Worth a Thousand Words

That old quotation—a picture is worth a thousand words—is not easy for a writer to hear. Words are the tools of our craft after all. So, I like to interpret the quotation to mean that it takes a thousand words to describe a picture, or any visual image for that matter. It has nothing to do with actual worth. Pictures and words are equally worthy. I think we can all agree on that, can’t we?

Having said that, I confess that in addition to my lifelong love affair with the written word, I love pictures. A photograph is a moment frozen in time, a moment I can recall and relive every time I look at it. On past vacation trips, I lugged a Nikon F 35mm SLR camera, plus two additional lenses and film, everywhere we went. These days, whenever I see something that speaks to me visually, out comes my iPhone 5s and click goes its digital camera, but not immediately—not until I frame the image perfectly and take several shots to make certain I captured its essence. I stopped to take so many photos on our last trip that Macho Guy became impatient and started calling me Ansel Adams. I patiently explained that taking a memorable photograph is an art. He wasn’t convinced.

Recently, I took three oil painting lessons from my artist brother-in-law. During each lesson we sat side-by-side painting the same subject on canvas, and yet the results were not at all alike (his painting was better, for one thing). Painting differs from photography in that the resulting picture need not be an exact copy of the subject. It all depends on how the artist views the subject, his painting style, and how much talent he has or has not.

I suppose the perfect artistic medium, joining the two worlds of words and pictures, is that of cartooning. The cartoonist draws pictures, plus composes dialog and writes prose to describe the action that takes place in the pictures. The cartoonist gets to do it all, and it makes me a bit envious. As a youngster, I enjoyed reading the illustrated classics, and I devoured the action-oriented superhero comics—Wonder Woman was my favorite. No surprise there.

As an adult I became enamored of political cartoons, a mixed breed of art, political commentary and satire that makes them a triple threat. Some make me laugh. Some make me grind my teeth. Some make me cry. I may have a “gee, I wish I’d thought of that” moment or an “ouch” moment when I read one. Regardless of whether I agree with the political or sociological point a cartoonist makes, I admire the talent, the wit, and the creativity behind each cartoon. They entertain while they enlighten.

If I may be serious for a moment, I must say that I never dreamed that being a political cartoonist would eventually become a dangerous profession and that cartoonists would be threatened and persecuted for their work. It never occurred to me that cartoonists would be killed in cold blood because a terrorist group of intolerant fanatical religious fundamentalist rogues with no sense of humor, no sense of decency, and no regard for human life, found a magazine’s satirical political cartoons offensive.

I suppose it never crossed those terrorists’ minds to demand a retraction and a public apology, or to sue for defamation, or to boycott the publication. For some barbaric, incomprehensible reason, cold-blooded murder is a card-carrying terrorist’s preferred form of protest. Believe it or not, even Mafia Dons who have ordered their share of hits are smart enough to have a hands-off policy when it comes to journalists.

I suspect terrorists the world over will soon come to regret not being as smart as a Mafia Don. The picture of 1.5 million people in Paris, led by many world leaders with arms linked, all marching in solidarity against terrorism is worth a thousand times a thousand words. The odds of silencing everyone who thinks for himself, and who believes in freedom of speech and of the press, are not in the jihadists’ favor.