| Ted Rall | |
|---|---|
 Ted Rall at Stumptown Comics Festival 2007 | |
| Born | Frederick Theodore Rall III (1963-08-26)August 26, 1963 (age 62) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Artist, writer, editor |
Notable works | Revenge of the Latchkey Kids,To Afghanistan and Back,Silk Road to Ruin,The Anti-American Manifesto |
| Awards | 1995 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, 1996 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award |
| rall | |
Frederick Theodore Rall III (born August 26, 1963) is an Americancolumnist, syndicatededitorial cartoonist, and author. Hispolitical cartoons often appear in a multi-panelcomic-strip format and frequently blend comic-strip and editorial-cartoon conventions. At their peak, Rall's cartoons appeared in approximately 100 newspapers around the United States. He was president of theAssociation of American Editorial Cartoonists from 2008 to 2009.
Rall draws three editorial cartoons a week for syndication, draws illustrations on a freelance basis, writes a weekly syndicated column, and edits the Attitude series of alternative cartooning anthologies and spin-off collections by up-and-coming cartoonists. He writes and draws cartoons for the news and politics news site founded by journalistRuss Smith, WhoWhatWhy.org,.[1]
He is agraphic novelist and the author of non-fiction books about domestic and international current affairs. He also travels to and writes aboutCentral Asia, a region he believes to be pivotal toU.S. foreign policy concerns. In November 2001 he went to Afghanistan as a war correspondent forThe Village Voice andKFI Radio in Los Angeles. He returned to Afghanistan in August 2010, traveling independently and unembedded throughout the country, filing daily "cartoon blogs" by satellite.
Rall is the co-host of three news-focused podcasts on YouTube and Rumble: "DeProgram" with CIA whistleblowerJohn Kiriakou, "DMZ America" with Chicago Tribune editorial cartoonistScott Stantis, and "The TMI Show" with Manila Chan.
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Frederick Theodore Rall III[2] was born inCambridge, Massachusetts, in 1963, and raised inKettering, Ohio, nearDayton. He graduated fromFairmont West High School, in 1981. From 1981 to 1984, Rall attendedColumbia University'sengineering school, where he contributed cartoons to the campus newspapers, including theColumbia Daily Spectator,Barnard Bulletin, and theJester. He failed to complete his studies in the engineering school, where he majored inapplied physics andnuclear engineering, but returned to graduate several years later from Columbia'sSchool of General Studies in 1991 with a bachelor of arts, with honors, in history.[3]
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Rall says his drawing style was originally influenced byMike Peters, the editorial cartoonist at his hometown paper, theDayton Daily News. Later influences includedJules Feiffer,Garry Trudeau,Charles M. Schulz, andMatt Groening.
Rall's 1990s work focused on the issues and concerns surroundingtwentysomethings andGeneration X, terms coined in the late 1980s to describe people born from the early to mid 1960s to the mid 1980s. While living in San Francisco Rall metDave Eggers, who hired him as a contributing editor and writer forMight magazine, a publication Eggers edited and co-founded. Among other essays, Rall authored two seminal essays forMight, "Confessions of an Investment Banker" and "College is for Suckers". He wrote op-ed columns forThe New York Times, including "Why I Will Not Vote" (1994), which justified apathy amongGeneration Xers who saw neither Democrats nor Republicans responding to their concerns. In 1998 Rall published "Revenge of the Latchkey Kids", a compendium of essays and cartoons that criticized the Baby Boomer-dominated media for ignoring and ridiculing young adults and their achievements.
Rall's cartoons have been handled by San FranciscoChronicle Features, no longer in business, and—since 1996—byUniversal Press Syndicate.[4]
Rall's cartoons have appeared regularly inRolling Stone,Time,Fortune andMen's Health magazines, as well asMad magazine (for which he also wrote) and were for several years the most reproduced cartoons inThe New York Times.[citation needed]
Rall began frequent travels to Central Asia in 1997, when he attempted to drive theSilk Road from Beijing to Istanbul via China,Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan,Uzbekistan, andTurkmenistan as a staff writer forP.O.V. magazine.P.O.V. published his adventures asSilk Road to Ruin, a title he used for his 2006 collection of essays and cartoons about Central Asia. Rall returned to the region for POV in 1999 to travel theKarakoram Highway from Kashgar, in western China, to Islamabad. Subsequent trips included two trips in 2000, "Stan Trek 2000"—in which Rall brought along 23 listeners to his radio show for a bus journey from Turkmenistan to Kyrgyzstan via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan—and a U.S. State Department-sponsored visit to Turkmenistan, where he met with Turkmen college students anddissidents to explain the nature offree press in a democracy. A 2002 assignment forGear magazine to cover the world championships ofbuzkashi inTajikistan was not published due to the magazine's going out of business, but turned up in an edited form inSilk Road to Ruin. He returned to Tajikistan,Xinjiang Province in western China and Pakistan during the summer of 2007.
