Crippen: caught in the act

Cartoonist Dave Lupton, aka Crippen, has found that current political events have forced him to sharpen his pen. But he’s found that this has also had an impact on his work elsewhere. In an extended email interview, he tells Disability Now about what gives his work its edge

What is it about current politics which has made your cartoons more political?
It’s the blatant disregard that the ConDems have for all aspects of the lives of disabled people that has focussed my work more towards this coalition Government and its policies. Their slash and burn tactics and their indiscriminate cutting away at the services that we rely upon to continue living in the community is affecting us all at every level.

From changes within the health system, changes to independent living support services, to the savage cuts to benefits generally.

I’ve had my blogs hacked into several times since I started criticising the way that the ConDems are going about their reforms.

The people breaking into the blogs have made subtle changes to the dialogue that I’ve constructed to accompany a cartoon, or have changed or removed some of the comments that I get back in response.

My current humour is aimed at both the effects of the cuts on disabled people and those politicians who are making the cuts.

Many members of the current cabinet clearly have no concept of a joined up strategy in relation to the changes they are making to our society. However, there are some of them who know exactly what they’re doing. These are the ones I try to target and expose the Machiavellian undertones that are part of their legislative changes.

Satirical, comic, witty: which of these best describes your work?
I’m a sucker for the pun I’m afraid so my work is often based on the possible double meaning of a given situation. Less a play on words maybe, and more a play on the imagery. I’ve always had the ability to be pretty quick-witted in responding to a situation I think.

You’ve recently distinguished between your work for Disability Arts Online (DAO) and what you described as “more political” pieces. But isn’t all your work really political?
Absolutely, but in differentiating between my current work which is targeting the coalition Government and my previous work centred around the disability arts movement I would tend to use a capital ‘P’ for the former and a small ‘p’ for the latter.

One of the problems with my work becoming identified as Political can often cause conflict with organisations’ funding. For example, my original brief with Disability Arts online was to focus primarily upon the disability arts world and to do my thing in highlighting different points of view and opinions that exist within this arena. By bringing in a wider focus of what is happening to areas outside of the disability arts world, I felt that I was in danger of wandering away from my original brief. The obvious thing to do seemed to be to create a separate, unfunded platform from which I could say pretty much what I wanted without compromising anyone else in the process.

Which cartoonists from what might be called “the mainstream” do you regard as your influences?
I’ve always loved the work of Steve Bell from The Guardian. He’s so irreverent that when I grow up I want to be just like him.

Which is most important to your work, pictures or words? Which do you work hardest at?
Being slightly dyslexic I do find writing difficult.

I do enjoy writing but often I’m only able to articulate what my thoughts are by creating a drawing about it. Over the years, as I’ve gained more confidence in my drawing abilities I’ve tended to drift away from writing and concentrated more on letting my cartoons tell their story.

If other cartoonists, not involved or concerned with disability see your work, what’s their reaction to it?
I get a varied reaction to my work from other cartoonists who are not involved or concerned with disability. Sometimes they get the punchline right away or, if they do, aren’t sure if it’s then OK to laugh at it! Similar to a black comedian being able to tell jokes against himself or his culture, being a disabled cartoonist allows me this same leeway.

“But you can’t say that!” is something I sometimes hear from a non-disabled person when they’ve seen one of my cartoons. The one that comes to mind here is the cartoon I created of a young wheelchair-user pointing with his toe at a speech board set on the floor in front of him. He’s obviously attempting to communicate with a support worker who is standing alongside of him with an annoyed expression on his face. The words within the various sections on the speech board include the expression “fuck off” and it’s towards this that the disabled guy is pointing. The PA is thinking “Not sure that this new word board was such a good idea!”

Aside from politics, what other areas are ripe for your kind of treatment?
The big disability charities are always setting themselves up for a bit of the Crippen treatment. Then of course there’s the medical profession. However, I think that there’s a lot more potential for my cartoons to be used by those disabled people who feel disempowered and trapped within the residential care home or mental health systems. My cartoons can often give these disabled people permission to start to challenge the status quo of the establishments that they find themselves in.

I remember one guy contacting me to say that he’d had certain privileges taken away for having a Crippen cartoon on display on the inside of his locker door. It wasn’t even as though it challenged the charity that ran the particular residential home where he lived either.

Needless to say I created an even more outrageous cartoon for him, based upon his own ideas about the home and, at his request, had a framed copy delivered to him so he could hang it on the wall of his room!

What’s your favourite cartoon of yours and why do you like it?
The cartoon depicts a white man with grey hair and a large bushy moustache wearing a white laboratory coat. He is pointing at a flip chart standing alongside him. The chart has printed upon it – ‘how the handicapped can learn to cope and come to terms with their less than normal lives – by Prof A.N. Expert’. A disabled woman, who is standing to the side of him, is looking down at a young wheelchair-user who is in the process of lifting the bottom of the man’s lab coat and is staring at his bottom. She is saying to the man: “It’s just that he’s never seen anyone talk out of their arse before!”.