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UKRAINE!

Every day the news is full of Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. We just can’t seem to get enough Ukraine.

We have a great CagleCartoonist from Ukraine, Vladimir Kazanevsky, who has probably won more international cartooning competitions than any other cartoonist in the world –but the international competition world is a different world, with different aesthetics that seem strange and foreign to an American reader.

I noticed that Vlad hadn’t posted any cartoons about the Ukraine/impeachment scandal and I told him that he is the only cartoonist from Ukraine that American readers are likely to see. Vlad’s perch in Kyiv could make his cartoons interesting to Western editors. Vlad then uploaded these three.

It looks like this jester-trap will draw Trump in as he is lured into watching himself on TV.

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Here Ukraine is a clown-seal that is getting Trump’s attention …

 

Here the jester appears to be Ukraine’s brain that is commanding heavy-Trump-the-elephant’s attention.

Vlad’s cartoons are charming, although I must admit that I don’t really understand most of them. This is typical of the international contest cartoonists who have a different cartoon language that doesn’t make much sense to Americans like me. Charming, though.

Here are selections of some of Vlad’s cartoons that I can understand – the first one shows refugees fleeing from a repressive regime.

 

This one shows our climate-change future.

 

Here man struggles with oil.

 

Putin doesn’t seem happy as his cold, Russian Trump-Vodka seems to have turned into poop, which doesn’t go well with caviar.

 

This charming cartoon shows animals who seem to be demonstrating in favor of their own predators.

All of this is only to show that Vlad is great, but I’m not surprised that we don’t see cartoons from Ukraine in American newspapers even while Ukraine dominates the news.

The photo below shows me with Vlad in Vlad’s studio in Kyiv a few years ago. Behind us are some of Vlad’s trophies from over 500 international cartooning prizes he has won in 52 countries. See Vlad’s archive on Cagle.com.

 

… And here’s an endangered tree, praying while stuck in place.

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Cartoons and Ukraine

Last week I was in Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, for the opening of an exhibition of political cartoons. I’ve been speaking at some universities and getting to know the people and the place.

Ukraine has 60% inflation here and seems certain to default on their substantial foreign debt as Russia continues to press a festering conflict in the east. Since the news about Ukraine is so terrible, I had expected to see some desperation here. Kiev is lovely and it seems like a normal, European capital. There’s no desperation evident.

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Photos of protestors, murdered by regime snipers in front of my hotel.

My hotel is in the center of town where snipers killed more than one hundred people as the Ukrainians threw out their corrupt president, Victor Yanukovych in 2014. There are scattered memorials showing faces of the slain protestors, along with candles and flowers. One large, burned-out building on the central square is a reminder of the violence.

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One large, burned-out building on the central square is a reminder of the violence.

Yanukovych stole billions from Ukraine and fled to Russia. He built a crazy huge mansion for himself, which has been made into a national park and is now a tourist attraction. The grounds are vast, stretching for kilometers, with manicured gardens, a zoo, waterfalls, rivers, and a giant, pirate, party ship. The grounds are lovely, leaving visitors both charmed and cursing at scale of the of the corruption that could build such a fantastic complex. There was a wedding on Yanukovich’s fancy porch when I visited. It is nice to see these crazy digs preserved as a park rather than seeing it all torn down by an angry mob, as with Saddam Hussein’s mansions. Even the animals at Yanukovych’s giant zoo look happy.

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Here I am with my Ukrainian cartoonist buddy, Vladimir Kazenevsky, in front of his impressive, cartoon contest trophy case.

I had dinner with my friend, Vladislav Kazanevsky, who has probably won more international cartoon contests than anyone else. That’s a photo of me with Vlad standing in front of his trophy case at this studio. There’s another photo of Vlad with his most recent cartoon of Obama, smiling out of his butt at Ukraine.

The world of international contests is very foreign to American cartoonists, who rarely enter these competitions, making us seem aloof and arrogant to the Ukrainian cartoonists. The international contest cartoons seem strange to American cartoonists, and I apologize for that – we don’t really fit in with the style, which is very foreign.

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There aren’t many editorial cartoons in Ukraine, but here’s a nice one I saw on the side of a building. The girl with the Ukraine flag scarf is gazing at the star logo of the European Union.

