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Matt Walker draws cartoons for a living. He’s a staff cartoonist for Political, an American political journalism outlet just outside Washington. Where a strange mix of things in that we are making serious commentary on serious topics, but we’re doing it not so seriously and we get to draw our opinions with silly pictures. The Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist says the main advantage of a political cartoon is being able to communicate an opinion very quickly. I can draw a picture and put in a little word bubble and you can read it in about four seconds and you get it. It has to hit you in the face kind of hard and fast and you know it when you’ve been hit. In this cartoon, for example, Walker was inspired by an iconic image by American artist Norman Rockwell reflecting a traditional scene of American culture.

马特·沃克以画漫画为生。他在Political做漫画。Political是美国华盛顿外一家与政治有关的新闻机构。漫画业是一个奇怪的混合体，我们会对严肃的话题做严肃的评论，但我们评论的方式却不是那么严肃——我们是用看似愚蠢的图案来表达观点。马特曾获普利策奖，他表示，政治漫画的一个主要优势就是能迅速地表达观点。我可以画一幅画，配上一点只言片语。只需要大概4秒钟就能读懂其含义，然后令读者迅速为之一振。而受到震撼的那一刻会让人记忆犹新。比如，在这幅漫画中，沃克是受到美国艺术家诺曼·洛克威尔标志性图像的启发，反映了美国文化的传统风貌。

The cartoonist says over the years his craft has evolved. When I started 40 years ago, doing cartoons of editorial cartoon was a black-and-white single panel cartoon in a newspaper, and now cartoons can be color; they can be animated. They can be graphic novels that are political.

沃克表示，过去这些年来，他的技艺也在不断纯熟。我40年前刚入行的时候，社论漫画都是在报纸上做的，只有黑白，非常单一。而现在，漫画也可以色彩斑斓、栩栩如生，甚至可以是带有政治意味的小说形式。

Like this 2018 Pulitzer prize-winning work by journalists Jake Halpern and illustrator Michael Sloan currently on display at the Museum in Washington, the series tells the story of two Syrian families harrowing journey from their homeland to the US where they settled as refugees in 2016. Patti Rule is vice president of exhibits at the Museum. This is the beginning of this country. Editorial cartoons have been framing issues and framing debate from events, Ben Franklin, the live free or die, the segmented snake that rallied the thirteen colonies together. So it’s always been a part of this country in the world’s way of freely expressing ideas and debate.

以2018年获普利策奖的作品为例，这部作品是记者杰克·哈尔彭和插画师迈克尔·斯隆所作，现在陈列在华盛顿博物馆中。这个系列的作品讲述了2个叙利亚家庭从故乡跋涉到美国的故事。他们2016年到美国后，就以难民的身份生活。帕蒂·卢尔是该博物馆负责展览的副总裁。这是这个国家的开始。评论性漫画会从各种事件中升华出问题并进行讨论。本·富兰克林， 要么自由要么死亡，把13个殖民地团结起来的锯形蛇。所以，政治漫画一直都是美国的一部分，是全世界自由表达观点并进行辩论的方式。

But free expressions sometimes come at a heavy price. In 2015, Islamic terrorists attacked the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine after it published unflattering cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.12 people were killed in the attack including several prominent cartoonists.

但自由言论有时候是要付出沉重代价的。2015年，伊斯兰恐怖分子袭击了《查理周刊》的办公室。《查理周刊》是法国的一家讽刺性杂志。它被袭击的原因是发表了一个不讨喜的漫画，内容与先知穆罕默德有关。12人在这场袭击中死亡，其中有几位是知名的漫画家。

And within their culture, they’re certainly entitled to be offended, but they’re not entitled to decide that they’re gonna go to Paris and kill the people who created that cartoon. Many cartoonists have had to flee their countries because they were brave enough to take on regimes or political figures.

在他们的文化里，他们自然有权认定自己是否受到了冒犯，但他们无权决定去巴黎杀害那些漫画作者。很多漫画家迫不得已要逃离祖国，因为他们敢于以政权和政治人物为主题。

Walker hopes that in these troubled times people will appreciate cartoons for what they are. I think the good kind of political cartooning is something that slips in a really good political point with a certain amount of good humor and wit that people will process and hopefully it won’t make them angry but will make them think.

沃克希望动乱年代的人们能够欣赏漫画本身。我认为，好的政治漫画能够传递优秀的政治观点，同时又不乏老少皆宜的幽默和智慧。理想的情况是：能引发人们的思考，又不会激发人们的愤怒。

Julie Taboh VOA news Arlington Virginia.

感谢收听朱莉从弗吉尼亚阿灵顿发回的报道。