Four years ago, the boys at JibJab knocked out one of the most viral videos of all time - This Land. This Flash-animated parody blasted both Bush and Kerry, and then went on to set online records with over 80 million views. A few months later YouTube hit the scene, and now in this 2008 election season, we’re overrun by animated election parodies. The difference this year is almost all of them are one-sided, and in particular left-leaning (aside from JibJab’s nonpartisan Time For Some Campaignin’). As you watch the various Flash-animated samples below, question if JibJab’s nonpartisan approach is the key to millions of views.

John McCain & Straight Talk Express: Palin vs Lieberman is from the gang behind Lil’ Bush. Click here to for a behind the scenes video.

Oh, McCain by Charlie Fink. Directed by Tony Grillo.

Oliver Stone’s P. Trailer by Yehudi Mercado

Oh, we’re not done yet….

Another one directed by Tony Grillo - The Two McCains Episode 3: My Foreign Fallacy.

Palin’s Qualifications by Mike Keefe, Editorial Cartoonist for the Denver Post.

Obama on the Run by Howard Tiersky

Mark Fiore’s McCain Iraq 2008

Everybody Loves Palin by JABOK

Halin’ Palin by Shaun Reimers

And I didn’t even get into the games! Here’s one Flash-based game: 270: White House Defense.

Shujaat Ali, a political cartoonist and animator living in Qatar, recently posted here about his new site. His Flash animation work was discussed here 4 months ago, and in the comments section, Shujaat pointed us to shujaatali.com. There you’ll find his explanation of how he wound up being a political cartoonist and animator for Al Jazeera, the Arabic language TV station. His work appears at aljazeera.com, and he’s also posted several of his favorites on his site. Also read Shujaat’s revelation that he and fellow political cartoonist Mark Fiore have struck up a friendship.

Shujaat has invited us to visit his site and asked that we use “decent language” and requested “constructive criticism.” Whether you agree with his point of view or not, let’s prove that we’re high-minded enough to respect his thoughtful request.

Mark Fiore, a syndicated political cartoonist and animator, has released his latest short. It’s titled ‘36,’ a cross between Fox’s huge hit ‘24,’ and George Bush’s meager approval rating, which has dipped to an all-time low.

Mark’s work is clever and fun to look at, but after a while the lip-synch-on-a-random-cycle technique starts to wear. He’s been featured here several times - including October and December of 2005.

Al Jazeera, the Arabic language TV station, is currently in the news because George W. Bush reportedly mentioned his desire to bomb their headquarters. Whether or not Bush was joking when he shared this sentiment with Tony Blair remains to be seen, but what we do know is the bombing would have silenced an artist named Shujaat.

Shujaat is a political cartoonist with harsh words for the US who works for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera organization, and, as it turns out, he’s quite fond of the Flash. Shujaat’s work isn’t quite on par with Mark Fiore’s cartoons, and his point isn’t always readily apparent, but it’s surely worth a look.

Mark Fiore, a political cartoonist whose Flash animation has been mentioned here a few times, recently teamed up with the Brady Campaign to combat Florida’s new ‘Shoot First’ law. According to the campaign, the “new law eliminates a citizen’s duty to avoid the threat, and allows the use of deadly force before other options.”

Hoping to get Governor Jeb Bush to reverse the law, Mark Fiore put together a clever Flash-animated short, complete with a nod to Dr. Seuss, that illustrates the situation from his point of view.

Read more about the campaign over at AWN.

Mark Fiore, a political cartoonist who is featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice and The Seattle Weekly, is also a prolific Flash animator. Cold, Hard Flash focused on his work back in June of this year, and I’d like to point you towards one of his more recent shorts, titled ‘GOPS’ a spoof of the hit reality show ‘Cops.’

Mark neatly and hilariously sums up the recent spate of indictments and legal troubles plaguing the all-powerful Republican party in the US. Enjoy!

Editor and Publisher Magazine recently published an article by Dave Astor titled ‘Animated Cartooning in a Flash.’ It’s a look into the growing field of political animation, an off-shoot of editorial cartooning. Two San Francisco-based cartoonists are featured - Mark Fiore and Don Asmussen.

Mark was once a staffer at the San Jose Mercury News, a place where he was once asked to ‘go easy on Bush.’ He’s now a featured artist on several newspapers’ websites, including the San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice and The Seattle Weekly. In the article, Fiore explains his new Flash-animated approach - “The same message, but less reading.” Fiore’s career was also examined in a USC online journal article by Mark Glaser titled ‘Can the Internet rejuvenate editorial cartooning?’ Here’s an interesting bit about Mark’s work week and rates:

…he’s been able to support himself doing one animation per week, and doing a small self-syndicated run to Working For Change, AOL, Village Voice, as well as SFGate and MotherJones.com. He charges about $300 per outlet per animation, and would like to add more outlets, without overexposing himself and having to lower his price.

You can see more of Mark’s work over at his website, and notice that he’s also selling his animated work on a DVD.

Don Asmussen has been regularly published in Time Magazine, The New Yorker and U.S. News and World Report. But back in 1999, Don got a call from the CEO of Mondo Media, John Evershed. What resulted was ‘Like, News,’ a Flash-animated show that supposes “what if Nightline was hosted by an irreverent teenager named Skeeter Dubois?” Mondo and Don ended up created dozens of episodes together, along with a little help from a few familiar names - Kenn Navarro and Michael Lipman, otherwise known as Lippy. Don continued his relationship with Mondo beyond ‘Like, News’ and you can see his more recent political cartoons on his website, dontoons.com.