Venezuela and Colombia: Online Political Cartoons Add Humor to Current Events · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

Presidential Island
Humorous political cartoons provide a steam valve for Colombians and Venezuelans who tune into the web for different perspectives on current events through animated online web shows.
In Colombia, Internautismo Crónico (Chronic Internautism) and Parodiario TV provide commentary on recent events and in Venezuela, Chigüire Bipolar has established itself with Presidential Island. While Internautism doesn't have a specific series to discuss political affairs but just puts the characters in different situations as they arise,  Parodiario.tv has made a name for itself with Little Tyrant, a webshow featuring two versions of tyranny, a Right wing and a left wing represented by a green and a left character.   Venezuela's Presidential Island takes a leaf from TV Series LOST and casts  Latin American presidents and the Spanish King as castaways all together in a deserted island. Following, a selection from the shows.
In this episode of Internautismo, the presidents of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador all go to a popular 90's Peruvian Talk Show, Laura in America, a Jerry-Springer like show where double crossing, unfaithfulness and mystery babies made a daily appearance.  The show is called “I can't get along with my neighbors and they want to kill me” and Alvaro Uribe, Colombia's president tells Laura all about his problems with Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's President, who denies giving rocket launchers to Colombia's enemies (while admitting he has given them many other things) while later on Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa denies he's been sleeping around with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), even though there's a secret video. At the end, in typical Laura in America style, guests are given the traditional rewards in the show: a sandwich cart and computer classes.
Meanwhile  Little Tyrant, the Parodiario's cartoon, entertains with its visions of how bad leadership does not come with a specific party color. The popularity of this cartoon (released under a Creative Commons License) has resulted in the sale and promotion in Colombian book and music stores of the DVD with both seasons of the show. In this episode of Little Tyrant, based on popular Colombian children's rhyme “Rin Rin Renacuajo” , lefty tyrant and righty tyrant discover how to be an informant and learn important lessons along the way, such as how getting paid in advance can make all the difference.
On Venezuela's side, the highly entertaining Presidential Island, brought to us by Chigüire Bipolar shows us a more complex relationship between the Latin American nations. On this two part episode, the presidents are cast away in an abandoned island after leaving the Presidential Summit. They build a raft and decide to leave the island: however not all of them can fit in it as President Chavez from Venezuela suggests, so a soccer match is played between the aligned countries and the non-aligned countries and the winner gets to leave the island. The game is narrated by Spain's king. Watch Part 1 and Part 2.
And as an extra clip, here is the Illustrated Venezuelan History by RetroTV of Barinas, Venezuela: