1.Cartoonist John Callahan
The Japanese title of director Gus Van Sant’s latest film is Don’t Worry, shortened from the full title, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot. The title is taken from the caption of one of John Callahan’s best-known single-panel cartoons.
The cartoon evokes a scene from a Western: a sheriff and his deputies, astride their horses, stumble across an abandoned wheelchair in the desert. It seems that they’re positive they’re right on the tail of their man. At first glance, it may appear that Callahan’s cartoon is making fun of people who use wheelchairs, but it’s actually gallows humor—Callahan was quadriplegic and used a wheelchair himself.
John Callahan was a cartoonist based in Portland, Oregon in the U.S. When he was 21, he spent a day drinking, going from bar to bar, when a casual drinking buddy who was driving them to their next destination crashed the car. Callahan ended up quadriplegic. (Ironically, the driver escaped with just a few scratches.) He regained partial use of his upper body after physical therapy, and using his crippled hands to grasp a pen, started drawing single-panel cartoons.
His style was singular. Due to his physical state, the drawings themselves were rudimentary, but in some ways that made them all the more effective. He caused waves with his subject material: mostly social taboos like physical disabilities and disease. The newspaper that ran them got a slew of angry letters to the effect of “How dare you make fun of disabled people", but Callahan, to an extent, enjoyed rubbing some people the wrong way. For him, pitying disabled people and refusing to engage with, address, or deal with such “taboo" themes was itself a form of discrimination.
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (2018)
This biopic is the story of John Callahan, an alcoholic slacker living in Portland, Oregon, who becomes paralyzed in all four limbs in a car accident. Struggling to overcome his drinking habit, he regains purpose in his life when he starts drawing satirical cartoons.
2.Single-Panel Satirical Cartoons as Social Commentary
In the U.S. and Western Europe, single-panel satirical cartoons have a long history as a medium of expression for scrutinizing political power and casting attention to social taboos. The cartoons usually appear alongside opinion columns, and are meant not as light entertainment or fluff but as social commentary expressing the artist’s opinion.
Single-panel cartoons present commentary but do not present a solution or judgment; the reader is free to use their intelligence and their imagination to interpret what the artist is trying to say. Artists don’t set out to make agreeable cartoons with widespread appeal, but rather aim to spark discussion or a debate. Like Callahan’s work, the best cartoons provoke and cause controversy.
At the same time, because they are subject to interpretation, a certain degree of literacy is required of both the artist and the reader—familiarity with political topics and current affairs, the state of the world and pop culture at large. Read between the lines, and it may become clear that a cartoon is a scathing criticism of a political issue or event. If the reader lacks literacy, they may very well end up gleaning the exact opposite of the intended meaning. For those who didn’t know John Callahan was a quadriplegic, cartoons like the one I described above naturally come across as insensitive and insulting. But the very fact that people could make such a misinterpretation gets at the heart of the kind of social issues Callahan sought to highlight.
Addressing political topics head-on and welcoming—sometimes even seeking out—controversy is an approach that can be seen not only in political cartoons, but in comedy in general in the West. For example, the British comedy group Monty Python used absurdist and satirical comedy to comment on the British class system. Meanwhile, in stand-up comedy in the U.S., it’s uncommon to see a comedian who doesn’t mention political topics (maybe it’s just the times we live in), and some even deliberately antagonize their audiences as a way of making their point. What all of these share is the fact that getting the laugh is not necessarily an end in itself, but rather a means of getting across what they could not otherwise say.
3.The Four-Act Structure of Japanese Four-Panel Cartoons
In contrast to the single-panel cartoons of newspapers in the West, Japanese newspapers usually feature the four-panel comic format. Two iconic examples that enjoyed nationwide popularity were Hasegawa Machiko’s Sazae-san, which ran in the Asahi Shimbun, and Ueda Masashi’s Kobo-chan, which ran in the Yomiuri Shimbun.
