Late yesterday, my cartoon (credit, for which, must also go to my mate John Curtis) was pulled and, as such, is not in today’s paper.
The reason is because it is “potentially over the top and too defamatory towards KFC”. Furthermore, my cartoon “associates the company with a dictator and there does not seem to be a link between the two”.
On a side note, I’ll point out that, at the Constitutional Court in 2005, Dikgang Moseneke (as well as Albie Sachs) ruled that commercial trademarks are in the public domain and, in most cases, are not protected from satire. It is therefore unlikely that KFC would win, were they to sue for defamation (or lack of humour).
Update
Examples of similar culture jams are my Been & Mugged and Johnny Walker cartoons.
Another update
I enjoyed this comment.
Another connection is the way Gaddafi treats his citizens, which can be compared to how KFC treat their chickens!
And another update
City Press editor Ferial Haffajee likes the cartoon.
Can’t see the problem, bro. He’s Moammer, not Mohamed. and it’s funny.
To be honest, I would have pulled it too. It really does have nothing to do with KFC, so not entirely sure why you tried to link them. If however you were making the same toon with Sanders flipping us off and making a comment about their poor treatment of chickens, well that would have made more sense.
Just saying.
@Craig – the toon is making fun of the “colonel”.
Craig, do you know what culture jamming is?
Great cartoon, J.
how does this defame KFC???
I’m hungry now.
Yes, Don, I know :) As always, a fantastic caricature from Jeremy. That said, I can’t think of anyone else who has that particular and rather distinctive hair style!
@Saville, and thanks to wikipedia, I do. Still doesn’t change the fact that the cartoon in question features such unrelated concepts that it just really doesn’t work all that well. It was the same with the majority of those silly t-shirts that old Laugh Out Loud produced and/or were hauled over the coals for. The whole Black Label/Black Labour shirt was a bit stupid – really no correlation between the two at all. (And before you perhaps generalize and say that only black people drink black label beer, well I happen to think it is one of the best tasting beers out on the market, been my favourite for years – and yes, I’m white) :)
Surely you understand that whether it makes sense or not; culturally-jamming; funny;or artistically brilliant (which it is) the nub of the matter is that KFC’s ad-spend in most newspapers means it’s just too big a customer to potentially irritate. The news media is a commercial business first.
So where’s today’s toon?
And is that uncle Bob or Gaddhafi?
It’s not so much about the winning vs. losing the court case, but the effort and time you’ll spend in court defending yourself ;)
I really enjoy the comparison of the two colonels and their respective fortunes; both of them don’t give a hoot about bad publicity or the health of their victims (one kills them outright with bullets and the other kills them slowly with unhealthy food), both are incredibly wealthy, both are showing the finger to society in so many ways and both are equally ugly. I think it’s very clever and that’s my five cents worth.
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