In 1937, in one of the greatest ironies of history, Goebbels and Ziegler curated one of the most phenomenal art shows ever staged Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art). It included masterpieces from some of the best 20th century artists: Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Egon Schiele, Paul Klee, Otto Dix, Max Ernst, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Oskar Kokoschka and Georg Grosz. Yet they staged this remarkable show only to encourage people to spit on these artworks and other vile acts and villainy and many of these 16,000 avant-garde works have not yet been recovered. The brilliant jurist Räphael Lemkin, who coined the neologism, genocide, viewed this type of cultural denigration as an instrumental part of genocide and included it in his definition. Yet, the destruction of cultural heritage remains outside of the definition of genocide and is not as forcefully addressed nor enforced in international law. This needs to be revisited. It should not be forgotten that the Shoah began with Gleichschaltung and that in the early days of the Nazi regime, Goebbels staged a book burning at the Opernplatz (now officially the Bebelplatz). “Degenerate” speaks to solidarity with artists who are being criticized for third-rail concepts and/or penalized around the world for speaking truth to power and speaks against intellectual and artistic compulsion and synchronization.

The carrot, who bears a ninja tattoo, comes from the play on words in Japanese – a culture that has long utilized manga and anime for all genres – as carrot is にんじん, transliterated as “ninjin” echoing 忍者, which is transliterated as “ninja”. This speaks to the fact that cartoons are warrior art. Cartoons should be guerilla gouaille. It also speaks to the fact that humour – in all its deprecation and excoriation of what may be taught to be sacrosanct, unquestioned and irrefutable – is vital to a healthy society, just as vegetables are necessary and nourishing for our physical health. In humour, humanity finds not only truth, but resilience.