February 25, 2005

MORE FROM SLOVAKIA

Here's another one from our occasional cartoonist Martin Sutovek from Slovakia. Martin tells me that on his current visit, President Bush committed a foreign faux pas by complaining about the cold weather, saying the most important thing to remember about Slovakia is to bring warm clothes -- then the president shook hands with Slovakian politicians while wearing gloves.

And our poor readers wonder why they don't understand the cartoons ...


OH, THAT AWKWARD STUDENT E-MAIL

A typical recent exchange ...

I'm a high school sophomore, and in my English class, we have "Humor Me" Mondays where we look at political cartoons and try to interpret what the cartoonist is trying to say. Well, we didn't have school this Monday because of President's Day, and we ended up seeing your cartoon with the North Pole, candy cane, barber pole, and Michael Jackson with a kid pointing saying "That one." towards Michael. Well, after a few minutes of thinking, we could not figure out the point you were trying to make. I've been asked to email you and ask if you could tell me what the point you were making was so I could relay it to my class. What do the other symbols (North Pole, candy cane, barber pole) mean, if anything? Does it have something to do with Jackson's song about whites and blacks? Is there any other symbolism? I would really appreciate you explaining to me what your purpose was for the cartoon. Thanks a lot!

Hope to see more cartoons from you,
A Curious Student

Dear Curious,

Secret grand jury testimony was revealed last week which noted the unique characteristics about Jackson's private parts that allowed alleged molestation victims to identify him. We learned that Jackson's penis is striped like a barber pole.

Sorry about that. --Daryl

I'm guessing that, as Jacko applied his daily skin bleach, his wrinkled wee-wee would shrink at the sting, causing the bleach to work kind of like "tie dye." But that's just an educated guess. I'm sure it will be an interesting "Humor Me Monday."

Professor Chris Lamb has written a great book about editorial cartoons called "Drawn to Extremes, the use and abuse of Editorial Cartoons." Order the book at a discount from Amazon.com here. E-mail the professor at LambC@cofc.edu. Chris has contributed this excerpt from his book about our my buddy, cartoonist Milt Priggee, who got sued by a nutty judge in Ohio.

THE LAW AND EDITORIAL CARTOONS by Chris Lamb

On August 23, 1984, Milt Priggee, then with the Dayton (Ohio) Journal Herald, published a cartoon on a much-publicized feud between Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Celebrezze and the state bar association. In the drawing, Priggee portrayed the dispute as a 1930s-era feud between rival gangs, where tommy gun-firing hoods flee in a car with "Celebrezze" on the license plate from a storefront labeled, "Ohio Bar Association," leaving behind on the sidewalk, two injured men and a skunk holding his stomach. (Scroll down to see the offending cartoon --ed.)

In March 1985, Priggee learned that his newspaper and he were being sued over the cartoon for libel, invasion of privacy, and the intentional affliction of emotional distress. Priggee then learned that the plaintiff in the case was not Frank Celebrezze but his brother James, who had recently lost his re-election bid to the Ohio Supreme Court. "The cartoon wasn't even about James Celebrezze," Priggee said. "It was Frank who instigated the feud, everyone knows that. When I heard that Jimmy Celebrezze was suing, I said, `Wait a minute, I never did one on Jimmy.' "

Even though the cartoon was not about him, James Celebrezze, smarting from an election loss, sued over an opinion that was based on news accounts. As a judge himself, Celebrezze knew -- or at least should have known -- that, as a public figure, he had no real cause for action against either Priggee or the Journal Herald. A trial court agreed, ruling against Celebrezze, who then appealed. On July 5, 1988, an Ohio Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's decision. The Court said that the scene in the cartoon was "exaggeration, hyperbole . . . rhetorical, perhaps allegorical, but not capable of being interpreted as being factual or defamatory." It said that the cartoon was an expression of opinion and "there was no genuine issue as to Celebrezze's libel claim."

