Xitter Tanks

ekZepp@lemmy.world to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 1378 points –
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Is it just me getting unreasonably irritated when the artist captions the things they're depicting, as if we're either too dumb to understand or they suck at making subtle references?

It's a political comics thing that has its roots in England around 250 300 years ago. The comic is meant simultaneously to be funny (and therefore disarming) and legitimate political propaganda. To ensure that the political propaganda message is not lost on the masses they label everything to make sure their message most clearly gets across.

For example, see this political cartoon from 1903. Panama_canal_cartoon_1903.jpg

That's actually cool to know, though I dislike the practice, they kinda look like previous century memes lol

For example, see this political cartoon from 1903.

That was lost on me either way, but I guess it's just my lack of knowledge on US's history 👀

The cartoon shows the US aligning with Panama separatist factions to break from Colombia so that they can permit the construction of the channel.

Panama was a separate colony from Colombia, but they joined when becoming independent.

I find it utterly hilarious that the cited purpose is clarity, but the referenced comic required explanation. Bravo.

Also thanks for the explanation because I wasn't getting it, either. Makes sense, though. Give it a few hundred years and English might be so different the labels wouldn't have mattered at all, let alone missing context.

I’m guessing you just don’t know History very well, i didn’t need any sort of explanation to understand the comic.

Good for you! Totally and completely irrelevant to my point.

The comic already required explanation ... while it had text on it. Nothing you say, do, or believe will EVER change the fact that the comic required explanation about as soon as it was posted.

Grow up and realize you are not the main character. Your beliefs or knowledge do not change reality.

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These sorts of comics have been captioned like this for decades. I'm not sure if they were ever not captioned.

If anything I think they were even more obvious back then... The Troll would have had "Troll" written on their laptop and so on...

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Decades indeed. Thomas Nast made his first cartoon in like 1860 or something.

I've seen some done in the 1800s. Captioned.

At this point it's a staple of the genre.

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That's just the way political comics goes. It's expected and common. It's not a web comic, bruh; there's a tradition to maintain.

Well, I guess so, wasn't expeting a whole culture around these

Not all political comics are like that though, the best ones don't need the labelling.

Ben Garrison does the same thing. It's pretty common

Well, his audience seems to pretty obviously need things spelled out for them. In very, very short words.

Damn, now that's one that goes overboard!

At least when Garrison does it it's so over the top it's farcical and ridiculous which makes it funny unlike this comic

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