Please note: This is an earlier draft, more a bunch of ideas and notes than an actual argument).
… Or why are there no zombie octopuses in political cartoons?
[Author note: this is only a first pass, lots of vague arguments, and logical fallacies. And far to many “it could be argued, it has been argued, studies have shown” - well, you get the idea… Feedback welcome.]
The tentacular undead make an appearance in the vernacular of political cartoons as vampiric octopuses and skulltopuses (1), but never as a zombie octopus (2).
SKULLTOPUS!
A handful of cartoonist have used a tentacled skull to represent: Al Qaeda, Drug Habits and the USA (military).
DRUG HABIT, Winsor McCay (date unknown)
NUNCA MAS, Haik Hoisington (2006)
AL-QAEDA NETWORK, Ann Telnaes (2001) (3)
BLUTSAUGER - Blood Sucker.
“Erkenne die Gefahr! Wähle Österreichische Volkspartei, Wien 1949”
In contrast to the skulltopus, the vampiric or blood-sucking octopus is really, quite common in political cartoons. And it is all Victor Hugo’s fault (4):
‘What, then, is the devil-fish? It is the sea vampire.’ (NB: This depends on your translation, in The Modern Library edition it is ‘What, then, is the devil-fish? It is a suction pad.’ p.350)
‘English sailors call it the devilfish or the bloodsucker’ p351
‘A tearing of the flesh is terrible, but less terrible than a sucking of the blood.’ (In The Modern Library edition: ’ A bite is fearful, but less so than a suction’ p.353)
But does blood-sucking octopus analogous to a leech - something living and natural - and not to the undead vampire? Well…
A giant red vampire squid used to depict the “blood-sucking aspect of trying to make profit … out of people getting sick” (2010) (5)
… No, the word ‘vampire’ comes up often enough to dismiss this argument. For example:
Political parties appeared and disappeared like the thick grounds at the bottom of Turkish coffee cups. Gipsies read fortunes and played addictive violin music that made one lascivious and light-headed. All this frivolity rested like a multitentacled vampire above a huge, backward peasant mass that lived in hunger and rags in villages. The aristocratic vampire with its grotesque appetites sucked dry the energy of millions of wretched humans. –Andrei Codrescu, ‘The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara & Lenin Play Chess’ (2009) Emphasise added. (6)
China Miéville
the octopus is identified with the Medusa, demon, and, repeatedly, with the vampire, reacquainting it, if unstably, with ‘traditional’ teratology. The octopus is obsessively depicted as evil – indeed, such a ‘perfection of evil’ that its existence is a vector of heresies of a double god, a cosmic parity of good and evil. (7)
“In the case of the octopus and the vampire, the oral sadism attributed to them seems to stem primarily … from the unconscious urge to recover only the first phase of the nursing situation, i.e., the sucking, not the biting phase — the warm blood a substitute or symbol of the warm milk.” (8) The result is, that “by sucking on the victim, the vampire may be said to merge with the victim” (9).
But where are the Zombie Octopuses in political cartoons?
FOOTNOTES
- Also known by the uglier name of octoskull (and, in my opinion, just wrong). Octoskull = Eight-Skull or Skulltopus = Skull-Foot. Also, Octopus derived from Old Greek, Skull from Old Norse or something like that. Ah, neologisms.
- Why no zombie octopuses in political cartoons? They exist in popular culture. I dare you to do an internet search for “zombie octopus”. Are these metaphors - in pol. cartoons - incompatible? If varies studies lampooning zombies as the mass proletariat/consumers, and the octopus and vampire as capitalist/bourgeois/aristocrat: does this mean there will never be a zombie octopus in a political cartoon?
- Image Source: “Reading” Political Cartoons, Global Connections, PBS (2002?)
- Well, maybe it was Victor Hugo’s fault. Page references are too: Hugo V. The Toilers of the Sea. New York: The Modern Library; 2002. English edition. Also The Victor Hugo link originated with Moncelet and Mieville.
- Quote from audio in: Julie Rovner (2010) Protesters, Including ‘Vampire Squid,’ Picket Health Insurers’ Confab - Shots - Health News Blog : NPR (Accessed: March 16th 2010).
- Via: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/ttooulig/entry/the_many-tentacled_vampire/
- Miéville C. M.R. James and the Quantum Vampire. Collapse. 2008;IV:105-128.
- American Imago, Wayne State University Press, 1956 vol 13-14 p16
- Kayton, L., 1972, “The Relationship of the Vampire Legend to Schizophrenia.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 1:303-314 in Bloody Mary in the Mirror: Essays in Psychoanalytic Folkloristics by Alan Dundes.
“Erkenne die Gefahr! Wähle Österreichische Volkspartei, Wien 1949” (Recognize the danger! Choose Austrian People’s Party, Vienna 1949)
The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the dangers of Communism (1949) With a view to the parliamentary elections due to be held on 9 October 1949 in Austria, the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) warns the country’s voters against the threat posed by the ‘Communist octopus’.
