Ted Rall
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Ted Rall, born 1963 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and raised near Dayton, Ohio, is a left wing columnist and editorial cartoonist. Unlike many editorial cartoonists, his political cartoons often appear in a traditional multi-panel comic-strip format.
He attended Columbia University's engineering school from 1981 to 1984 where he contributed cartoons to the campus newspapers, including the Columbia Daily Spectator and the Jester. He did not complete his studies in the engineering school, but returned to graduate from Columbia's School of General Studies in 1991 with a bachelor of arts, with honors, in history. Rall says meeting Keith Haring in 1986, at a subway station, inspired him to pursue cartooning as a full-time profession.
Rall writes a weekly syndicated column and edits the Attitude series of alternative cartooning anthologies and spin-off collections by up-and-coming cartoonists. He also travels to and writes about Central Asia, a region he believes to be pivotal to U.S. foreign policy concerns.
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[edit] Style
Rall is one of a new breed of editorial cartoonists who began in the alternative weeklies during the 1980s and early 1990s with wordy, abstractly drawn strips about politics and social issues. His abstract drawing style reflects a distinct break from the cross-hatched style developed by Jeff MacNelly during the 1960s, a house style that has become virtually synonymous with American editorial cartooning. Syndicated since 1991, he enjoyed success in mainstream newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post. Unexpected attacks on sacred cows led to a reputation for unorthodox politics. He was, for example, one of the few liberal cartoonists to call for Bill Clinton's impeachment for lying under oath. He is also opposed to gun control legislation. His cartoons have appeared regularly in Rolling Stone, Time, Fortune and Men's Health magazines, and were for several years the most reproduced cartoons in the New York Times.
[edit] Controversies
Rall's work has a polarizing effect on its readers. While his supporters consider him audacious and brilliant, his detractors call him cruel and talentless. In 1999, Rall created a controversy, especially among fellow cartoonists, when he wrote an article in the Village Voice [1] accusing Maus creator Art Spiegelman of lacking talent and allegedly controlling who gets high-profile assignments from magazines like The New Yorker through personal connections, including his wife, a New Yorker editor. As a self-described prank, New York Press illustrator Danny Hellman sent two sets of e-mails under Rall's name to at least 35 cartoonists and editors. After Hellman ignored his cease-and-desist notices, Rall filed a 1.5 million dollar lawsuit for libel per se, libel per quod, injurious falsehood, violation of civil rights, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Rall's suit stated that Hellman's action was an attempt to sabotage his career. Eventually four of Rall's five claims were dismissed, leaving only libel per se.[2] The outcome of the lawsuit is unclear.
Rall has also caused considerable controversy with several of his post-9/11 cartoons. One in particular, the "Terror Widows" cartoon [3], which suggested the widows of men murdered in the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks were motivated by greed, was called offensive by many and perceptive by others. The comic led to his strip being dropped from the New York Times website. [4] Rall's response to the criticism: "I've done a few lousy cartoons in my time that I'd love to take back, but this isn't one of them." Right-wing pundit and Rall critic Ann Coulter made an almost identical argument regarding the women widowed by the 9/11 attacks in her book Godless.
Rall raised hackles with his May 4, 2004 Op/Ed "An Army of Scum: Or, We're Looking For a Few Good Homosexual Rapists"[5], in which he wrote about the Abu Ghraib scandal, "American troops occupying Iraq have become virtually indistinguishable from the SS". The headline referred to news reports that American troops had systematically sodomized Iraqi prisoners with flashlights and other objects.
Another controversial Rall cartoon was one on Pat Tillman, whom his comic described as an "idiot" and "sap" for abandoning his NFL career to enlist in the armed forces, and portrayed as an anti-Arab bigot. [6]. Later, after revelations of Tillman's privately held anti-Iraq-war sentiments became public, Rall said he regretted having made such assumptions about Tillman's motives. [7]
A June 8, 2004 Op/Ed piece by Ted Rall, published shortly after the death of former President Ronald Reagan claimed that Reagan is "turning crispy brown right about now," implying that the former president is burning in Hell because of his policies.
He created controversy with his July 5, 2004 cartoon[8] depicting Condoleezza Rice going to a "racial re-education camp" and referring to her as a "house nigga." Rall, a white man, was accused of racism by Project 21, a conservative African American group.
