Open Thread -- Maverick vs. Maverick, Debatability and Opportunity Edition

Posted Wed, 10/15/2008 - 14:15 by Open Thread

Just in time for the debates, a little something new and different to treat you all to -- the work of illustrator and political cartoonist Meredith Jennings Offen, an LA-based artist who's work will begin appearing on ePluribus Media starting today. Check it out below.

More about the artist after the flip. __________________________________ About the Artist __________________________________
MJ Offen (Meredith Jennings-Offen) is a cartoonist and writer for television and film. Her passion is political cartooning. In her 6 year career, MJO has worked extensively as both writer and designer with studios including Warner Bros. Animation, Nickelodeon, The Jim Henson Company, Cartoon Network, The Walt Disney Company, Dreamworks, FOX, Universal, National Geographic and more. Originally from Washington, D.C. with a Democratic lobbyist father and an artist mother, political cartooning is something MJO feels "bred for." Between growing up in D.C. politics and traveling internationally all her life, MJO has a strong sense of global citizenship. She received her B.A., in English from Pitzer College. Upon graduating, she won a Watson Fellowship: a 12-month wanderjahr across nine countries in pursuit of her topic, "Humor As Humanitarian Aid." Her tour included stints in Japan, New Zealand, Australia, the UK and Belgium. During this, Meredith was lured into the world of stand-up comedy. Her performances included an appearance in a Prodigy video and a commercial for Hooch. Meredith went on to achieve her M.F.A. from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. During her grad program, MJO was awarded a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, where studied with director/photographer John Waters. MJO has shown her fine art in galleries in Los Angeles and New York, including Manhattan's Knoedler Gallery. Her art has been critically acclaimed in Art Issues magazine and featured in the Pasadena Star News. Currently, Meredith has original cartoons in development with major Hollywood studios. She draws and writes from her home, does stand-up comedy locally and is pursuing Improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.
You can find more information about Meredith here:
MJO POLITICARTOONS ONLINE PRESENCE: http://collectiveunconsciousltd.blogspot.com/ -----> My political cartooning blog. Please subscribe here for free dailies! http://www.ohboyobama.com/ ----- Featured cartoonist on this Democratic grassroots site. http://comicsindustryforobama.ning.com/profile/MJOffen ----- Blog at Comics Industry for Obama. http://www.facebook.com/srch.php?nm=MJ+Offen ----- Link to my Facebook page. http://www.myspace.com/mjoffen ----- Link to my MySpace page. http://mj0.deviantart.com/ ----- Gallery at Deviant Art.
__________________________________ Please give Meredith a warm welcome in the comments, then grab the popcorn as the debates start.

Comments

GreyHawk's picture

Welcome aboard, Meredith.

by GreyHawk - 10/15/2008 - 15:30
Great timing for the debate, too. Thank you.
MJOffen's picture

I finally learned how to navigate this site!

by MJOffen - 10/17/2008 - 02:30
I have been cartooning my brains into mash what with less than 20 days to the election... I'll stop back by tomorrow when my lucidity returns!!! I have more strips for you. :) Thanks for the opportunity to share here. Best, MJO http://collectiveunconsciousltd.blogspot.com/
http://collectiveunconsciousltd.blogspot.com/
GreyHawk's picture

You've made it! Congrats, and welcome aboard!

by GreyHawk - 10/17/2008 - 02:56
You initially sent us seven; I've been meaning to ask you if we should still post those or wait for more, since you've been cartooning away and sent us the additional debate one above. Would you like us to print the previous 7 in one shot, perhaps on Saturday? (Heh -- like the old fair tale "Seven in one blow"...) We could link each back the original sites they appeared on (I think each one had an identifier within the images). Also -- I posted a pointer to this thread over on DailyKos the day we ran it, and a couple of folks commented very positively on your work. Thought you should know. :)

Putting aside the "Offen", I note the "Meredith Jennings" name

by Welshman - 10/15/2008 - 16:25

She MUST have Welsh connections. I claim her as one of ours. And even if she hasn't, if she draws this well and humorously, I still claim her as one of ours!

GreyHawk's picture

Heh -- darn opportunistic Welsh.

by GreyHawk - 10/15/2008 - 19:15
We saw her first. ;)

Thanks Meredith!

by standingup - 10/15/2008 - 16:33
Looks like I won't have to waste my time watching the debate tonight with your excellent summary of it in advance.

I'm not sure if we are commenting on the debate here but..

by Welshman - 10/15/2008 - 18:52
...if we are, I found that much better than the first two. I have no instant feedback on it. My take is that both will have pleased their base suppport and each side will be even more convinced about the unacceptably of the other candidate. As to the undecideds, I am not sure. I think McCain may have edged it for them on policy in as much as the "tax and spend" accusation was quite well handled by McCain, but it is a very weak guess. Once again, though, I think they will still find Obama more presidential. At best for McCain, a tie. If they pay attention to body language, attitude and temperament, they will give it to Obama. Personally, I found McCain appalling. I strongly disliked his attacks. He appeared whining and nasty when he continually tried to discredit Obama. Republicans will love it. I really developed a visceral dislike for him as the debate progressed. I hope that this is the last time I will see him as a prospective leader on my TV screen. I do not think it will affect Obama's passage to the White House.
GreyHawk's picture

McCain seemed a tad plastic to me.

by GreyHawk - 10/15/2008 - 19:07
The only thing I didn't like about Obama's performance -- the thing that bothers me the most -- is the amount of pauses he'll interject during the thought-gathering aspect of some of his replies. I think he can speak more fluidly, and it just threw me off a tad. McCain's responses seemed to drift more, but neither provided a lot of specifics. However, I could anticipate some of Obama's answers based on how I'd analyse a response to a question, and those that I could anticipate from McCain were ones where I saw a clear opportunity to hit a talking point without actually providing an answer. I get the feeling that Obama knows and understands the realities underlying several of the tough decisions; neither candidate could have or should have had a clear-cut answer for some questions, because they have no idea how bad things really are -- the current Administration has kept a lot of the depth and breadth of the damage they've caused under tight wraps. Until one knows whether there's anything left to work with, several questions (and perhaps the entire agenda) must, by default, remain open-ended.