The Best of Sazae-san (Red / White / Blue)
Kobo-chan (#1 / #2 / #3)
Four-panel comic strips are based on a four-act storytelling format called kishotenketsu (起承転結). Ki (起) is the introduction, where the author sets the scene and presents a theme to the reader. Sho (承) is development, where the author expands on the theme and develops the story. Ten (転) is the twist, where the story takes a turn or the author subverts expectations. Ketsu (結) is the conclusion, where the story comes together and is resolved. Through this four-act structure, storytellers can present a complete worldview or thesis—say what they want to say, with context. They can guide and direct the attention of the reader and convince them—or at least, satisfy them.
The key to the structure is the conclusion. The conclusion is the ochi, a Japanese word that literally means “the drop", where the storyteller uses some clever wordplay or punchline to bring down the curtain—and the house. By employing “the drop", the storyteller releases the tension in the room and audiences are left with a pleasant aftertaste. “Dropping" a story or an audience also means to land the storytelling plane with a sure hand, to ground things in a satisfactory manner. In Japanese political and business circles, negotiations are all about finding an otoshi-dokoro (落とし所)—a common ground, a point of compromise.
Whether it is a novel or a TV drama or a film, Japanese storytelling almost always unfolds in a way that follows this kishotenketsu framework. The technique can also be seen in Japanese comedy: manzai (two-person stand-up comedy, think Abbot and Costello) involves a boke (ボケ, a funny man) and a tsukkomi (ツッコミ, a straight man), and the latter’s job is essentially to point out and provide commentary on the joke executed by the former. This relieves the tension creates a safe space for the audience to laugh collectively. People from Kansai—a region in Japan known for its affinity for comedy—are taught from a young age to always have an ochi, or punchline, to what they want to say, even in everyday conversation. When a person from the Kanto region—in other words, a Tokyoite—is blabbering on and on with no end in sight, a Kansai person will inevitably interject, “What, no ochi?"
4.American Stories Have Happy Endings, Japanese Stories are About “The Drop"
Watching Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot made me reflect not just on the differences between American and Japanese comic strips, but also on the fundamental difference in story structure. American storytelling is all about happy endings. The phrase “happy end" sounds like a fairy-tale conclusion: a smiling protagonist walking off into the sunset with their beloved. But a happy end need not be a clichéd resolution tacked on to appease audiences. For Americans, a happy end is one that holds infinite potential as to what comes next. For example, in the 1967 film The Graduate, the last scene involves the protagonist crashing a wedding and running off with the bride in dramatic fashion. However, the final shot is of the two sitting at the back of a bus, the excitement of the moment wearing off, heading toward an uncertain future.
Japanese audiences may be tempted to interpret the film Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot as the uplifting tale of John Callahan dealing with his character flaws through his satirical cartoons and ultimately rediscovering his purpose in life. However, the film’s conclusion is not so dramatic; there is no light bulb moment. Instead, it ends somewhat open-ended. At the beginning of the film, Callahan is an alcoholic and a slacker, and at the end he has not overcome his vices, rather, he has simply learned to deal with them as he lives his life.
The two lovebirds at the end of The Graduate may have awoken to reality the following day and broken up immediately. Likewise, Callahan might fall off the wagon at any point—he must carry that burden through the rest of his life. The story—or in other words, some higher power—places a destiny or a foregone conclusion upon its characters, who nevertheless must forge their own path forward and decide how they want to live their lives. Achieving that agency is what an American happy ending is all about. America was founded on the frontier spirit, after all—you are in control of your own destiny.
While Americans seek the kind of endings that hold unending promise, the Japanese need an ochi, a resolution with no loose ends where everything settles just so. At the root of this drive is a difference in culture and national identity. In my studies of Japanese history, one passage has always stuck with me. In Hagakure, sometimes called The Book of the Samurai, Yamamoto Tsunetomo says, “the way of the samurai is found in death". For Americans, the most important thing is how you choose to live. For the Japanese, it’s all about how you choose to die.