I’ve enjoyed the college audiences for my lectures here. I show them my cartoons where I have made Ukraine into a peasant woman character, which they tell me is “a little bit offensive” to them, “but only a little bit”. They ask why I picked this woman to represent Ukraine; why is she fat; why is she blonde? She should have black hair, I’m told, and she should not be fat. “We are not fat. Americans are fat,” I’m told, at each lecture.

The students always ask why I don’t draw Ukraine’s colorful leaders in my cartoons, and I have to explain that American readers won’t know who they are without an explanation. I tell them that Americans only pay attention to Ukraine when there is a revolution, when Putin invades, or when an airplane crashes here, and they all nod in agreement.

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I like the thick, heroic, Soviet monuments, like this giant, metallic, World War II memorial. That’s me in front of it on the left.

I had an excellent meeting with representatives from Ukraine’s cartoonists organization, who gave me some books and a copy of their Crocodile Magazine, a throwback to the old Soviet gag cartoon Crocodile Magazine. Kazenevski draws some western style editorial cartoons, but Ukrainian cartoonists are otherwise contest cartoonists, looking to collect trophies and awards to list on their CV’s. That’s the way it is for cartoonists in much of the world.

Thanks to my Ukrainian buddies, Tomas and Adam Lukacka, their cousin Matthew and loyal volunteers Alex and Brian for a great exhibition, also thanks to Eufurion and the Swiss Embassy, and the volunteers from Ukraine who are managing the show as it moves around the country.

My buddy, Martin “Shooty” Sutovec, the star editorial cartoonist of Slovakia, was also in the exhibit and traveled to Kiev for the opening along. The president of Slovakia was there too, which was a bit strange. I told the president that Shooty is Slovakia’s national treasure, and the president said, “many people do not think so.” This president is a little bit rude, huh?

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Here I am with the “Mother of Ukraine.”

There are some wacky sights to see in Kiev, and at the top of the list is the “Mother of Ukraine,” a colossal statue of a strong, Soviet woman, holding a shield and a fifty foot long sword in the air. Last year I visited a similar, but smaller statue that towers over Tbilisi, when the exhibition toured Georgia. I’m told that every former Soviet republic has a giant mother statue.

This mother is hollow, with a step ladder inside where fit and intrepid souls can climb to the top of her shield and open little portholes on the top of her shield, just big enough to poke a head out of, and take a photo. It was too much of an athletic feat for me to climb that ladder, so I was content to look up her skirt. The huge Mother of Ukraine is surrounded by a park and giant, metallic, heroic statues of Soviet, World War II statues. The national art museum in Kiev is full of thick, strong, Soviet proletarian hero paintings.

My Ukrainian cartoonist buddy, Vladimir, gave me a tour of downtown and explained that the big, handsome buildings were rebuilt by captured German soldier slave labor after the war. When he was in school, Vlad was taught that the Germans destroyed all the buildings in Kiev, but after the revolution he learned that the Soviets actually destroyed all the buildings, to keep the Germans from claiming anything of value as they took the city from retreating Soviet troops. What goes around comes around, I guess.

The Ukrainians certainly don’t like Vladimir Putin. Tourist shops sell Putin toilet paper. There are images of “Putler,” a combination of Putin and Hitler. I heard a crowd chanting about “Putler” at a rather large protest rally at the main square.

I asked the college students, “since you don’t like my Ukrainian peasant lady as a metaphor for Ukraine, what should I draw instead?” They always say, “Ukrainians just look like regular people – draw that.” And I say, “hey, these are cartoons, that doesn’t work for me,” and they nod in begrudging agreement. I think I’ll keep drawing the Ukrainian chick, the next time Ukraine suffers a new indignity – but now that I’ve learned so much more about Ukraine I’ll draw her with black hair.

Here are some samples of my cartoons with my Ukraine peasant metaphor lady, who suffers from Putin. Judging from the tourist souvenir junk, also pictured below, I think I got her right – but no, I’m told, she has to have black hair, and lose some weight.

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Judging from the tourist souvenirs, I think I got my Ukraine stereotype character right – but I will bow to popular pressure and draw her with black hair in the future.

 

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