# Any Kelly (the Onion Editorial Cartoon artist) fan? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 25, 2016, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943 "2016-08-25T19:38:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2016, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/1 "2016-08-25T19:38:03Z")
I’ve got to admit I love the toons. And I love even more how, even though they appear in the Onion, a lot of folks can’t seem to understand that it’s satire. Summary: The cartoonist represents himself as an old school social conservative (while allowing loopholes for his own behavior) reactionary complainer. Here are a few samples for those of you who are not familiar with his work: [Health Nazis](https://i.imgur.com/jH8RMiA.jpg) [Jesus & gun control](http://i.imgur.com/QK5Nw.jpg) [Today’s teens](http://i.onionstatic.com/onion/9930/original/1200.jpg) [Regular folks](http://i.imgur.com/CMnLfjZ.jpg) [New Hippies](http://i.onionstatic.com/onion/9965/original/1200.jpg) To me, this description of the artist, posted by Ben at Poor Mojo, sums up both the cartoon and its satirist author himself: > [@](#): > > an aging mediocrity with a failed marriage, probably impotent and dreaming of a yesteryear when he missed out on the 60s due to his conservatism, idolizing a 50’s idea of the American husband, yet continuing on in his life: mushy-minded, backward-looking, with sad little pleasures, holding on to the only strength he has, which is the sweet hatred he gets from his ill-thought-out conservative view of the world. RationalWiki’s summary is accurate also: > [@](#): > > Kelly is a bitter curmudgeon who views the world in a black-and-white dichotomy of innocent, heroic Republican American fundamentalist Christians versus filthy liberal hippie Democrat foreigner feminist atheist commies. His comics accentuate their point with cameo appearances of Lady Liberty, usually weeping or overjoyed, and with author self-portraits quipping snippy, pun-laced one-liners. Reminds me of a few folks I know online and in real life. Yay, Kelly! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/2 "2016-08-26T00:12:37Z")
Too cluttered. He’s got too many concepts and memes and references and allusions, all battling for space and attention. He fails the ideal of simplicity and directness. (He makes me think of bad 1950s cartoonists, where Lady Liberty and U-No-Who and Uncle Sam and Uncle Moneybags are all shown with daggers into The Working Poor while Uncle Joe circles in a bomber with a big nuke… Cluttered and ugly. Also…he’s not a very good artist. (Yeah, he’s better than I’ll ever be…) His lines are too simple, without any subtlety. He’s drawing “coloring book” shapes. He’s no Jeff MacNelly or Pat Oliphant or Bill Mauldin or Herbert Blockwood. He’s a tyro, with an outdated style and limited skill. (Also, he’s a goddamn fucking bigot. His anti-same-sex-marriage cartoon was a vicious slur.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/3 "2016-08-26T00:21:00Z")
> [@](#): > > (Also, he’s a goddamn fucking bigot. His anti-same-sex-marriage cartoon was a vicious slur.) He’s working for the Onion. What makes you think his actual views bear even the slightest resemblance to the views presented in his cartoons? ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/4 "2016-08-26T00:25:37Z")
He’s cool. I assume he’s joking. I don’t see the bigotry. Not very cluttered that I can see. It’s just enough stuff. Where did this guy start out? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/5 "2016-08-26T00:44:00Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Too cluttered. He’s got too many concepts and memes and references and allusions, all battling for space and attention. He fails the ideal of simplicity and directness. > > (He makes me think of bad 1950s cartoonists, where Lady Liberty and U-No-Who and Uncle Sam and Uncle Moneybags are all shown with daggers into The Working Poor while Uncle Joe circles in a bomber with a big nuke… Cluttered and ugly. > > Also…he’s not a very good artist. (Yeah, he’s better than I’ll ever be…) His lines are too simple, without any subtlety. He’s drawing “coloring book” shapes. He’s no Jeff MacNelly or Pat Oliphant or Bill Mauldin or Herbert Blockwood. He’s a tyro, with an outdated style and limited skill. > > (Also, he’s a goddamn fucking bigot. His anti-same-sex-marriage cartoon was a vicious slur.) 😕 Of course he’s all that. That’s the point. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/6 "2016-08-26T01:10:54Z")
Color me whooshed: I thought he was an actual example of the style, not a parody. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/7 "2016-08-26T02:38:58Z")