Yes

by Welshman - 10/15/2008 - 19:58
"I get the feeling that Obama knows and understands the realities underlying several of the tough decisions; neither candidate could have or should have had a clear-cut answer for some questions, because they have no idea how bad things really are" They really are in an impossible position over this.
GreyHawk's picture

"They really are in an impossible position"

by GreyHawk - 10/15/2008 - 20:09
And thus by extension, so are we all. :/
GreyHawk's picture

As for debate discussion -- sure, why not?

by GreyHawk - 10/15/2008 - 19:09
This was a pre-debate thread to showcase and introduce Meredith's work as well as to greet her, but it's also appropriate (IMO) to discuss the debate too.

It's odd

by Welshman - 10/15/2008 - 20:22
I give an early opinion because CNN cuts out immediately after the debate, so I don't get to hear the pundits. So the comments are unsullied Welsh views from 3000 miles away. It makes them very hesitant because I assume cultural differences etc etc. When the first "undecided focus groups" and instant polls came in, I thought Wow! I seriously misread this debate. Obama won it by a landslide. Well, by trying to separate my own bias out of my reading of undecideds, I may have underestimated the margin of overall victory. Yet, one of the subsets of the polls did support my reason for hesitancy. A clear majority thought that Obama will raise their taxes, despite his assertion that he would lower them for 95% of the population. So what is happening here? I keep thinking of the guy who ran that focus group for the Republicans that other blogs have commented upon earlier today. He was getting good, positive responses to many of the policy points made by McCain. When they came to be asked who they wanted as president, they said Obama, leaving him as a dumbstruck, bewildered ranting pollster slumped on the other side of the glass screen. It seems that McCain is now in the dreadful position that, even where people may agree with him, they won't vote for him. This suggests that the traditional tightening of the polls as the day of voting approaches may not occur to the same degree this time. Good news for Obama.

Last Night on CNN

by carol white - 10/16/2008 - 04:19
I think it was 55% (somewhere thereabouts) independants said Obama won. I think the format this time was much better. Schaeffer is an intelligent moderator who did NOT seem to have an axe to ground. Brokaw was a big disappointment to me. One other improvement GH was that Obama smiled. He had seemed quite uptight the last two debates, don't you think. Remember when Michelle made the remark that was deliberately misconstrued to paint her as a wild-eyed, hate-filled black radical. And when Obama talked about how people threatened with unemployment etc., turn to religion.... Truthful, off the cuff responses do not help a campaign conducted in this hate-filled environment. Didn't you think the discussion of the VP's was great. What could McCain say,... You could almost feel sorry for the guy it was so ludicrous. Another high point to me was when McCain defended the high quality of his audience even if they were just a tad over-enthusiastic when they shouted things like "kill him." (Hey Jim he also said his audiences were filled with Vet's, implying that they were the hot-heads.) This time I saw the debate with a small group of people and it made it lots more fun. We saw the second at home and the first at a local bar and grill where we co-hosted a debate party for the campaign. That one was hard to follow because of the noise and uproar. Too enthusiastic. Couldn't hear a thing and no possibility for serious comments. Cheers and jeers were the order of the day. This was also the first debate we watched on CNN and the peaks and valleys of the orange and green lines (indicative of focus group responses to the candidates) were fascinating. We turned to it a bit late so I'm not sure about who the focus group were. Possibly Ohio independants. Definitely much more approving of Obama responses.
carol

Thanks Meredith ... your work is a welcome addition.

by roxy - 10/15/2008 - 19:39
Great debate cartoon. ----- ePMedia ... get the scoop with us!
If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little. ~ George Carlin
ePMedia ... get the scoop with us!
If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little. ~ George Carlin<

A Great addition to ePm

by carol white - 10/16/2008 - 04:06
It's wonderful to have youaboard Meredith. But I must say: truth IS stranger than fiction. McCain is A*M*A*Z*I*N*G. Too bad he is not officially a comedy act rather than a presidential hopeful.
carol
GreyHawk's picture

"Too bad he is not..."

by GreyHawk - 10/16/2008 - 05:00
LOL! Yeah, exactly. Hey -- did you happen to catch this exciting McCain moment from the debate, at the end? (Click image for original picture source; hat-tip pmeldrum for the reference.)

Sometimes,

by carol white - 10/16/2008 - 09:05
A picture's worth a thousand words.
carol

My eleven year old son asked me

by TheFatLadySings - 10/16/2008 - 19:10
"How come McCain just stuck out his tongue like this?" He proceeded to imitate him. I told him there was no way he'd do that in or after a Presidential debate. He must have imagined it. I had to eat my words when the photos came out!!!!

Thanks for the laugh, Meredith,

by TheFatLadySings - 10/16/2008 - 19:08
I hope we beat both of these guys soundly.
MJOffen's picture

LOL

by MJOffen - 10/17/2008 - 02:32
LOL indeed - but I am too pooped and screen-blinded to say much more than - THANKS! Many many more toons are on the way... MJO http://collectiveunconsciousltd.blogspot.com/
http://collectiveunconsciousltd.blogspot.com/

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