Unlike a news story, which is supposed to be balanced and taken literally, an editorial cartoon makes no such claim. Its intent is not to report the facts of the news but to comment on them -- and it often uses ridicule to make its point. Because of this inherent subjectiveness, cartoons are constitutionally protected expressions of opinion. When a statement reasonably implies false and defamatory facts, the plaintiff in a libel suit, in order to collect damages, must prove that the statement was made with "actual malice," or knowledge of the falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. But this definition is problematic for the editorial cartoonist. "That's not a definition of libel; that's a job description," one newspaper editor said. "That's what they're supposed to do. And if (they're not allowed to) do that we've got a problem in this country."

Editorial cartoonists, however, are still susceptible to lawsuits from offended public figures who seek not justice but redress over having been ridiculed. While Celebrezze ultimately failed to collect damages, he succeeded in forcing the Journal Herald to defend itself in court, which required attorneys, depositions, and other court-related costs. The newspaper, as a business with a bottom line, might have second thoughts about publishing cartoons that offend a particularly sensitive public official. Even if the newspaper wins in court, Priggee says the newspaper loses because it begins to censor itself. "As soon as they file, they've won. They know they're not going to get money," Priggee said. "But now the editor is going to run all cartoons by the lawyers." Priggee once called the libel suit "the ultimate hate letter."

... AND COMMENTS BY MILT PRIGGEE

Milt has had a number of legal problems with his cartoons. Read more about Milt's lawsuits on his great web site here. E-mail Milt at miltpriggee@comcast.net. See more of Milt's cartoons on our site here.

SHARING A FEW LEGAL MEMORIES ...

When I got into this business professionally all I ever heard about libel lawsuits was about Paul Conrad and Exxon Oil. I figured I was safe, I mean my mentors, Fischetti, Mauldin and Locher were never sued. C'mon that kind of stuff only happens to the Conrads of the world and there's only one of him.

Well, little did I realize all the future legal fun that was in store for me. To date I've given three depositions for libel lawsuits....two dealing with judges. If you think editors and publishers are completely unaware of what an editorial cartoon is, wait until you find yourself giving a deposition to a lawyer.

You will be utterly shocked at the legal profession's complete and TOTAL ignorance of what you thought everybody learned a long time ago......that being, what is a newspaper. It was even worse than that- the lawyer in my first deposition couldn't even READ! I am not kidding. During my deposition about the James Celebrezze libel lawsuit cartoon I experienced some weird moments. As the lawyer showed me my cartoons as evidence to be recorded in the legal proceedings he would ask me questions. Questions such as, did you draw this cartoon? When did you draw it and why did you draw it? Etc,etc...

The lawyer showed me one of the Celebrezze cartoons he had collected as evidence against me and my paper. Now get this- it wasn't a cartoon I drew. You should've been there to hear his reaction when I replied to his question, Did you draw this? NO- ......I didn't draw it. My answer knocked his line of questioning completely out of whack. He lost his rhythm. He didn't know what to say.......and as he leaned over the table to get a better look at it ...he said, Well, then who did draw it?? I said, THAT guy drew it.... pointing at Mike Peters signature....answering in a tone of, hell it's right there, plain as day....read it yourself. In fact Peters is somewhat well known for making sure his signature is big with both his first AND last name prominently displayed. I won't even go into our art styles not even looking remotely alike.

Since this Celebrezze cartoon was drawn by some one other than me it only proved that my cartoons were no different than anybody else's....except get this, this Peters' cartoon was about THE Judge James Celebrezze that was suing me. Coincidently I have never drawn a cartoon about James Celebrezze...yet he was suing me and not Mike Peters who had drawn a cartoon(s) about him. My cartoon was about Chief Justice Frank Celebrezze and Frank's feud with the Ohio Bar Association......nothing about James Celebrezze.

The Celebreeze deposition lasted 7 1/2 hours. The first two-thirds of the day were, who are you type of questions. The final third finally got to the actual cartoon in question.

