"Cartoon" that ran in the Strib 8/22/15
by Steve Timmer
Aug 22, 2015, 10:00 AM

Not even remotely funny

This cartoon was in the Saturday morning Star Tribune, August 22, 2015. It’s by Scott Hilburn of the Universal Syndicate. It’s also textbook “humor punching down,” which is never really humor.

If you liked it as much as I did, which is to say, not at all, you might ring up the Strib on Twitter: @StarTribune.

Update: I got a little push back on this story; that I was encouraging censorship antithetical to the First Amendment. A fair point. I replied that I couldn’t see that the cartoon had value as entertainment (because it isn’t funny) or as a political statement.

It is expression, but it’s also expression to criticize it.

As an exercise, I tried to think of a purpose, other than making fun of the condemned, for the cartoon. All I could come up with is that the cartoonist wanted to show how calloused and indifferent executioners have become.

But I don’t think that’s it.

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