Cartoons trace their lineage back to the Italian cartone, Italian for "big paper," which was basically a sketch for a major work of art. Some of these, especially if they're by cartonists like Leonardo da Vinci or Rubens, are worth lots of money now, but they're usually not very funny. Patrick Chappatte's cartoons are a lot funnier, but not always in the "Ha! Ha! Ha!" kind of way (I won't get into price). Sometimes it's just an appreciative smile, maybe even a sad smile, when the truth of the drawing strikes home.
This is the second book of Chappatte cartoons from the International Herald Tribune. They cover the past two years, when the dominant truth was the steady deterioration of the situation in Iraq, and the realization of just how massive a folly the American invasion was. So, not surprisingly, Iraq predominates in this volume. Iraq is not a laughing matter, of course. But the purpose of a cartoon is not to entertain, any more than that was the purpose of the cartone. The purpose of a cartoon is to apply the unique and critical perspective of humor to our world -- a perspective just as applicable to tragedy as it is to farce. Like its ancestor, the cartoon is a quick sketch; the big picture is up to you.
"Globalized
2005-2007: Cartoons from the Int'l Herald Tribune"
Globe Cartoon Publisher, Geneva,
February 2007, Page 3