Faint praise? We’ll take it!

I'm just back from vacation, so I'd missed this nice item:  apparently Eddie Vedder wrote a piece on his website urging readers to complain to alternative newspapers about comics cancelations — of his friend Tom Tomorrow and other cartoonists.

The only way this vital artwork will return is through a sustained outcry from readers. We have to tell editors at our local alternative weeklies that we don’t want them to suspend cartoons; if they already have, we want them brought back.

This is amazing, and I really appreciate this very cool appeal.  So it may seem a bit churlish when I say that I found one phrase he used pretty funny — it not only undermines the position that political cartoonists are cutting edge humorists, it sort of makes the case for the newspapers that dump us:

Many cartoonists were the Jon Stewarts of their day, quickly cutting complex issues to their cores.

Ouch.  Yes, he's making a historical analogy that's intended to be flattering, but it's partly because of the fact that we have a Jon Stewart of today (i.e., Jon Stewart) that certain editors and newspaper executives are deciding the services of political cartoonists have been obviated.

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