Friday 21 August 2020

comrade gulliver

Print Magazine’s regular feature, The Daily Heller, introduces us to the Marxist and committed social justice activist whose polemic art illustrated the American Socialist movement of the 1930s and 1940s through his project, which the author, Hugo Gellert (Grรผnbaum Hugรณ, *1892 – 1985) declares as direct descendant and philosophical heir to Jonathan Swift’s satirical Lemuel Gulliver (see previously), with his misadventures in the strange lands of the United States were “even more fantastic than the experiences of my forefather” far more arbitrary and unaccountable than any government or class-structure that the Blefuscudians could imagine. The Budapest native was also was a staff artist for The New Yorker and later for such political periodicals as The Liberator and New Masses. The comic goes on to explore various aspects of capriciousness of station and labour and the inequities in America through the lens of a befuddled outsider and through this lightly shaded allegory highlights the mortal failings of the system and underpinnings of capitalism. Much more to explore at the link up top.