Several times upon hearing the lawyers question, I looked over to our lawyers and asked them, is this guy serious-? He thinks the cartoon is a photograph! They calmed me down and whispered back to me, just answer the questions.

The questions he was asking told me he was judging the validity of the cartoon LITERALLY....as if the cartoon was a photograph!

The lawyer never did ask me any questions about the cartoon based on the criteria of what constitutes an editorial cartoon.

Today I put up a front page collection of cartoons by Iranian cartoonist, Massoud Shojai Tabatabai, who runs Iran's cartoon magazine "Kayhan." Massoud is a supporter of Iran's ruling clergy and is none too fond of the USA. His cartoons are typical of the daily doses of Anti-American sentiment that readers see in newspapers throughout the Middle East.. We have shown Massoud's work occasionally in our "Persitoons" rotating slot.

Whenever we post a collection of USA-critical cartoons by foreign cartoonists, we try to direct the angry email back to the cartoonist. It doesn't make much sense for you to send your angry e-mail to us! Send it to Massoud at shojait@yahoo.com.

Another impressive cartoonist who shows up once in a while is Martin Sutovec who draws for the daily SME newspaper in Slovakia. (I'm told that "SME" means "we are.") President Bush is visiting Slovakia now and Martin writes to me that as he looks around, he sees "police barriers, men with things in their ears, snipers on rooftops and strange military vehicles, jets and helicopters." This is a busy week for Martin, who sent us two recent drawings, of Bush and Putin meeting at Slovakia's Bratislava castle (below) and another on Condoleezza Rice (right).

I ask the artists on our site to try to send at least one cartoon per week and Martin didn't think he drew enough cartoons that Americans would understand, to justify a regular slot on our site. I don't mind occasional incomprehensible Slovakian political cartoons. If you'd like to see Martin on our site, send him an email at shooty@pakt.sk and encourage him to join in.

My British friends often complain about our "World Series" because it is an American affair with little interaction from the rest of the world. It seems that the parochial idea of the "best in the world" is not uniquely American.

I was amused by an article about an attempt by British cartoonists to identify the "greatest political cartoon of all time." Of-course, all of the cartoons that are nominated for this lofty title are drawn by British cartoonists, depicting events that would be unfamiliar to us Yanks. Click here for an example. And click here to read an article about the competition. In the article, the competition organizer, Tim Benson, is described this way by a historian, "Tim believes that British political cartoons are better than anyone else's."

Benson was mentioned in our blog a year ago, as president of Britain's Political Cartoon Society, when his group selected as the "best cartoon of the year," a cartoon that depicted Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon eating a Palestinian baby with the caption, "What's wrong ... You never seen a politician kissing babies before?" The cartoon was decried as anti-Semitic by Jewish groups because it seemed to allude to the "blood libel," a myth spread by Nazis that Jews fed on Christian children.

I'll be at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Santa Monica, California on Thursday, March 3rd, at 7:30pm. Come! Meet me!

Barnes & Noble Bookstore
1201 3rd Street Promenade
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Cross Street:
Near intersection of 3rd Street Promenade and 3rd St

Phone:
(310) 260-9110

Four single-panel cartoons, each one crudely sketched in pencil, rest on top of a small bookshelf in the editorial room of the Record (Bergen County, N.J.). "Dick?" says Jimmy Margulies, the artist behind the drawings, declaring his presence to his editor. "Cartoons." This is a daily ritual; Margulies doesn't need to say "Here are the rough drafts of four potential editorial cartoons for tomorrow's newspaper, Dick, one of which I need you to approve so I can begin fleshing it out, refining it, and inking it; then wash my hands, call my wife, and be out of the office by 6:30." The single-word announcement of "Cartoons" is enough.

Dick Benfield, the editorial page editor at the Record, a Hackensack-based daily newspaper, acknowledges his cartoonist with a grunt and a nod but continues to stare at his computer monitor: he's a busy man. Meanwhile, outside Benfield's office, Margulies fusses with the presentation of the four drawings ­ clearing excess trash from the top of the bookshelf, arranging the pages so they are uniformly spaced and parallel with the wall ­ and awaits his editor's judgment.

