Steve Bell - Guardian cartoonist

IdleRich

IdleRich
Can someone explain why he is supposed to be funny/good? Every time I give his cartoons another chance I'm amazed at the childishness of his humour; that's at the times when I can work out what the joke is even supposed to be. More often than not the sketch blunders on for several days as if heading for a punchline and then just stops as though he couldn't think of an ending (it reminds me of a stand-up comedian I once saw at an open mic show who had no material and tried to make up jokes as he went on - he died). I don't understand why a national newspaper, or any newspaper for that matter, would print this rubbish.
And yet, he is feted by other cartoonists, wins award after award and is somehow held up as a genius. What am I missing?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Well, that one isn't so bad (in that it doesn't make me angry about how bad it is, it's not great either) but I was talking more about the "story" ones on the back of G2 as opposed to the big ones inside. He just seems to flail around desperately for a joke and then just give up without anyone noticing.
 

gabriel

The Heatwave
i have no idea how i would explain why i thought steve bell was funny, but invariably find his stuff hilarious. i don't think it's about stories or punchlines though, it's more to do with how he sums up a person or a situation in his drawings (e.g. the whole john major underpants thing, bush as a monkey, heseltine as tarzan, tebbitt as a zombie, blair's weird eye etc)
 

3underscore

Well-known member
The main reason Bell is admired is for his main frame Editorial cartoons - these are generally cutting, incisive and amusing.

The thing with "If..." is that he picks a more running political theme, or anything (when it went colour the penguins, who arrived from the Falklands war onward, were going mad believing they had bird flu as they went into colour). As a result, it can be somewhat more abstract and difficult to catch hold of.

As for who finds it funny - you have to remember that Guardian readers complained when Doonsbury disappeared from their paper - a cartoon that is pretty difficult to follow in the UK with its references to US politics unreported in this country. The crosswords are also really bloody difficult. Abstract appeals to them.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I have no idea how i would explain why i thought steve bell was funny"

Fair enough, perhaps I didn't word that as well as I might have done, no-one can explain why something is funny. I just wondered if there was something that I'm missing but I guess that there isn't, it simply seems that we are all seeing the same thing but some people find it funny while I don't. Looks as though I'm in the minority though so what do I know?
 

luka

Well-known member
i love steve bell thought it is difficult to explain the appeal i agree. the drawings are better than anyone elses apart from anything else and i love if as much or more than the big editorial ones i think.
 

owen

Well-known member
i rather like 'if's slight vagueness and pointlessness!
also the greatest one was surely the ian paisley in the 31st century/ulsterman vibration series a few years ago...must try and find a pic...
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
But half his jokes these days boil down to 'George Bush looks like a monkey and Tony Blair is his weird-looking pet with a toothy grin'. How is this incisive or funny?
 

3underscore

Well-known member
Rambler said:
But half his jokes these days boil down to 'George Bush looks like a monkey and Tony Blair is his weird-looking pet with a toothy grin'. How is this incisive or funny?

I think you miss the key point - he has evolved them as these characters over a great length of time. It isn't that prescott is a bulldog, bush a monkey etc (though the way he uses their character as animal is some of the appeal). More often it is the comment that he is trying to make through the cartoon.
 

ChineseArithmetic

It is what it is
I think Steve Bell's rubbish as well. It's all the same joke - UK politics= cartoon of Tony Blair farting, religion= cartoon of the Pope farting, Northern Ireland= cartoon of Ian Paisley farting, et bleedin cetera. It's just embarassing to see it next to Doonesbury, it makes UK satire look pretty poor.
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
3underscore said:
I think you miss the key point - he has evolved them as these characters over a great length of time. It isn't that prescott is a bulldog, bush a monkey etc (though the way he uses their character as animal is some of the appeal). More often it is the comment that he is trying to make through the cartoon.

Yeah, I guess that's true, although to have spent that long evolving a character and to end up with a gag that works on the level of a Friday afternoon email forward doesn't say much though. Plus, I resent the idea of satire that you've got to be in on from the beginning to properly get, something based on long-established, set-in-stone caricatures - it smells of the inflexible 'our gang' mentality that wafts through the whole of the Guardian and really pisses me off sometimes.

Sorry, I'm feeling particularly cantankerous this morning. ;)
 

gabriel

The Heatwave
great piece in this week's Time Out (ie March 1-8 issue) in which Graham Linehan names Steve Bell as his favourite Londoner and goes on about how great Bell is.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"great piece in this week's Time Out (ie March 1-8 issue) in which Graham Linehan names Steve Bell as his favourite Londoner and goes on about how great Bell is."

Yeah, my friend was telling me about that. We always argue about whether or not Steve Bell is any good. Todays cartoon features Ming Campbell saying "I'm not just an old fart" in picture one followed up with "I'm a sparkling old fart" in picture two where he has a sparkler stuck up his arse. I think that one must have gone over my head again.
 
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