Local Cartoonist: Art Won't Falter In Face Of Terrorism

Fans of political satire from around the world reacted with outrage to the deadly attack on a French humor magazine Wednesday.

WFDD spoke with a local cartoonist and a scholar of satire at UNC Greensboro. They say the worldwide response reaffirms cartooning as an essential part of free speech.

Andrew David Cox graduated in May from Appalachian State University, where he was an award-winning cartoonist for the student newspaper. He's now a freelance cartoonist in Pfafftown. His work has appeared in such publications as The Camel City Dispatch.

When he heard about the attack on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, he did the only thing he knew to do--he picked up a pen and a piece of paper, and he began drawing.

The resulting cartoon shows a bloody pen slashing into a sword, snapping the blade in two. It's titled the sword will never win.

"I wanted to do something that was sensitive to the attacks and recognized the tragedy of it, but also recognizes that cartooning is not going to falter in the face of terrorism," he says. "That's the best way to honor what these cartoonists did."

Cox says he knows some negative reactions and hate mail will inevitably come from some readers of his work, but he plans to cartoon for a long time and isn't worried that it could lead to violence.

Geoffrey Baym approaches satire from a different perspective. He has studied satire academically as an associate professor at UNCG, and is the author of From Cronkite to Colbert, the Evolution of Broadcast News.

He says he's worried that recent incidents against humorists could have a chilling effect on their work.

"When you pair the attack in Paris with the whole North Korean attack on Sony and the assault on the film The Interview, we are in really uncharted waters suddenly," he says. "Now everybody has to think a little bit about 'if I say this, if I write this, if I post this picture, what might come down on me?'"

But Baym is hopeful that the more people try to suppress these forms of free speech, the more people will demand it. And when cartoonists are arrested or harmed, it's a show of desperation.

"That's a sign of a political ideology or a system that has hit rock bottom, if they feel that they are so threatened by the comedians, by the jokers, that they have to put them in jail  or worse assassinate them." 

Baym says satire is found in every culture around the world, including the Middle East. "So I certainly hope people don't think this intolerance is a characteristic of an entire culture." 

He says a true sign of a free society is its ability to laugh at itself and its shortcomings through satire.