Time Magazine Top 10 Editorial Cartoons of 2008 Sucks

Editorial cartoonists are up in arms with Time Magazine’s list of the Top 10 Editorial Cartoons of 2008.

Michael Cavna of the Washington Post thinks that the selection was made with their eyes closed. And Association of American Editorial Cartoonists president Ted Rall even fired off a letter to Time Magazine showing his own disgust saying “In 2008 hundreds of brilliant political cartoonists produced thousands of hard-hitting, thought-provoking and hilarious cartoons…and all you could come up with was this phoned-in crap?”

Now looking through the Time list, I would have to agree that most of the selections I wouldn’t include in a top 100 of my own list. And this is coming from someone who thinks his own stuff is mediocre at best.

But I find it amusing how invested people get in others “Best of” lists. Someone even suggested that the AAEC create their own best of list.

Here is how I responded:

“what I was thinking was to submit a list of the 10 best editorial cartoons to Huffpost.”

And what makes you think your picks would be any less biased? Any top 10 list I have ever seen is full of crap and obviously biased or not well thought out. I just read Entertainment Weekly where they list the “Top Ten Most Notable Events of 2008″ Three of them are movie premieres. Seriously, the premiere of Sex and the City is one of the top ten of 2008?

Even if you post nominees and have people vote, what you end up with is still not the best. ie. Just because someone wins American Idol doesn’t make them the best singer in the competition.

Maybe it’s that people get hung up on the terminology that if someone creates a best of list that it is absolute and therefore insulting to anyone not on the list. Instead, maybe you create a post of “Ten Editorial Cartoons of 2008 that I Liked Best”

Maybe instead of Best of Lists, people should start creating Worst of Lists. I can’t see anyone complaining that they didn’t make the list.