Finally, Benfield appears from his office. He summons other writers and editors from their cubicles ("Mary-Ellen: cartoons") and looks down at the sketches, all of which focus on the professional basketball players who had recently assaulted paying customers at the Detroit Pistons' home arena. The office, for the moment, is an ad hoc art gallery. Four people crowd around the drawings, pondering, chuckling, while Margulies waits beside them.

Then the moment ends. After about thirty seconds of careful consideration, Benfield taps the winner. "This one," he says, and re-enters his office. Margulies thanks him and wends his way back to his office, tucked in a corner of the newsroom, beyond the room that is responsible for the paper's online content. "A lot of people probably don't even know I have this office," Margulies said.

The chosen cartoon depicts a mustachioed businessman in tie and suspenders asking his fellow sports marketers "Help me out here ... which pro basketball player should we get to endorse these boxing gloves?" Margulies was asked if he would rather have drawn one of the three cartoons that he wound up unceremoniously dumping in the recycling bin after Benfield handed down his decision. "I didn't have a strong preference," he says.

Perhaps Margulies is correct in not rocking the boat. The era of salaried, on-staff editorial cartoonists working at daily newspapers has been steadily declining for years. Today's cartoonists, facing both a hyper-saturated media environment and increasing corporate consolidation in the newspaper business, are having a harder time than ever convincing publishers they are worth a salary and benefits. As the situation grows more dire, some cartoonists have looked towards the Internet as a way to showcase their work digitally, but most are skeptical about the limitations of the medium. Time will tell whether the Internet will prove to be the savior of editorial cartooning, but most cartoonists would agree that the unique role the local cartoonist once played is sorely endangered. "There are about 85 cartoonists [employed by a newspaper] in the country," said Daryl Cagle, cartoonist for the online magazine Slate. "That means it's five times easier to get a job in the NBA."

In February 2004, Chicago newspapers reported that some local firefighters had been making racist comments in transmissions over the department's radio frequency. At the height of the controversy, the Chicago Tribune published an editorial cartoon by Doug Marlette which depicted a group of three firemen ­ attack dogs snarling and poised beside them ­ turning their hoses on a group of cowering African-Americans. A fourth firefighter attempts to point his colleagues in the opposite direction: "No, guys ­ the fire's over there!"

What's remarkable about this cartoon isn't the public outcry it caused ­ although it did raise a ruckus with everyone from readers to firefighters to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who called the cartoon "disgraceful." Even the cartoon's extreme interpretation of the controversy ­ turning a few off-the-cuff uses of the n-word on CB radio into Birmingham circa 1963 ­ isn't incredibly noteworthy, because cartoons are, after all, supposed to make an immediate, visceral point. The real issue, in terms of political cartooning, is Marlette's relationship with the newspaper in which the cartoon appeared. The Chicago Tribune hasn't had a staffed editorial cartoonist since Jeff MacNally died in 2000. Since then, the Trib has bought and used cartoons from its syndicate, Tribune Media Services, which is a far cheaper alternative to hiring a full-time cartoonist. "If you have someone on staff, it's thirty, forty thousand dollars [a year]," said Steve Greenberg, graphic artist and political cartoonist for the Ventura County (Calif.) Star. "Syndicated material can be had for fifteen to twenty-five dollars a week." Newspapers without cartoonists on staff are free to root through this material, "picking and choosing the most innocuous material," Greenberg said.

The major disadvantage to this practice is it takes away the local voice from the content of the cartoons, a voice that can regularly and knowledgeably comment on matters of city, state, and national government from a localized point of view, effectively capturing the tenor of the town. Readers feel more engaged when they see local character in their daily editorial cartoon. A North Carolina resident on staff at the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat, Marlette has essentially nothing to do with the city of Chicago. But surely it is significant that his cartoon about a Chicago-specific issue sparked such a fiery response from the Tribune's readership: it speaks to a need for Chicago cartoonists drawing from a Chicago perspective, or Baltimore cartoonists drawing from a Baltimore perspective, and so on. Yet local cartoonist jobs continue to become rarer.