TheAttitude: The New Subversive Cartoonists series of books is a series ofanthologies ofalternative comics edited by Rall. Frustrated that cartoons prevalent in alternative weekly newspapers were being ignored in favor of mainstream and art comics, Rall edited the first "Attitude" anthology,Attitude: The New Subversive Political Cartoonists, in 2002, with its mission to bring together cartoonists who were "too alternative for the mainstream and too mainstream for the alternative."Attitude 2: The New Subversive Alternative Cartoonists followed in 2004, and in 2006Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists appeared. Each volume contains interviews with, cartoons by and personal ephemera related to 21 different cartoon creators. The first and second volumes emphasized political and humor cartoons; the third volume exclusively features web cartoonists.
Rall also edited three cartoons collections byAndy Singer,Neil Swaab, andStephanie McMillan under the name "Attitude Presents:".
From 2006 to 2009, Rall was editor of Acquisitions and Development at the comic strip syndicateUnited Media. While there, he helped bring to syndicationKeith Knight'sThe Knight Life,Signe Wilkinson'sFamily Tree,Tak Toyoshima'sSecret Asian Man, Dan Thompson'sRip Haywire, andRichard Stevens'Diesel Sweeties.[5]
Rall's work includes the bookThe Anti-American Manifesto (Seven Stories Press), published in September 2010.[6] His book,The Book of Obama: From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt (Seven Stories Press) was released in July 2012.[7]
Rall was a regular guest onHannity & Colmes, as well as NPR. He contributes a cartoon called "Left Coast" to thePasadena Weekly. In February 2005, BBC television broadcast a 30-minute profile of Rall as part of their seriesCartoonists on the Front Line.[citation needed]
Rall maintains a blog[8] at his website. Rall released a series ofanimated political cartoons on his website and on YouTube in collaboration withDavid Essman.[9]
Rall had a Saturday and Sunday radio talk show onKFI radio in Los Angeles from August 1998 to August 2000. After9/11, KFI brought him back to travel toAfghanistan and file live on-air reports from the battle of Kunduz and elsewhere in northern Afghanistan. Rall's show was also broadcast live from Havana as well as Pakistani-heldKashmir. In 2005 he had a weekend show on San Francisco's KIFR-FM. Rall has been a frequent guest onNational Public Radio, theBBC and Fox Radio.
Rall has previously described himself as a guest on the Russian state-owned radio programmerSputnik, and criticized the Biden administration’s sanctions shutting down Sputnik’s local affiliate in the United States.[10]
Rall also wrote and drew cartoons forSputnik International, anews website platform established by theRussian government-owned news agencyRossiya Segodnya (Россия Сегодня—Russia Today).[11]
In 2009 Rall called forBarack Obama to resign as President of the United States, because "the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama's inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makesBill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through."[12] He endorsedJill Stein in the2016 presidential election.[13]
In December 2016, Rall presented what he called a "manifesto" to "topple Trumpism."[14] Less than a year and a half later, however, he predicted "that Mr. Trump would not only finish his term but win re-election, due to the divisions within the Democratic Party."[15]
Rall is anatheist and writes some cartoons dealing with these views.[16]
In 1999, Rall wrote an article inThe Village Voice[17] accusingMaus creatorArt Spiegelman of lacking talent and controlling who gets high-profile assignments from magazines such asThe New Yorker through personal connections, including his wife,New Yorker art editorFrançoise Mouly. In retaliation for Rall's piece,New York Press illustratorDanny Hellman sent two sets ofe-mails under the name "Ted Rall's Balls" to at least 35 cartoonists and editors, including Rall's employers. After Rall tracked down Hellman's identity, Hellman ignored Rall's cease-and-desist letters. After several weeks, Rall filed a $1.5-millionlawsuit forlibel per se, libel per quod, injurious falsehood, violation ofcivil rights, andintentional infliction of emotional distress. Rall's suit stated that Hellman was attempting to sabotage his career. Four of Rall's five claims were dismissed, leaving libel per se.[18] The lawsuit remains unresolved.
