foot-note by zu | Philosophy Cartoon

foot-note

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Foot Loose & Fancy Free

Somebody once said, the best cartoon is the one without text. That's quite trivial, but in case of zu's drawing »foot-note« everyone is allowed to laugh, because (nearly) everybody has once tried to make a footnote in Microsoft Word. And all of us know the mobile phone ads around the corner with the tiny stars at the price, referring to the tiny yet mighty text block at the bottom of the ad.
The artist »zu« (Géza Halász) drew this cute picture when there were neither mobile phones nor Word. »foot-note« was made in 1970, when then 23-year old Géza attended Karl Marx University of Economics in Budapest, Hungary. It was published in the local campus newspaper »Kozgazdasz«.
»foot-note« displays in a simple way the ambiguity to which the people in socialist countries where forced to express themselves – in order to evade censorship. Géza explains, it were the footnotes which contained the important and critical statements, because footnotes are skipped by the reader commonly. Géza detested reading the footnotes in his academic books. All the worse his professors asked him to write footnotes in his examens. »foot-note« was re-published in 2002, this time in Hungary's 2nd biggest daily newspaper, »Magyar Nemzet«.

Géza Halász is a teacher for informatics at Corvinus University, Budapest. I recommend a visit in his cartoon gallery. His repertoire includes satirical editions of historical paintings, photomontages and tiny cartoon sketches like this one. You can find more of and about him on his website with the catchy address http://zu.hu

(toonpool.com 02/09)