Thomas Nast

I realize that some forms of art just die. Poetry isn't looking too good these days, and tapestry seems to have been gone for 500 years. There are probably good reasons for these, but what ever happened to the involved political cartoon? The kind that Nast used to draw? There are still lots of people who can draw elaborate scenes in pen-and-ink. There are important issues to comment on, right?

And there is definitely a market for this kind of thing; if Harper's swallowed Reconstruction comics 135 years ago, I see no reason they shouldn't today. I can just imagine, opening a new issue of Harper's and there, between the sarcastic exerpts from pop culture and the lean hungry articles, would be a cartoon based on a neoclassical painting. George Bush would be a despot from an important era of history, presiding over some kind of artfully rendered injustice. Probably a mass execution. They did a lot of those.

This is such a good idea. I am sure you could get Harper's to bite. Most of the time, I bet they don't even know what they're doing. If I could only draw, I would make these cartoons myself.