Source: “The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the dangers of Communism”, European NAvigator (Accessed: 3rd Oct 2010)
Another vampiric octopus. Poster circa 1917. “Freiheit Der Meere” (Freedom of the Seas), Subtitled: England Der Blutsauger Derwelt (England, The Bloodsucker of the World) (Morrow, 2005)
Image Source: Hoover Institute Political Poster Database (accessed 2nd Oct 2010)
Morrow, J.H., “The Great War: An Imperial History”, Routledge, 2005 p.176
The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.) 1899-1947, November 06, 1905, Night Edition
Arm Labels: Electric Power, Suburban Freight Trains, Electric Light, Politics, Real Estate, Street Car Lines, Wood Yards, Renton Coal Mines
Octopus: Puget Sound National Bank
A CALL TO ARMS
Like a Mighty Octopus, Sucking Life-Blood From the City
Are the people of Seattle under the influence of opiates or are they hopelessly and literally dead?
Is it possible they do not know or do not care whether their most sacred rights and interests are treacherously sold or given outright to greedy and unscrupulous corporations, or reserved for them and their posterity?
At the meeting of the council this very Monday night, a franchise privilege worth millions of dollars will certainly be tossed over to the Seattle
Electric company, unless the people wake up and present themselves at the council chamber with a protest that cannot be misunderstood.
It is proposed to deliberately give away to the Seattle Electric company, whose owners live in Boston, and have not a vestige of interest in Seattle, except the money which they can extract from the people and carry away with them—-
It is proposed to hand over to this company, which calmly ignores the petitions and pleadings of the people of this city for more car lines and better service, the only possible outlet over which a competing or even a city car line can in the future be built from the business section to the north end of the city.
This privilege is worth millions.
It effectually and forever gives the death blow, to the possibility of a municipal car service.
Can you trust your city council to protect the interests of the people against the dark lantern methods of this foreign corporation?
Could the people of Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis or Philadelphia trust their councils?
There is but one way to save the city from the treacherous game of give-away that is being played between the council and the electric octopus, and that is to appear in person at the council chamber and enter a protest against this business of selling out you and your posterity which these juggling aldermen can comprehend.
THIS CRIME OF SELLING OUT THE RIGHTS OF POSTERITY IS THE MOST PERFIDIOUS THAT MEN CAN PERPETRATE. THE ORDINARY ROBBER MEETS YOU ON THE HIGHWAY AND TELLS YOU TO STAND AND DELIVER. HE DOES NOT MORTGAGE YOUR FUTURE LABOR OR THAT OF YOUR CHILDREN. BUT THE FRANCHISE GRABBER STRETCHES HIS FELONIOUS FINGERS FAR INTO THE FUTURE AND STEALS THE INHERITANCE OF THE CHILD WHOSE FATHER IS YET UNBORN.
There are 100,000 people living north of Pike street. Are the rights and interests of such a vast community to be thrown away forever?
Is the sole means of access to this great and growing district to be handed over to Mr. Furth and his foreign backers in response to some silent and hypnotic influence which he seems able to exert?
DROP YOUR BUSINESS FOR AN HOUR AND TURN OUT FOR YOURSELVES THIS MONDAY NIGHT FOR POSTERITY AND FOR THE CITY’S WELFARE.
Courtesy of a dismissive article1 on a protest outside the Ritz-Carlton hotel on March 9th 20102: The Return of the Vampiric Octopus Squid. Giant red vampire squid used to depict the “blood-sucking aspect of trying to make profit … out of people getting sick”1
And then there was the guy dressed up as what looked to me like, well, a Giant Red Squid of Death. The man in a black bodysuit with a red paper mache monster growing from his shoulders called it “a vampire squid.” His get-up, he said, was meant to dramatize the profit motive of publicly traded health insurers.
Thanks to hectocotyli for pointing this one out.
Footnotes
- “Never underestimate the power of a lovely spring day in the nation’s capital to fuel a vigorous political demonstration.”
- Audio recording in: Julie Rovner (2010) Protesters, Including ‘Vampire Squid,’ Picket Health Insurers’ Confab - Shots - Health News Blog : NPR (Accessed: March 16th 2010).
- Julie Rovner (2010) ‘Protesters … ‘
Image Source: Protesters, Including ‘Vampire Squid,’ Picket Health Insurers’ Confab - Shots - Health News Blog : NPR
Brief post. Another (contemporary) reference to blood sucking octopuses (or in this case the inverse of “multitentacled vampire“):
Political parties appeared and disappeared like the thick grounds at the bottom of Turkish coffee cups. Gipsies read fortunes and played addictive violin music that made one lascivious and light-headed. All this frivolity rested like a multitentacled vampire above a huge, backward peasant mass that lived in hunger and rags in villages. The aristocratic vampire with its grotesque appetites sucked dry the energy of millions of wretched humans.
–Andrei Codrescu, ‘The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara & Lenin Play Chess’
–Quote taken from ‘The Many–tentacled Vampire of Andrei Codrescu‘ (George Ttooli).
Other blood-sucking octopuses:
‘What, then, is the devil-fish? It is the sea vampire.’ (NB: This depends on your translation, in The Modern Library edition it is ‘What, then, is the devil-fish? It is a suction pad.’ p.350)
‘English sailors call it the devilfish or the bloodsucker’ p351 (roughly the same in both translations)
‘A tearing of the flesh is terrible, but less terrible than a sucking of the blood.’ (In The Modern Library edition: ’ A bite is fearful, but less so than a suction’ p.353)
