This week, I've decided I'm going to share something that I've been working on for journalism class. We just started and editorial cartoons unit, and I love it. I think it's so interesting to be able to see a persons opinions on a complex issue in just a cartoon, mostly just a single panel. I've been working on a project where we have to collect ten cartoons about a certain subject, analyze each one, and then give a reflection of the whole collection.
The cartoons I've viewed have been everything from amusing and almost funny to somber and deadly serious. My topic was the recent vote on the gun legislation in Congress. Here's one of my favorite of the cartoons. This cartoon depicts an arm labeled as the NRA snuffing out the light and hope of new gun legislation that could have occurred from the Sandy Hook tragedy with a snuffer shaped like the Capitol. Although this cartoon only has four words on it, it is to me more powerful than any article or opinion I've read about the vote.
This cartoon is another from my collection and my other favorite. It not only emphasizes the fact that Congress can't seem to get anything important done, but that bad things will just keep happening until they do. It lists just four of the many terrible shootings that have happened in the past 14 years, three of which occurred in the past two years. It reinforces the sad truth that although we still have not used the Sandy Hook shooting as a way to get more gun legislature passed, there will soon enough come another shooting that might be able to convince Congress more than the money that the man is shown holding at the left.
For this project in journalism, we also have to draw our own editorial cartoon. I am really nervous about this project simply because I cannot draw. But more deeper than that, I am nervous because I'm afraid I wont be able to have an affect like the cartoons above. I am in awe at the pictures ability to tell so much about a situation while saying so little. I can only hope that I come close to that with my cartoon in this coming week.
