Michael Cavna Dan Perkins

Inliers Who Somehow Think They’re Outliers

“Inliers” do not possess the basic courage and capablity for questioning and challenging the diverse hands feeding them. They write articles like “Tom Tomorrow: What does it mean when a true outlier is a Pulitzer Prize finalist?”  Michael Cavna, the Washington Post cartoon columnist who wrote that one, seems incapable of understanding the basic premise that “true outliers” can NOT become Pulitzer Prize finalists.  They can only do that if in fact they are “untrue outliers” who somehow think they are “true outliers,” kind of like Cavna himself.

The entire structure feeding the Cavnas and other “inliers” remains out of bounds for their critical thinking.  Now, for example, rather than trumpet the “string of honors,” as Cavna does regarding cartoonist Dan Perkins aka Tom November, why not actually think and wonder who might be the faceless judges of cartoonist propriety handing out those so-called “honors” and what might tick them off, and how and why do those cartoonists who receive the  so-called “honors” sufficiently self-censor themselves to be considered for them?  

How do the faceless judges keep cartoonists barking like little doggies for the little doggie biscuits held in their hands?  Where are the courageous cartoonists in America—you know, like the Charlie Hebdo martyrs of freedom of speech in France—, who bite those hands and satirize those faceless judges?  Well, you ain’t gonna find them even way at the bottom of the Pulitzer Prize list.  So-called “alternative or independent” cartoonists have really become nothing but second-tier established-order cartoonists desperate to climb the ladder to the first tier like, once upon a time, Gary Trudeau, now PC, Democrat-Party, anti-Charlie-Hebdo Islamist apologist.  

Cavna needs to define the term “outlier,” which for him, seems to mean not yet recognized by the established-order and he or she who sketches PC-acceptable themes, while barking to be recognized by that order.  Cavna-designated “outlier” Dan Perkins notes:  “It’s been gratifying to have the work recognized in the past couple of years.  I got the Herblock, I got a Society of Illustrators silver medal, and now this—it’s just nice to have these things.”  But why doesn’t Perkins have the capacity to ask himself what he’s probably been doing wrong to get recognized by a society of illustrators?  Perkins barks ravenously:  “Time is not my friend. How many more years will I be eligible [for the Pulitzer]? I don’t have that many more shots at it.  But even to have made it as a finalist— this is hugely significant for me. … I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”  But when one barks ravenously, one cannot see or think clearly.  

Cavna exists in WaPo dreamlandia, ever barking for doggie bones.  The whole award-system structure serves a purpose:  to place those who do not have the courage to bite established-order hands in the limelight and to keep those who do bite those hands out of it.  Period.  Now, as a cartoonist, I shall have to satirize Cavna around that basic premise.  Do you think he will respond?  Would he publish the cartoon in his WaPo column?  In fact, will he simply censor this comment out of view from faithful WaPo readers?