This political cartoon is titled, November 7th, 2011, after looking up that date; I am under the impression that this was when China decided to ban incandescent light bulbs in 5 years. I am not entirely sure of the background facts, but even without that I can gather a good general view of the topic just by this picture. The cartoonist certainly does a good job in ensuring that we know the topic just by labeling some people, and using speech bubbles. The lights we are beginning to change to, which are supposedly more ecofriendly, are not exactly the best type of lighting. This would be implied by the teary eyed ghost of Thomas Edison and the "dim bulbs" comment being made by the man in the corner. The cartoon makes you wonder, are the lights truly more ecofriendly, or are they just a new scheme China has worked up to make more money? The American light bulb consumers seem to have very naive attitudes in the picture. The words “Latest Fad” printed on the box just further add to defining them as being ignorant in their change, not to mention the Chinese man depicted laughing and clutching of large wad of bills that gives you the impression he would be thinking “hehehe, yet again I have scammed the Americans”. I have no background on the topic, so I have no idea if the way it is being presented is at all accurate; it is after all coming from The Onion. But that just goes to better express the Illustrators effectiveness. I have a pretty good idea of his opinion on the subject, and it makes sense. The only problem, which often comes up in non-written pieces is the lack of credibility and any usage of facts or statistics that make me certain the illustrator must be depicting everything truthfully. Overall the cartoonist does a good job of getting across the implications of this change, through his strong use of text in speech bubbles and as labels. The text directed the views train of thought.
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