When one has been employed in busy newsrooms for one's entire professional life, the solitude of working at home can be jarring. Reached by phone, Milt Priggee sounded so excited to hear another human voice he spoke for nearly an hour with few interruptions, extemporaneously riffing on the state of political cartooning (and nearly draining my phone card in the process). "I tend to ramble, and this is what happens when you freelance," Priggee said. "You don't get to talk to anybody."

Priggee lost his job as the editorial cartoonist of the Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.) in 2000. Since then, he has been working out of his home in Oak Harbor, Wash., in the extreme northwest corner of the contiguous United States, freelancing and creating cartoons and animations for his website. To underscore the endless offing of staff editorial cartoonist positions, Priggee posted a Flash animation last October entitled "Coffins," which lists 41 cartoonists who have been fired in the last few years, each one represented by a solid black coffin. Priggee, who has a unique gift for metaphor, sees the recent spate of editorial cartoonist "deaths" as symptomatic of a larger trend toward consolidation in the newspaper industry. "Publishers have a monopoly on local newspapers," Priggee said. "The First Amendment as far as editorial cartoonists goes is dead. The foundation of the First Amendment is based on competition."

Around the turn of the 20th century, when it wasn't uncommon for a given market to have a dozen or more warring newspapers, the field of political cartooning flourished aesthetically and professionally, with nearly 2,000 cartoonists weighing in daily with their opinions. The 21st century hasn't been nearly as kind to the ideals of competition on which the Constitution was based. In the last couple decades, major media companies such as Knight Ridder (owner of 31 daily newspapers in the United States, according to the Columbia Journalism Review), Gannet (101), and Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. (186) have swooped into markets and, in many cases, eliminated all but one newspaper. Cartoons, which were once critical in helping to define a newspaper's image relative to all the others in a bountiful local news marketplace, have become afterthoughts in the minds of many publishers. Those remaining 85 staffed editorial cartoonists are still free to express their opinions through their work, and often those opinions challenge the political status quo or conventional wisdom in thought-provoking ways. The difference now lies in the slow demise of local newspaper competition, which "augurs to a fewer number of voices," said Nick Anderson, cartoonist for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Fewer voices mean less informed debate, and because participatory democracy (ostensibly) relies on an informed and empowered citizenry, there is a way in which media consolidation could be viewed as un-American. The decline of editorial cartooning is one of the most glaring effects of that consolidation.

"[Less] than one-tenth of papers have cartoonists [on staff]," Priggee said. "What kind of a grasp are you going to have with one-tenth of your fingers?"

One of the reasons editorial cartoons can't have the same influence as they once did, of course, is entirely practical. In the latter half of the 19th century, when most publishers hadn't yet assimilated this newfangled "photography" invention into their newspapers, cartoons were often "the [only] visual within the medium," said Howard Finberg of the Poynter Institute, who, in 2003, wrote a series of articles about political cartoonists and the Iraq war. In 1871, Thomas Nast of Harper's Weekly drew a series of about fifty cartoons targeting the crooked New York City political machine Tammany Hall. Although Nast's influence on the day's politics are often vastly overstated ­ the cartoons did not single-handedly bring down the Tammany Hall machine; that wouldn't happen until Teddy Roosevelt became president ­ his drawings certainly helped to turn public opinion against the rampant theft and corruption within City Hall. His cartoons, many of which featured his scathing caricature of Tammany Hall member William "Boss" Tweed, added a powerful, unequivocally provocative visual component to a story that had been largely shrugged off by the public (which, at the time, had a literacy rate of only 80 percent, according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy). One of Nast's cartoons depicted Tweed, his obesity comically exaggerated, his hands smugly buried in his pockets, his head replaced by a giant money bag. It is, as Stephen Hess and Sandy Northrop described it in their 1996 history of political cartoons "Drawn and Quartered," "the perfect cartoon."

