Cartoon critics Phil Witte and Rex Hesner look behind the gags to debate what makes a cartoon tick. This week our intrepid critics take a look at football. Football is America’s pastime if you don’t include baseball. To be clear, we mean American football, not that low-scoring affair called soccer. As a sport, football is…
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Anatomy of a Cartoon: Let it Snow
Cartoon critics Phil Witte and Rex Hesner look behind the gags to debate what makes a cartoon tick. This week our intrepid critics take a look at snow. As temperatures drop heading into the New Year, cascades of snow fall across the country. We explore a renewed world wrapped in a white mantel with wide-eyed…
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Anatomy of a Cartoon: Cowboy Up
Cartoon critics Phil Witte and Rex Hesner look behind the gags to debate what makes a cartoon tick. This week our intrepid critics take a look at cowboys. Few characters represent the American ideals of independence, self-reliance, and rugged individualism better than the cowboy of the Old West. The cowboy is a mythic figure, made…
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Anatomy of a Cartoon: Fairy Tales
Cartoon critics Phil Witte and Rex Hesner look behind the gags to debate what makes a cartoon tick. This week our intrepid critics take a look at fairy tale cartoons. We first hear fairy tales at an impressionable age, usually before we can read. The characters and their magical stories are part of our collective…
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Anatomy of a Cartoon: Unsocial Distancing
Cartoon critics Phil Witte and Rex Hesner look behind the gags to debate what makes a cartoon tick. This week our intrepid critics take a look at social distancing cartoons. Mid-pandemic, it feels there’s no end to the upending of our lives. Someday, looking back, we’ll marvel at the strange customs we adopted to cope…
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Anatomy of a Cartoon: Outside the Box
Cartoon critics Phil Witte and Rex Hesner look behind the gags to debate what makes a cartoon tick. This week our intrepid critics take a look at unusual toons. Many cartoonists rely on cliches, that is, setups that can be relied upon because they are familiar yet durable enough to vary in almost infinite ways….
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