Sometimes a cartoon is worth a thousand words.
Take the fuel gauge drawn in the shape of an Oregon, with the needle pushed so far that it is empty from one corner of the gauge. Jesse Springer drew this in February 2003, when Oregon officials were projecting another $ 300 million budget deficit that would bring the state total deficit to $ 2.4 billion.
Or take the man labeled “Oregon Unemployed” who anxiously stares at a pot on the stove that is labeled “Economic Recovery.” Springer drew this one in September 2009, when the state’s unemployment rate hit a record 12.2%.
Springer has been drawing Oregon-themed political cartoons since 1995, and many of them have appeared in newspapers statewide, including the Corvallis, Eugene, Medford, and Salem newspapers. His cartoons also appear regularly in the Portland Tribune and other newspapers owned by the Pamplin Media Group.
Now he has collected over 230 of his cartoons in a paperback, “Only in Oregon: 1995-2021: 26 Years of Oregon Political Cartoons.” (An electronic edition contains the complete collection of over 650 Springer cartoons.) Some are wacky; others, biting. Many will make you laugh out loud.
Springer recently responded to email questions about his work.
Q: What first got you interested in political cartoons?
A: Since I was young, I always used to draw funny doodles, mostly in the margins of school notebooks for my own amusement and that of my classmates. When I graduated from college in 1990 and moved to Eugene, I began to pay more attention to political events, especially local ones.
In high school I had watched national news on TV, but it wasn’t until I started living as an independent adult that I became a regular reader of newspapers where I could not only follow the issues. of the day, but I was exposed to this particular animal, the political cartoon. I loved how the cartoonist was able to make a political point using the same kind of crazy drawings that I loved so much.
As I became more familiar with the issues, I became more involved and passionate about them – I wanted to express my opinion about them. At one point I looked at a political cartoon in the newspaper and thought to myself, “I could do that.
Q: What makes you say, “I want to do a cartoon about this”?
A: As mentioned above, it’s the passion I feel for an issue that prompts me to make a cartoon about it. The hardest times for me as a cartoonist are when I sit down and watch the news of the day, and nothing really jumps out at me like something I want to make a statement about. Conversely, when there is an issue that is really making my nerves go up, it inspires me to do some of my best work.
Q: What criteria did you use to select the cartoons for this collection?
Since 1995, I have drawn over 650 Oregon-themed political cartoons. When I realized that it wouldn’t be practical to publish something the size of a phone book (remember that?), I knew I had to make some tough choices.
I wanted to pick the best of the best, and for me that meant cartoons that included a combination of: a really smart idea, an insightful point, well-crafted illustrations, and / or relevance to an ‘essential’ issue of the world. ‘Oregon. Many of the cartoons that weren’t successful touched on topics that mostly came and went and didn’t have a lasting impact.
Q: What do you hope people take away from your cartoons?
A: For any cartoon, I hope that by highlighting an issue with some sort of clever twist, readers will come away with a slightly new way of looking at something.
Sometimes I draw a picture on an issue that I don’t think gets much attention, so I try to focus my attention and possibly educate. Other times I try to bring a kind of lightness to something quite heavy (like COVID-19, for example). In this case, I’m having fun.
Most of the time, I express political opinion in a (hopefully) humorous and visual way. The visual aspect allows the message to reach the reader in a more visceral way than a standard opinion column, which could be more cerebral. The humorous twist is there to try to loosen most people’s hold on their worldview, just enough to let a different perspective potentially creep into their consciousness.
As for the whole work, I think this cartoon collection really tells the political and cultural history of Oregon, albeit from an admittedly biased point of view, of the past 26 years.
It shows how we’ve made progress – death with dignity, same-sex marriage, postal voting – how we haven’t changed at all – the PERS and the kicker – and how some things got worse – the change. climate and uncivil discourse.
I’m told that in addition to the dramatized headlines that accompany each cartoon, the book is a really fun way to learn about recent political issues and the history of our weird and wonderful state. The idea that people can enjoy the process of engaging on important issues like this really appeals to me.
Watch a video slideshow on “Oregon Only”:
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