Today, a political cartoon, no matter how perfect it is, is unlikely to change public opinion to the extent Nast's did. "Society's different," Finberg said. "There are all the other forms of communication and ways of getting information" competing with political cartoons and the newspapers that publish them. Roughly one out of every four Americans (25.6 percent) read a newspaper every day in 2002, down from 1990, when more than one-third of the population (33.7 percent) were daily followers of print journalism. People are increasingly turning to television for their news; and Internet bloggers, cable TV blowhards and talk radio blowharders have cornered the market on unbridled opinion-spew in the public sphere. It would seem that static, black and white political cartoons don't stand much of a chance. Still, at their best, today's political cartoons can kick up a fuss (see Marlette's firefighter controversy for proof of that); they can still challenge power structures, go against the grain, rouse some rabble. "I like a cartoon that provokes thought," Anderson said. "It's not my goal necessarily to provoke anger ­ sometimes it is, but not every day."

Most editorial cartoonists are on the left of the political spectrum ­ makes sense, considering the good ones question and challenge the status quo. "There's no sense in doing a cartoon about, "Isn't the administration doing a great job?" said Jeff Danziger, a cartoonist with the New York Times Syndicate. Faced with another four years of Bush, many cartoonists are vowing to pull no punches in their handling of national government matters. Matt Davies of the Journal News (White Plains, N.Y.) is a name often cited among cartoonists as doing some of the best, most forward-thinking work in the field today. A London native, Davies won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning "for his piercing cartoons on an array of topics, drawn with a fresh, original style," according to the Pulitzer committee. Davies trucks in deep, multi-layered symbolism. A recent cartoon depicted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, sitting at a piano labeled "White House foreign policy." Rice, "the concert pianist," has her hands raised in the air, as if about to strike the first chord in some grand symphony, but there is only one key on the piano, and no music sheet in the stand. Surely this is a critique of the one-note, if-you're-not-with-us-you're-against-us mentality of the Bush administration, as well as its lack of a plan in establishing democracy in Iraq. And as an added bonus, it references Rice's background as a classical pianist. Neat trick.

Drawing a well-thought-out, meaningful political cartoon such as the above example is hard work, the result of an entire day's thinking and planning and drawing. Before he showed his editor his four preliminary sketches, Jimmy Margulies had already put in an entire day at the Record's office. Margulies began his morning by attending the daily editorial meeting in between perusing several print and online newspapers, using his cartoonist's sense of news judgment to sniff out a usable topic. He decided that his cartoon would be about the brawl that had broken out at a recent Detroit Pistons-Indiana Pacers basketball game. The brawl was featured prominently in many papers; more importantly, it was part of the national conversation. Margulies wasn't about to touch the dry lead story in the New York Times that day ­ "Major Creditors Agree to Cancel 80% of Iraq Debt." "That's not something ordinary people care about," he said.

Penciling four sketches of potential cartoons took the better part of the afternoon, and at around 4:30 p.m., Margulies showed his editor what he had come up with, and his editor handed down his judgment. "Sometimes I feel [a cartoon] is the lowest common denominator if it gets the pick," Margulies said, but was quick to explain he meant lowest common denominator in a good way, a populist way. After all, cartoonists don't expect readers to pore over political cartoons ­ the longest amount of time they'll spend on one is maybe 15 seconds, Margulies said, "so it's better to be simpler." But drawing simple cartoons isn't so simple. Margulies takes extra care in getting the composition of his cartoons exactly right; they have to flow in a way that is natural to the human eye. As he drew his cartoon, Margulies sporadically leaned back from his desk, exhaled, and widened his eyes, testing the cartoon for its compositional focus. If more shading was needed, he'd dip his paintbrush and add some shading; if more negative space was needed, out came the Liquid Paper. All told, about an hour and a half of drawing time was put into a cartoon that will take less time to read than a sign on the freeway. "A political cartoon is instant gratification," said Drew Sheneman of the Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.). "Too few things in the newspaper are like that."

