and it’s going to survive shifts in technology and business models. I think that the digital revolution has made cartoonists a little soft. yes the web has made it easier to distribute comics to a mass audience. But the art of cartooning is still really hard. It’s still a decade worth of drawing and writing and self-examining every day to start to become good at it.

I’m sorry it’s hard. I’m sorry that Television sets are now flatter and harder to represent. But your JOB as a cartoonist is to represent and reflect the times in which you as an artist live. That’s the basic tenant of the art form. There are a lot of cartoonists out there whining about how the world is making it impossible for them to be successful. It’s getting laughable.