Today on the site, Andre Molotiu examines a cartoon controversy around the confederate flag.
Two weeks ago, a little three-act drama was enacted in the world of online political cartooning. On Friday, June 26, just hours after the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell vs. Hodges was released, the Southern Poverty Law Center posted on Facebook a five-panel strip showing the Confederate flag coming down and a rainbow flag taking its place on the same pole. No artist was named, and the strip had as sole attribution Daryl Cagle’s caglecartons.com website. On that day full of rainbow-colored profile pics, the post proved wildly popular: as of the evening of Monday, June 29, it had received 230,488 likes and 192,197 shares, mine among them. Facebook doesn’t seem to keep track of such things, but judging by my news feed, quite a few people set up the strip as their Facebook profile cover image. At the time, I went over to Daryl Cagle’s page to ask him who had drawn the strip, only to see that the question had already been asked and he had not answered it.
Elsewhere:
Here's a rarte interview with pioneering comics historian John Lent.
Vanity Fair profiles Kelly Sue DeConnick.
Charles Hatfield has announced a major Jack Kirby exhibition.
Department of me: Here's a nice summary of my panel discussion with members of the Hairy Who. And here I am blabbing on about more of the same. You can now see a good bit of the show online and my Hairy Who book itself will be in stores in September.