This means, of course, that the content in political cartoons ­ no matter how complex the symbols may be ­ are always reductive, boiling an issue down to its essence, then boiling down that essence even further and making a strong point about it. "You never let the facts get in the way of a good cartoon," Priggee said. This reductive aspect of cartooning has always been one of its chief assets. Right now, in journalism schools across the country, students are arguing whether objective or subjective reporting better gets at the truth of a situation. Cartoonists would certainly side toward the latter. "Sometimes you can get closer to the truth doing what I do, cutting through the crap and oversimplifying," Margulies said. As hard-hitting, power-challenging salvos in the battle between the afflicted and the comfortable, political cartoons, it can be argued, fulfill certain bedrock journalistic ideals ­ the truth! the fourth estate! ­ better than any objective reporting could.

So where does Margulies' basketball cartoon fit in? Certainly it doesn't challenge those in power, unless the term "power" is broadly defined to include 6-foot-7-inch power forwards. The cartoon isn't "super-controversial," Margulies said. "No one's going to be in favor of NBA players going into the stands and beating up fans." The basketball cartoon is a "gag cartoon," one that makes no real point about an issue, choosing instead merely to comment on news events in a humorous way, similar to what Jay Leno does in his nightly Tonight Show monologue. (The Leno comparison is a popular one; Daryl Cagle, Nick Anderson, Sheneman, and Priggee each invoked Leno's square name when discussing gag cartoons.) Debates about the relative worth of gag cartoons have created a "split [among cartoonists] for as long as I've been doing this," Margulies said. Like Margulies, Anderson is a cartoonist whose work usually has depth and substance; he tries not to feed readers "a daily diet of Twinkies." But he'll throw a gag cartoon out to Louisville Courier-Journal readers every now and then; they can be spiritually and creatively replenishing for both artist and audience. "If readers see you throwing a fastball every day, they start to turn you off," Anderson said.

Some, however, see such cartoons as playing into the hand of the national syndicates who are trying to kill off local editorial cartooning. Gag cartoons "represent laziness, pandering to where [cartoonists] can make a sale," said Steve Greenberg. Most cartoonists, even those on staff at a daily newspaper, are affiliated with a syndicate that peddles their work to assorted publications throughout the country. Those syndicates have a far easier time selling cartoons when the material is inoffensive, politically ambiguous, and has national appeal, making them suitable for reprinting in Newsweek's quotes-and-cartoons department "Perspectives" (whose cartoon reprints have been "atrocious," said Cagle) or the Sunday New York Times's "Views" feature in the Week in Review section. Greenberg, like all the other cartoonists interviewed for this article, wouldn't name names, but there are some editorial cartoonists whose work seems to skew towards gag humor, including Mike Smith of the Las Vegas Sun, Jeff Stahler of the Columbus Dispatch, and the oft-reprinted Steve Kelley of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. It behooves cartoonists to get their work reprinted in as many places as possible ­ they get exposure that way, not to mention extra income, and every little bit helps. "There's not a lot of money in [cartooning] ­ not that I know of," Danziger said. When his cartoons are reprinted in Business Week, Margulies said he receives $325, which is "really good, at the high end of it." His weekend gig as a caricaturist-for-hire ­ parties, bar mitzvahs, weddings ­ also brings in extra dough.

As readers continue to leave traditional "dead-tree media" (to use Milt Priggee's term for newspapers and magazines) in favor of digital media, it would seem that cartoons should follow the money and make the move with their readers. But there's a problem. Transplanting a static political cartoon from its equally static print environment to the dynamic information superhighway effectively enervates the original cartoon of any power it might once have had. Daryl Cagle's online archive of editorial cartoons from the print realm works because it's a valuable, organized resource ­ "the best thing that's happened to editorial cartooning in a while," Margulies said. But in terms of new, exclusively web-based content, consumers of digital media expect more than ink and paper. Posting traditional cartoons on the Internet is "like taking an engine out of your car and putting a horse in there instead," Priggee said.

