Interviewing a cartoonist!

John Antono: The Cartoonist

Is it possible to approach major social problems through humour?

From ancient times, people have been using humour as a way to criticize and satirize major social perceptions such as poverty, war, or even death. Humour, especially self-sarcasm is a way to alleviate what’s bothering us, to take certain things less seriously and to deconstruct our fears, real or imaginary.

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What is more essential: the design of a sketch or the issue that it deals with?

I believe it’s a combination of both things. Of course, if we are discussing a political cartoon, the scale tips towards the second. A cartoon that accurately grasps a “hot” issue is obviously a lot more interesting than the one that, although well-designed, it has nothing of substance to say.

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How hard is to become a cartoonist in Greece?

Money-wise it is definitely harder now than what it was for the older cartoonists, seeing as the political cartoon co-exists with the press and is definitely affected by the crisis the latter has undergone the past few years. However, the true enemy of the modern cartoon, as well as of any form of (not only) artistic expression, is no other than censorship. Fortunately, political cartoon in Greece is not facing any such peril directly compared to other countries, even though there are many cases of subtle, ex post facto intervention or even of precautionary censorship practices. 

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Does politicizing your content mean that you might end up limiting your audience?

By nature, the political cartoon refers to a broad, but, at the same time, a very specific part of the public. The part that is interested in the political, national and international developments. As a consequence, people who either don’t follow the news regularly or are completely ignorant of what’s going on in politics, will not give a dime for the stance a cartoonist takes regarding those issues.

It goes without saying that there are some people who just disagree. Someone who disapproves of the way you interpret politics will disapprove of you as an artist too.

However, I find these people rather nearsighted and bigoted. I personally follow up cartoonists that I strongly disagree with, politically speaking, but I recognize that their work offers me a different perspective, as long as they do not promote fanatism, empathy and useless stereotypes. Certainly, some cartoonists engage in other relevant types of sketch art such as comics or drawing, which makes our audience not strictly political.

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Which one is your favourite sketch?

I have created a lot of cartoons in my life. So many that I find it hard to pick one in particular. I have, of course, a certain appeal to some of a more timeless nature (for instance the ones with historic references) that can be “read” irrespective of the time we live in or the current political situation. Nonetheless, and so as not to leave this question completely unanswered, I enjoy more the self-contained comics I make for my new science comics series Homo Skepticus (available on socomic.gr every Wednesday). This is probably because I have been planning this series for many years before actually making it, or because I use this series to talk about things that deeply concern me and that I deem as more significant than a mere comment on the current affairs.

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Is there such thing as a “political correctness” filter in your artwork?

What we call “political correctness” is actually nothing more than a set of fundamental rules of co-existence and mutual respect to be applied by the members of society. It is a minimum of principles that we as a society have agreed on so as not to disregard human decency, minorities and other vulnerable groups. In other words, people that are defenceless. There is so much satirical the material out there that I think it’s absurd that some feel oppressed because they cannot, for example, depict people from Africa or women in the same stereotypical way of the beginning of the 20th century. On top of that, there is nothing comical about recreating supposedly funny racist, sexist, homophobic, antisemitic, and so on, jokes, that at the end of the day remain old-fashioned, mawkish and obsolete. What is worse is that the obsessive disputants of political correctness nowadays are nothing more than some last-level far-right and AltRight supporters that as privileged, white, heterosexual and middle-aged men, in their majority, with an extremely conservative mind-set, they realize that their power is diminishing and they are unable to express themselves as they did decades ago without them being made fun of by the public.

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How do you think people would react seeing themselves as cartoons in your sketches?

Ι hope with humour and an open mind, even if sometimes the sketches negatively address their actions or exercise intense criticism (sometimes maybe in an unfair way). My personal experience is telling me that the vast majority of political figures enjoy their regular appearance in cartoons, given that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

John Antono is a professional Greek cartoonist. You can find out more about his sharp cartoons by simply visiting his Blogspot (http://johnantono.blogspot.com) or his Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/johnantono.cartoonist/).