Okay, so we all know this was a big week in for the Democratic primaries. But the number of Obama/Clinton/McCain cartoons printed in the Ivy League this week was absurd. Nine out of the 26 (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) cartoons printed in the Ivy dailies this week were related to the Democratic primary (that’s more than a third). I’ve made this complaint before… and I got to thinking, what’s so bad about it? So perhaps it’s time for a little explication of the standards by which I judge these cartoons – an ars cartoonica, if you will. And, of course, I’ve still got a couple of bad ones, just after the jump.

So we can all agree that political cartoons are an integral part of political criticism in our country and a healthy way for artists to critique the more vulnerable aspects of our political system. But just as I would turn to the New York Times before I turn to a campus paper for news of national importance (except for information on how said news is related to the university or affiliated people), I wonder why Ivy cartoonists haven’t taken more strides to relate the events of the primaries back to their respective institutions. For all their hokey repetitiveness, Campus Issues! cartoons, when published in a campus paper, are doing what they are intended to do in the only real forum that exists for them to do so. The same cannot be said for nationally relevant cartoons in campus papers.

Now, I don’t want to suggest that the dailies’ opinion pages should publish political cartoons only when they’re more locally relevant. After all, the pages of the dailies are some of the only outlets for the expression of political opinions on campuses. But perhaps political cartoons have become a crutch for those papers who struggle to furnish cartoons every day; and this week’s plagarism at Dartmouth shows what can happen when that struggle becomes desperate. I suggest that those papers who do find the task of publishing daily cartoons to be onerous should simply not do so. The Spec and YDN publish cartoons on a semi-regular basis. Other papers could certainly follow suit and only publish when they feel they have something to contribute. And with that, let’s move on to the funny stuff.

Yale Daily News, David Meunzer (Wednesday 4/23): Ummmm… Douchebag?

So a few weeks ago, I made an unfounded claim about suckiness at Yale. To clarify, I was referring to David Meunzer’s consistently awful comic strip. Whoever this guy with the cringe-inducing facial hair is, he likes to make the douchiest comments possible about his college existence. I’m not trying to hate on generic sentiments about college life (see Hayley Kennedy below). But god damn it, how does this qualify as an “editorial cartoon”? At least this fellow is wiling to admit that he was once the “most annoying person in the world.” But from what I can glean from David Meunzer’s cartoons, he still is.

The Dartmouth, Hayley Kennedy (Friday 4/18): A Round of Applause for Hayley Kennedy

I’ve been holding back for a couple weeks on posting about The Dartmouth‘s comics page. But man, Dartmouth has the best cartoons around, particularly Hayley Kennedy’s “noparentswoo.” For those of you who are interested, I also liked this one. Unlike many of the cartoons we find on the dailies’ opinion pages, this cartoon isn’t funny for Dartmouth kids alone. Kennedy’s cartoons walk that fine line between trite college bullshit and universal relatability. All we can do is enjoy what she has to say for the next few weeks until she graduates.

Daily Princetonian, Sean Rubin (Tuesday 4/22): nothesiswoo

Okay, so I’ve hated on Campus Issue! cartoons in the past. But I adduce this as evidence as to how the Campus Issue! cartoon can fulfill its necessary duty in conveying banal-yet-relatable pablum. Sean Rubin has provided us with a nice, trite, easily digestable campus cartoon that strikes to the heart of what it means to be a Princetonian in spring. The style is far superior to the average Ivy cartoon (just look at the Crimson any day). I guess that alone exceeds our (or at least my) expectations.

Brown Daily Herald, Roxanne Palmer (Tuesday 4/22): Someone Get These Men A Cookie

Another excellent cartoon. Everyone in the Ivy League loves to laugh about Brown’s purported affiinity for marijuana, and, by extention, rich, white-ass, dreadlock-and-sandal-wearing dudes dancing for peace or whatever. And we all like circle jerks… I think. Anyway, thanks to Roxanne Palmer for the dash of ironic self-deprication, blended perfectly with an awesome, crisp artistic style.