A November 8, 2004 cartoon[9]) depicting mentally disabled children as classroom teachers drew complaints from advocates for the disabled and led to his cartoons being dropped from The Washington Post's website. Rall responded in his blog saying: "I regret hurting people who I have nothing against. I do want to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and I think I failed in that with this cartoon. Not to mention that the cartoon failed--too many people got bogged down in the analogy and the main point got lost."
On July 4, 2005, Ted Rall, in an Op/Ed piece[10] accused George W. Bush's chief political strategist Karl Rove of being "more morally repugnant and more anti-American" than 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Ted Rall is a frequent guest on "Hannity and Colmes", the BBC and NPR. He contributes a cartoon called "Left Coast" to the Los Angeles CityBeat. In February 2005, BBC Television broadcast a 30 minute profile of Rall as part of their series Cartoonists on the Front Line.
Rall is listed at #15 in Bernard Goldberg's book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America described by the author as a "vicious, conspiracy-minded, hate-filled jerk. Rall perceived the listing as an honor, replying, "Not only am I grouped with many people whom I admire for their achievements and patriotism, I'm being demonized by McCarthyite thugs I despise." [11].
He coined the term "theftinomics" to describe economic policies that he says are based on theft or fraud, but this term has not been widely adopted.
Rall solicited funds from readers and left wing bloggers in an attempt to sue Ann Coulter for libel and slander for her (self described as "joking") statement that, "Iran is soliciting cartoons on the Holocaust. So far, only Ted Rall, Garry Trudeau, and The New York Times have made submissions." Coulter first made the remark at the 2006 Conservative Political Action Committee meeting in Washington DC on February 10th, and then printed it in her syndicated column the following week. As of Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 pledges totalled over $21,000.[12] [13] However, no mention has been made of legal action against Coulter on Rall's website since March 10, 2006, and pledges are no longer being solicited. The disposition of the $21,000 is unknown.
In his May 16 2006 column, Rall said he has confirmation from his phone company that the Bush administration has tapped his phone. [14]
[edit] Awards
Rall's cartoons have won numerous awards, including the 1995 and 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards and the Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Club Award. His book Real Americans Admit: The Worst Thing I've Ever Done! won first prize from the Firecracker Alternative Press Awards, his Orwell parody "2024" was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon.com, and his graphic travelogue To Afghanistan and Back was named as one of the American Library Association's Best Books of the Year. Rall was a 1996 Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is Vice President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.
[edit] Publications
- Waking Up In America (1992), cartoon collection
- All The Rules Have Changed (1995), cartoon collection
- Real Americans Admit: The Worst Thing I've Ever Done! (1996), graphic novel
- My War With Brian (1998), graphic novel
- Revenge of the Latchkey Kids: An Illustrated Guide to Surviving the '90s and Beyond (1998)
- Search and Destroy (2001), cartoon collection
- 2024: A Graphic Novel (2001)
- Attitude: The New Subversive Political Cartoonists (2002), editor
- Gas War: The Truth Behind the American Occupation of Afghanistan (2002)
- To Afghanistan and Back (2003), graphic travelogue
- Working For the Man (2003) William Messner-Loebs benefit anthology; contributor
- Attitude 2: The New Subversive Alternative Cartoonists (2004), editor
- Wake Up, You're Liberal!: How We Can Take America Back from the Right (2004), prose non-fiction, ISBN 1-932360-22-0
- Generalissimo El Busho: Essays and Cartoons on the Bush Years (2004)
- Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists (2006)
- Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East? (2006), graphic novellas and essays
- America Gone Wild (2006), cartoon collection
[edit] Blog
Ted Rall is also the author of "Search and Destroy: Ted Rall is America's BS detector" (see external links)
[edit] External links
- Ted Rall Homepage
- Concurrent mirror of the Ted Rall Homepage This and rall.com are often down, but seldom simultaneously
- Extensive review of Generalissimo el Busho
- Angry response to Rall
- Editorial Cartoons by Ted Rall from Yahoo! news.
Editorials
- Anti-Reagan op/ed
- AN ARMY OF SCUM
- Ted Rall defence of op/ed
- OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE HAS JUST BEGUN, Yahoo News Op-Ed, Nov. 9, 2006
News articles
Transcripts from Hannity & Colmes
Blog
