Glenn McCoy and his exclamation points

I try to read the newspaper everyday. Nevertheless, I don’t always have time to read the whole thing. Whether it’s because I’m about to be late for work or I’m almost out of cereal to eat, I need to get the most paper enjoyment I can in a small time frame. It is during times like this I go to the editorial/opinion section of the paper.

Is it fair and balanced? No. Does it tell me all the information I need to know to be a properly informed citizen? No. Does it have comics? Yes. And that’s what counts.

These two pages are the most concentrated dose one can find in the newspaper. It has editorials from somewhat respectable people, crazy people with their crazy thoughts and cartoons for when you don’t have time for both news and Family Circus. The letters to the editor are especially interesting to read because news isn’t important unless you have shut-ins writing to their local paper about it.

I recognize the fact that a blogger joking about crazy people's opinions is a pot and kettle relationship.

Political cartoons have always been a respected form of commentary. This nation was even helped created by the "Join, or Die" political cartoon created by Benjamin Franklin. Cartoons were always appreciated because they helped get the point across easily even if a person didn’t know how to read. History textbooks would also be a lot more boring without political cartoons to look through while you are bored during American History 2 (American History 1 and American History X both being course pre-requisites). However, there is one man whose cartoons create no feeling inside me but hatred for its creator. I am talking about Glenn McCoy.

McCoy's version of the pot and kettle.

I don’t just hate him because he’s too conservative for my taste. I don’t just hate him because his drawings suck. I don’t just hate him because he has the subtlety of a train blowing by your bedroom window. If I had to choose one reason why Glenn McCoy is a hack, it boils down to exclamation points.

I have never been a fan of the punctuation mark. It has no room in a newspaper and unless you’re Dostoevsky I don’t want to see it in prose writing. It’s completely unnecessary and does not belong anywhere but in a badly butchered text message from your 11 year old cousin. McCoy uses them not just occasionally but all the time.

His cartoons are all the same. They are filled with right-wing knee jerk reactions to any small issue and the image is usually two people yelling at each other. Nobody talks to each other in these cartoons. It is all caricatures having one big argument. People don't have conversations in his cartoons, they just yell.

And the exclamation points aren't enough to convey how loud these people are yelling.

Any possible message that can be taken from his cartoons is completely vanquished by his ham-fisted approach to the respectable art. Once you get past all his faults (between the lack of subtlety and art that makes one's eyes bleed) and actually read the cartoons you discover that they are half thought out gripes about misunderstood policies. McCoy goes for the emotion full throttle and leaves everyone behind in his ink blotted mess.