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| Gitte Skov, Men er det sjovt (But Is It Funny), published at Cobolt, 2021. |
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Frank Reynolds, No, Dear, That's Not Funny, 1921.
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There is no question mark rounding off the title. Gitte Skov's new book
Men er det sjovt (But Is It Funny) denotes the existential pain of every cartoonist. It is as relevant in 2021 as it was in 1921 when Frank Reynolds drew his version of the dilemma here to the right.
Then as now the anguish is the punchline and it works every time. The wringing out oneself only to see it shot to the ground the very moment it meets the world. Humour is pain in great cartooning.
Gitte Skov began what turned into an odyssey and eventually a book on Instagram three years ago. She published an almost daily cartoon exploring the restrictions imposed on the cartoonist. It was magnificent. She drew herself as the litmus paper test onto which she threw every acid possible.
To be precise, she lets her protagonist do it all to herself. Her alter ego is spared nothing. On a sunny day Gitte Skov's pen is a hammer to the inner organs of her spectators and now we are playing with acids.
Each cartoon dissolves what we have set up as premises and boundaries in our society. More often than not we have nothing to say in our defense. It is right there on the paper.
I shall not detail what takes place in that it would spoil the effect. Every new twist and turn deserves to be seen on the book pages. Presently I wish to highlight Gitte's premise for the book in the precariousness of the cartoonist's life and work. Alarm is sounded by the mere presence of a cartoon. Cartoons are visual of nature and consequently immediately noticed to which we add the role of the political cartoonist as the
canary in the coalmine. They comment on what is painful even in the best of democracies.
Gitte's book was published last week in the same days as politicians and eventually the Minister of Education took steps to "rein in" researchers within academia. Mental egotism is the result of lazy brains with no readiness to consider anything outside of their own minds and when someone is directly saying this is wrong, it is as if the Red Queen of Alice in Wonderland has entered the room: OF WITH THEIR HEAD!
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| The header of Le Charivari, July 27, 1835. |
The problem is as old as the political cartoon. In 1835 censorship on printed images was reinstated in France when the satirical magazine Le Charivari happened to publish a red inked "blood red" (as the papers declared in the days following) edition the day before an attempt on the king's life. The edition was listing the victims of the corrupted "public order", but the (permanent) heading of the magazine happened to resemble the gusts and dusts of an explosion surrounding the king. The visual elements of the corrupted sucking up to the golden calf of a king was conveniently overlooked. The red edition was waved about in Parliament as a definite proof of - basically anything criminal at hand. It could have been an actual accomplice, or maybe it had been prophetic, inspiring a coup?
It is always the fault of the cartoonist.
"It is thus no longer the printed word itself, which is its concern; it is the entire thinking sphere of the author" wrote Meïr Goldschmidt, the editor of Corsaren (No, 193, May 24, 1844), which employed what became the first Danish cartoonist, Peter Klæstrup. Goldschmidt was defending his magazine in court that satire cannot be judged by what is implied, only what is actually there on paper. Otherwise the actual words become purely accidental, as Goldschmidt continued:
"(...) and the next time it may just as well be asked; what have you meant by that smile, that gesture and so forth? But even the smile and the gesture are secondary, it is after all the idea, which is sought; one can therefore go even further and simply ask: What have you meant or thought in it or that moment, or in this or that year, or in all of your life?"
What have you thought - as in ever? Anything can be read into it. Anything can be willfully misunderstood however careful the cartoonist or their editor. Goldschmidt was found guilty in spite of his eloquence and Klæstrup created what is basically a cartoon that could be shown today. A hand with a piece of paper stating "The drawing must be imagined":
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"The drawing must be imagined" Peter Klæstrup, Corsaren, No. 198, June 28, 1844. |
The cartoon above is of course a provocation. Klæstrup was not throwing in the towel. He was as defiant as Gitte Skov is today on their right to express themselves and exert their profession.
Which does not ease the relentless self-doubt asking oneself what is the right thing to do and how to go about it. Gitte chronicles her vulnerability in constant dialogue with her dog Frigg. Frigg is her voice of rationalism with eyes from within the shadows of mild despair. Frigg in turn consults her fellow canines on what to do next.
What were originally one-frame cartoons on Instagram has been transformed into in a many-layered comic interspersed with full page punch lines. Frigg's dark nose is anchoring the page below and note how Gitte elegantly twists the angle of the scene in unison with their dialogue all through the page until full focus is placed on the final frame:
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| Page from Gitte Skov, Men er det sjovt (But Is It Funny), 2021. |
From there the story takes off. Gitte puts herself on the line - pun absolutely intended. As opinion piece-creators cartoonists stand up for what they express.
And that burden would be so much easier to carry in the words of Goldschmidt, if cartoonists (and writers) were only answer to:
"(...) the words he has said and not for the thought, he expressed therein and not for the thought that could possibly be found to lie therein".
The excerpts shown from Men er det sjovt are courtesy of Gitte Skov and must not be reproduced.
