Wednesday, December 30, 2009

David Levine is dead: a most original artist

This is a great political cartoonist. He invented an original and unique style, and he was imitated by cartoonists worldwide. A Lebanese cartoonist, Stavro, became famous in the 1960s and 1970s with cartoons (that I later realized) that copied the style of Levine. When I was a kid obsessed with political cartoons, I was most impressed with the style of Stavro, and tried to copy it. I later was disappointed to learn that I was copying the style of somebody who was copying the style of somebody else. Now, I am not in any way endorsing the political views of Levine. That is another matter altogether. This is like assessing Bob Dylan: an arch Zionist whose CD, Bob Dylan Desire is one of the best collection of songs of all time.