It was a place where history and our current political crisis met for the afternoon to have a chat and a few laughs over a drink and (for me) some noisy pizza.

611 Guilford Ave. Baltimore, MD 21202 is the address for the Guilford Hall Brewery. It is one of a few businesses that now occupy the old building in the Station North District. It was constructed in 1898 by William Painter to support his expanding Crown Cork & Seal company, manufacturing bottling machines. That is because the crown cork is, well…a bottle cap! It was patented by Mr. Painter 6 years prior and his bottling business took off.

Juxtaposed to what is now an “edgy and artsy” district of Baltimore, just a few blocks down from where John Wilkes Booth is buried, this old, revitalized building made for a pretty great place to discuss the current landscape for political cartoonists in America.

Kevin Kallaugher, known as KAL, was our speaker for the afternoon. He’s been in the business for nearly 50 years, drawing for both the Baltimore Sun and the Economist. On this particular day he came out to Guilford Hall to talk about his career, what it was, and where it is going.

He spoke of how his field is under siege by fragile egos of government to bought and paid for news agencies (New York Times) to low-brow, mass-produced memes replacing thoughtful cartoons and comic strips to the theft of intellectual property using AI.

It was a strange sort of feeling to have a presenter produce images and stories that made you think, laugh, and feel a little bit uncertain with the world you knew then and know today. Bad politics has always been a part of our human history. And every once in a while bad politics leads to tragedy and crises – when the rich and powerful become too rich, and too powerful and well-intended, vanilla politicians grow into cowards or tyrants. Our stable governments become war-torn or fascist and everything that made a country worth fighting for crumbles into darkness.

Several red flags, signaling an authoritarian movement have been surfacing, but one such space seems more damning than the rest. Comedy and the attack on humour. When we can no longer laugh – laugh at ourselves, each other, our mistakes, our misfortunes – we lose something so profoundly human. Political cartoons live at the crossroads of art, humour, and current events. To attack those who create these satirical images is to attack our freedom of expression in ways that so deeply undermines democracy and the human experience.

KAL shared stories that day that left me with a greater respect for the leaders who had the inner strength of self and humility, which afforded them the grace to laugh at, and accept, the caricature versions of themselves drawn against the backdrop of their own blunders and failures.

Some leaders of the “free world” do not share this same sentiment.

That is not to say that KAL made overt accusations or told slanderous stories about any individual entity that day. He has far too much experience and professionalism to risk a life-long career in a single afternoon.

No, he didn’t fire off insults. He told us how he draws people – he sees their prominent physical features and their dominant dispositions. He told us how he comes up with the messaging for each cartoon – although it varied, depending on the topic, I appreciate how he highlights the hypocrisy of our leaders as if to tell them: we see you, and we are not falling for it.

So, if he sees an orange, malignant cancer that has placed a blight on our society, then how could he be blamed?

So, as we drank our beverages that day, some crowned in a metal cap as if to pay homage to the past of where we were standing, we found ourselves embodied in a space that would tell us where we are going.

I beg you all to keep drawing, writing, creating, and laughing. We are fighting for something we will miss when it is gone. And we will lose it to people not worth the spirits they’ve stollen from us.

Thank you, KAL, for spending an afternoon with us and sharing your insight, your art, your humour, and nearly 50 years of brilliant cartoons.

With Gratitude,
The Fans at Table 13

To see some of KAL’s work, visit his substack!