INSIDE ANOTHER CARTOONING SCANDAL

Last December, while the scandal was still simmering, Hogan’s Alley talked online with “the ubiquitous Barry Blitt, uber-illustrator and the provocateur behind the New Yorker cover that lampooned how Barack and Michelle Obama would behave in the White House (as viewed from Crazytown).” Blitt said he generally comes up with his own ideas for covers and illustrations, and when he submitted the sketch for the controversial Obama Islamist cover, “Francoise Mouly, the art editor, got it right away,” Blitt said. “So did David Remnick, the editor. For me — and for the two of them, apparently — there was no mistaking the irony of the thing.” In the initial sketch, the Obamas were clad as Islamists. “This was after hearing one too many insinuations in the media. Francoise rightly suggested that Michelle Obama was being talked about more as a 1970s-era Black Panther — remember the rumors of a ‘kill whitey’ video? She also suggested a few of the outrageous accoutrements in the background of the Oval Office.

 The idea was to make the thing so outrageous no one could possibly take it at face value. ... When I handed in the finished art, Francoise said, ‘After this is out there, they won't be calling the Obamas terrorists, etc., any more.’ It felt like we were putting the lie to all that crap.” Then, of course, the feces hit the flabellum. Said Blitt: “Personally, I only saw it as satire of the right. But the ambiguity could only help get the issues discussed. Oh God, I just used the word ambiguity discussing my own work. I'm officially a jackass.” Has anything he’s ever done compared to the yelling and screaming over the Obama cover? “There's been nothing like this for me,” Blitt said. “I did two sailors kissing in Times Square — over ten years ago, before the Internet was as widespread and everyone had a blog. I think a lot of the hullabaloo over the Obama cover was Internet-fed; it spread like a virus. It's so easy to voice your outrage now.”

The current (that is 2009) issue of Hogan’s Alley, an annual magazine about comics, mostly of the strip kind but also including some magazine cartoonists and comic bookishness, is No. 16, due out momentarily. Google Hogan’s Alley to get to cagle.msnbc.com, where, if I’m not mistaken, you can find out how to subscribe and/or buy a single copy. Or type hoganmag.com in your browser; it’ll take you to the same place, only faster.