In a Rall cartoon from May 3, 2004,[19]Pat Tillman (a formerArizona Cardinals player who abandoned his NFL career to enlist in theUnited States Army Rangers and was killed in Afghanistan) is depicted asking an Army recruiter, "Never mind the fine print. Will I get to kill Arabs?" The narrator points out that he was killed and the reader is then given a choice: "idiot", "sap", or "hero". Later, after Tillman's anti–Iraq War sentiments and thefriendly fire circumstances of his death became public, Rall wrote that he regretted making such sweeping assumptions about Tillman's motives, describing Tillman as "one hell of an interesting human being".[20]
A November 8, 2004, cartoon[21] depicted mentally disabled children as classroom teachers in an attempt to make an analogy to American voters who reelected PresidentGeorge W. Bush, drawing complaints from advocates for the disabled and led to his cartoons being dropped fromThe Washington Post's website. Rall responded in hisblog saying: "I regret hurting people who I have nothing against. I do want to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and I think I failed in that with this cartoon. Not to mention that the cartoon failed—too many people got bogged down in the analogy and the main point got lost."
On October 22, 2007, Rall published a cartoon saying "Over time, however, the endless war in Iraq began to play a role in natural selection. Only idiots signed up; only idiots died. Back home, the average I.Q. soared." That caused an uproar by military supporters both conservative and liberal alike.[22]
Rall is listed at #15 in Bernard Goldberg's book100 People Who Are Screwing Up America as a "vicious, conspiracy-minded, hate-filled jerk". Rall perceived the listing as an honor, replying, "Not only am I grouped with many people whom I admire for their achievements and patriotism, I'm being demonized byMcCarthyite thugs I despise."[23]
Rall solicited funds from readers and left-wing bloggers while considering whether to sueAnn Coulter for libel and slander for her (later self-described as "joking") statement that, "Iran is soliciting cartoons on the Holocaust. So far, only Ted Rall, Garry Trudeau, andThe New York Times have made submissions." Coulter first made the remark at the 2006Conservative Political Action Conference meeting in Washington, D.C., on February 10 and then printed it in her syndicated column the following week. By 18 days later, pledges totaled over $21,000.[24][25] However, pledges are no longer being solicited, and in a December 27, 2006 blog entry, Rall posted an email that was sent to pledged contributors to the lawsuit, stating that his attorneys had determined, "The road ahead is too uncertain to justify spending thousands of dollars of pledges, not to mention my own money".[26]
In July 2015, theLos Angeles Times released a "note to readers" stating that Rall had been dropped from the paper because of allegations that he had recently lied about a 2001 encounter with the police.[27] TheLos Angeles Police Department (LAPD) claimed that Rall misrepresented the encounter in a May 2015 opinion blog post he wrote about enforcement ofjaywalking laws in Los Angeles.[28]
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, whom Rall had repeatedly mocked in his cartoons for theLA Times, provided a copy of an audio recording of the encounter (the location of the original microcassette, and whether it still exists, remains unknown) that theLA Times found to "raise serious questions about the accuracy of Rall's blog post".[27] Rall stood by his version of the incident.[29] Another version of the recording, which Rall posted online after having itrestored by sound engineers, included sounds of bystanders talking. One person is heard saying "you need to take off the handcuffs."[30][31]
TheAssociation of American Editorial Cartoonists issued a statement calling for an independent investigation of the tape.[32][33] On August 19, theLA Times issued a lengthy statement reaffirming its claim that Rall's original blog post "did not meet its standards". In it, they reported they had the audio recording investigated by two audio and video forensics experts and it still did not support Rall's version of the event.[34]
In March 2016, Rall filed suit against theLos Angeles Times fordefamation of character andwrongful termination;[35] in June 2017, the judge in the case dismissed claims against four individuals for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress; claims against the former and currentLA Times corporate ownership remain.[36] Rall appealed the lower-court dismissal to the California Court of Appeals. On January 17, 2019, the Court of Appeals published an opinion affirming the dismissal.[37] However, in April 2019 theCalifornia Supreme Court accepted Rall'spetition for review, which continues the case's appeal process.[38] In September 2019, the California Supreme Court returned the case to the California Court of Appeals for review in light of its decision inWilson v. Cable News Network, Inc. (2019) 7 Cal. 5th 871 (Wilson). On December 18, 2019, the California Court of Appeals again affirmed the trial court's orders dismissing Rall's claims.[39]
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