If his name isn't familiar, the New York Times will give you the basics of his life in this obituary.

John Callahan, a quadriplegic, alcoholic cartoonist whose work in newspapers and magazines made irreverent, impolitic sport of people with disabilities and diseases and those who would pity and condescend to them, died on Saturday in Portland, Ore.  He was 59 and lived in Portland.
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Looking askance at the culture of confession and self-help fostered by the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Geraldo Rivera, he was not inclined in his work to be outwardly sympathetic to the afflicted or to respect the boundaries of racial and ethnic stereotyping. His cartoons were often polarizing: some found them outrageously funny, others outrageously offensive.

And then some, definitely including me, often found him funny because he was offensive, in politically-incorrect ways that only a disabled person could get away with.

In the Seattle area, his work appeared in the Seattle Times magazine, Pacific Northwest, which always seemed odd to me.  I often studied his cartoon, glanced at the table of contents, and then recycled the rest of the magazine.

You can see samples of his work, including a wonderful Oprah-Satan cartoon, here.

Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.

Posted by Jim Miller at August 01, 2010 01:05 PM | Email This