Jeanette and Helen Clark are campaigning together in Auckland this morning, visiting a couple of schools. Gerry Brownlee reckons this will send a “chilling message” to Kiwis. Quite.

You will have noticed that frogblog‘s cartoon, tadpole ‘toon, has now gone daily, because the campaign has begun. You can look forward to a cartoon five times a week from now till the election. All the cartoons are collected in a single place here.

UPDATE: TV3 enjoyed this cartoon so much, they featured it on Campbell Live in their pre-debate coverage

In 2002, it was Asians. In 2005, it is Muslims. Who will it be in 2017?

The Greens’ cutting-edge media unit is springing into action in the lead-up to the election, offering a series of biting political cartoons called “Tadpole toon” on their usually informative blog (blog.greens.org.nz). There have been suggestions that humour and satire are not this party’s strong suit. Sideswipe asked Herald cartoonist Guy Body to critique. His assessment: “The worst one’s ‘Don the Dozer’… Exaggeration is what cartoonists do, but it’s histrionic to portray someone as being out to destroy the universe just because he’s a bit less green than yourself … Cartoons lacking impartiality just don’t work; readers tend to recoil from a cartoonist praising a party, or sparing it abuse. It’s the same with journalism – being a propagandist loses you credibility.” The cartoons will come out weekly, but once the campaign proper starts, they will be daily. Can’t wait.

I’m not sure whether Ana is disagreeing with Guy Body or being sarcastic, but frankly Guy has missed the point. He is drawing for a ‘independent’ media outlet, whereas we are doing what we do from the perspective of a political party, which by definition has a position and a bias.

The Herald has an interesting track record with its political cartoons. A couple of years ago they fired cartoonist Malcolm Evans for alleged anti-Semitism in his cartoons about the Middle East situation.

Apparently the Herald‘s editorial cartoonists have the subject matter and bias of their cartoons dictated to them by the editorial panel, whereas Tom Scott at The Dominion Post is free to draw what he likes. Seemingly, he truly does have the sort of independence that Guy is advocating.

Because the Greens are a biased collective too, we follow a similar route to the Herald in producing tadpole toon. The media team comes up with the angle, one of us writes it up and the artist is simply engaged as an illustrator. We take this approach because tadpole ‘toon is unashamedly a statement of the Green Party’s position. A visual media release, if you will.

While Zimbabwe burns, and everyone appeals to Umpire Goff to give the Black Caps’ tour “Out!”, the man in the white coat dithers… Put your finger up, Phil!

Today, frogblog introduces a new feature: tadpole ‘toon. A cartoon commenting on current events, it will grace our virtual pages once a week till the campaign proper begins, at which stage it will become daily.

Meanwhile, Japan has failed in its bid to overturn the moratorium on commercial whaling, losing the vote at the International Whaling Commission 29-23. This isn’t the end of the story, however. There are still more crucial votes coming up at the IWC meeting in South Korea, as well as the ever-present threat of Japan to pull out of the IWC completely. Then, it figures, it could do whatever it likes.