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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

2009 Golden Ellipses: Least Accurate Caricature

And the winner, by a landslide, is...Michelle Obama!


The Nominees for Least Accurate Caricature are:
  • Michelle Obama - I have no idea who this is supposed to be, but one person it does not look like is Michelle Obama.
  • Justice David Souter - Mallard has a real ear fetish, why make Justice Souter look like Dumbo?
  • Senator Boxer - Mallard sets out to caricature Senator Boxer and ends up drawing Sybil Trelawney.
  • Robert Gibbs - Looking like Karl Rove, after his head was caught in a compactor.
  • Zombie Obama - In a year of lengthening penis-chins, Zombie Obama really stood out from the crowd.

14 comments:

CW in LA said...

The Michelle Obama was far and away the most gratuitously spiteful.

Y'know, I gave Pickles Bush a wide berth for most of those 8 long years until she let loose with one too many "librul media" comments. Remind me not to do that next time there's a Rethug in the White House.

Eight Point Five said...

I have to go with Michelle Obama. That is just so bad that it makes me facepalm.

Also, why the fuck is the first image to come up on Google Image Search for Michelle Obama a goddamn chimpanzee? Keep it classy, conservatives!

Hibryd said...

It was a hard choice, but I had to pick Gibbs, just because of the 2-for-1 special on bad, bad caricatures.

Kip W said...

I actually went with Obama, because here Tin shows his deep affinity for fellow comics legend Cathy Guisewhite: like her, he draws this stuff, day in, day out, and never gets any better. With all the practice he gets on the Prez, he shows the opposite of improvement, as if he's copying his own caricatures instead of looking at a real picture of Obama.

NotannonNotcow said...

I'm going with Michelle Obama. Although they're all bad, the Michelle Obama caricature is the farthest from the actual person.

Michael Foley said...

I'm filing a protest that the double penis-chin is not included. Also, Zombie Obama is the fault of the colorist, not Tinsley.

That aside, good god -- we have a real murderer's row here. While Michelle "The Joker" Obama is tempting, I'm voting for Justice David "To Serve Man" Souter.

It's a cookbook! It's a cookbook!!

Michael Foley said...

In Golden Ellipses posts, would it be possible to unobtrusively insert links to the original D&C threads? I've found that it's great fun to read the comments that were made at the time.

exanonymous said...

Michelle Obama. Tinsley's got a special place in his heart for Democrat women and it shows.

Which makes the Boxer a close second.

Michael Foley said...

Democrat women? They've gotten to you...

I hate chuck asay said...

Remember that the purpose of a caricature is to exaggerate the flaws, not to present an accurate picture. I compared the caricatures to actual photos, and these are my thoughts.

Michelle Obama: I will give Tinsley credit: This is a good caricature. It accentuates her worst facial features, and looks like a warped version of her picture.

Justice David Souter: This one was a lazy caricature. It was, only, a slight exaggeration of his worst features--to be honest, based on the pictures, Souter is kind of ugly.

Barbara Boxer: I think Tinsley started with an idea of how to caricature Barbara Boxer, became very drunk, and confused her picture with one of Keith Richards. This is a very bad caricature.

zombie Obama: This is, truly, awful: I think Tinsley, just, traced a photo of Obama, and added a dickchin and enlarged the ears. This is the work of a true hack--how appropriate. I vote for this one.

I hate chuck asay said...

Robert Gibbs: A simple caricature, but a good one. Tinsley has, successfully, exaggerated his main flaw without excessively warping the rest of his features.

Word Verification: Ostiv, a crippling bone disease Tinsley suffer due to massive alcohol consumption and regular fights.

GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

I chose the First Lady also. It is, as CW in LA says, gratuitously spiteful, and beyond that, it makes her look vaguely like some sort of pokémon. "Right-wing talking point, I choose you!"

Rootbeer said...

I must have missed the time when Michelle Obama appeared in public with a Condi Rice hairdo. And was drawn left-handedly by a 12-year-old.

The Souter drawing seems to have been started with the hairline and ears, and then completed at half scale when the artist realized the whole head would not fit inside the strip.

The Boxer caricature isn't bad... by Mallard standards.

I'm all for putting Karl Rove's head into a compactor.

While I don't "get" the Obama caricature, it's at least been consistent. Depicting the President as a gray parsnip with big ears and thick lips isn't THAT much worse than what's done in Doonesbury, where Trudeau hasn't drawn a President's face since R-R-Ron Headrest.

rewinn said...

"Right-wing talking point, I choose you!"

Ever get the feelin' that reichwingers think this is all just a game?