“Computers don’t show Matlock, smart guy!” I lolled. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/8 "2016-08-26T03:24:13Z")
If anything, I always thought they were a little too on the nose. But Poe’s Law strikes again in this very thread, so apparently not. I get a chuckle out of the less obvious ones, and groan a little at the puns. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/9 "2016-08-26T03:28:24Z")
“Jesus and Gun Control” is kind of perfect. I just wish he’d worked the Statue of Liberty into it somehow. “Kelly” seems a very, “We speak American like Jesus in the Bible,” kind of Christian, so that explicit tie between religiosity and nationalism would have been the cherry on it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/10 "2016-08-26T03:34:21Z")
Stan Kelly isn’t a real person, of course. He’s a fictional persona like Jackie Harvey or Jean Teasdale. The guy who does the cartoons is [Ward Sutton](http://www.suttonimpactstudio.com/). ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/11 "2016-08-26T03:40:41Z")
They’re ugly cartoons. ---
**Author:** ![Purd\_Werfect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47c2d/32.png) [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/12 "2016-08-26T05:01:22Z")
Kelly rocks, and I love how some people don’t get it. He’s a perfect representation of those who feel any discussion of stratified privilege is nothing more than political correctness gone amok. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/13 "2016-08-26T10:23:06Z")
The crying Statue of Liberty makes me smile every time. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/14 "2016-08-26T12:11:43Z")
Doesn’t do it for me. Mixes up stuff that is (IMHO) unfunny, obvious, or just not quite right (like in the “new hippies” one – um, Earth Day was created only three years after the Summer of Love…). Any random MAD Magazine toon from any random year is likely to show more wit and insight, and ring truer. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/15 "2016-08-26T12:45:01Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Any random MAD Magazine toon from any random year is likely to show more wit and insight, and ring truer. That’s because the MAD cartoonists were on the outside looking in and satirizing what they saw, while the Kelly persona is on the inside, stating his ‘truth’. Similar to Colbert in some ways. ---
**Author:** ![BlueOhio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/439d5e/32.png) [@BlueOhio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlueOhio)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/16 "2016-08-26T13:00:00Z")
I love those cartoons. My favorite things are the previously mentioned weeping Liberty, and how everything is clearly labeled so that the dull-witted reader/follower can grasp the cartoon. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/17 "2016-08-26T13:08:09Z")
I love Kelly’s [“Behind the Pen”](http://www.onionstudios.com/series/behind-the-pen) videos where he explains in detail what’s going on in some of his cartoons. [Here’s](http://www.onionstudios.com/videos/behind-the-pen-collective-wisdom-1684) one where he graciously includes some tips for today’s young artists. [QUOTE=Stan Kelly] I think a lot of young artists are watching these videos to learn the craft. Okay? If you’re a young artist and you want to learn, this is the video for you. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/18 "2016-08-26T14:18:05Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > That’s because the MAD cartoonists were on the outside looking in and satirizing what they saw, while the Kelly persona is on the inside, stating his ‘truth’. > > Similar to Colbert in some ways. Okay, I can see that. I never really liked Colbert, either, “in person” (but I dig some of what I’ve seen of his writings.) ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/19 "2016-08-26T14:40:38Z")
He’s one of my three Onion favs. The other two are Teasdale (I used to work at a newspaper with her doppelganger, in looks, lifestyle and writing style) and Jackie Harvey. “Kelly” perfectly nails that certain style and sentiment. I can picture these types of cartoons cut out and hanging on grandmas’ fridges all across the Midwest. Heck, seeing how effectively these have fooled people, I could see these \*actual \*cartoons hanging on grandmas’ fridges. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943/20 "2016-08-26T14:45:35Z")
He’s the Ed Anger of political cartooning! 😃 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-kelly-the-onion-editorial-cartoon-artist-fan/763943.md?page=2)