Kevin “KAL” KALLAUGHER has seen the future of political cartooning, and it’s digital puppetry. This real-time, motion-capture, animation technology is what has allowed KAL to transform President Bush into a living cartoon (insert your own joke here).
KAL, 52, has for 30 years been editorial cartoonist for the British weekly, The Economist. He unveiled his “Digital Dubya” during a visit to Chicago for an Economist-sponsored event with Second City exploring “The Art of Political Satire.” The man behind the curtain, KAL was hooked up to a headset that digitally translated his movements to his onscreen Bush incarnation. The ears inflated Dumbo-like in response to vexing questions from the audience (“George Bush’s ears can never be too big,” KAL advises).
Political cartoonists face challenges from cost-cutting publishers who are increasingly dispensing with their services, and from editors fearing controversy in these PC times. “Most publishers will tell you that nothing creates more havoc among readers than a cartoon,” KAL says. “I look at developing countries, where to be a cartoonist you’re really on the front lines of freedom of expression. There are still a lot of places where cartoonists are jailed and murdered.”
But there’s life in this centuries-old art form yet, especially with a presidential election on the horizon (John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, KAL said, offer him the richest–read funniest–artistic possibilities). “Three years ago, the landscape was different,” he says. “To criticize the administration was deemed unpatriotic. That was a tougher time for satirists.”
The Web offers “great hope for satire,” KAL says. “Now, we have a rich visual diet that we feast off of, and the animated cartoon is a part of it.” But the role stays the same, he says. “Political satirists want society to move in a certain direction. They’re like sheepdogs, biting at rear ends or snapping at heels to make people move that way.”
