JEAN EFFEL
J
Manuel Gasser
[Deutscher Text: Seitc 443]
ean Effel is not merely the most amiable of
amiable cartoonists there are. For the great ma
jority of the species is malicious. If we do not
take their malice to heart, and even find it en
joyable, it is only because they choose as their
victims personalities and types who deserve no
sympathy or are generally hated politicians,
bores and Mrs. Grundy's. Jean Effel's favourite
themes, however, are neither dictators, nor pot-bellied dul
lards, nor yet disagreeable old women, but flowers, animals,
children, little angels and a kindly Green-Pastures sort of God.
His favourite stories are the creation of the earth, the life of
Adam and Eve in Paradise, scenes among oysters, sea-horses
[Texte francais: page 446]
and naiads on the ocean bed, mythology, folk-lore
and animal fables. At first sight these things
may seem a little childish and insipid, a little
devoid of the salt of wit. But when Eve sees a
fig-leaf drifting on the wind and cries in surprise,
"Look, an invisible man!" there is nothing very
childish, in the derogatory sense, about the idea
that gets the laugh; in fact, the joke presupposes
a quick intellect. The same is true of Atlas, who
carries the world on his shoulders and complains to Hermes:
"No, it's not the weight, it's just having the South Pole melting
on your neck all the time."
Somebody will now want to know how this harmlessness
and naivety are reconcilable with Effel the political cartoonist.