Priggee and a small handful of others have turned to animation as the next wave of editorial cartooning. To call it "animation," however, is being generous. Priggee's work is probably the crudest, but even the work done by more animation-savvy cartoonists ­ Mark Fiore, for instance ­ isn't exactly Pixar-quality stuff. Bandwidth is a concern, as is the learning curve a new media form presents. Priggee is still learning the ropes, but he would advise future editorial cartoonists to learn how to animate from the beginnings of their careers. "The door that is opening is the Internet, the digital world," Priggee said. "You have to learn how to draw and animate on the politics of the day."

Fiore has been the great success story of the digital age of cartooning. A former staffed cartoonist at the San Jose Mercury News, Fiore has since devoted all of his time to his web-based animated cartoons, which now feature relatively lively motion and sound; a recent cartoon was a sing-along to the tune of "Take Me out to the Ballgame" ("Fill them up with the steroids"). Fiore, though, is an anomaly, the only person to make a comfortable living wage based solely on income from animated political cartoons, Greenberg said. Most aren't so lucky. "The Internet is democratic ­ anyone can get their name on there," Greenberg said. "But as a way to make a living, it's not happening for most people. There's no guarantee you'll get any income from it, and there's no guarantee readers will come across it." Priggee is optimistic about the future of digital cartooning, but its present is a little iffy and needs all the help it can get. Several times during our phone conversation Priggee told me to make sure I plug his website in this article.

People have been sounding the death knell for print media as a whole since the Internet rose to prominence in the mid-1990s, but newspapers survive. And despite reduction in newspaper readership, despite the loss of scores of staff editorial cartoonist positions, despite gag cartoons and their perceived malevolent effect on the field, political cartoons survive too. To ensure this survival and maintain the relevance of cartooning, several steps have been taken. When legendary Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block, known professionally as Herblock, died in 2001, he donated nearly $50 million to the creation of the Herb Block Foundation. Part of the Foundation's money will be used to advance the craft of political cartooning. The Association of American Political Cartoonists, meanwhile, works with Newspapers in Education to present Cartoons in the Classroom, a program that encourages using editorial cartoons as teaching tools in middle school and high school. (Cagle estimates that half of the e-mails he receives are from "kids forced to study political cartoons," asking what a particular cartoon on his site means.) Through programs like these, political cartoonists are working on keeping their chosen craft the vibrant, relevant force in American society that it has proven to be over the last two centuries. "It's definitely a more positive strategy than we've taken in the past," said Anderson. "Which has been complaining."

On Feb. 1, I became the staff cartoonist for The Washington Examiner, a 270,000-circ, free tab with editions in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. The newspaper was previously The Journal Newspapers.

Around last March, The Journal's cartoonist of nearly 20 years, Mike Jenkins, was one of three or four people laid off when we got a new publisher. Mike's a fantastic cartoonist and great guy, so I was really sorry when he left.

I had been looking for cartooning jobs all over the place (Providence, R.I., St. Louis (like everyone else), Columbus, Ohio), and when Jeff Stahler's move to Columbus was announced, I e-mailed the editor at the Cincinnati Post. They liked my cartoons and page design skills, so in late August, I drove to Cincinnati for an interview. A week or two later, they offered me a job splitting time as cartoonist and page designer/copy editor.

When I got back, I told my editor about the job offer, and he set up an interview with the publisher. My publisher told me that we were going to have a new owner, change our name to The Washington Examiner, and move our offices into the District -- and he gave me a good offer. While the Cincy folks made a great pitch, I decided to see what it would be like cartooning at a newspaper in the nation's capital.

So, now I'm cartooning three days a week and designing the front pages the other two days. Once the newspaper settles in a bit more, the plan is for me draw about five a week. It's actually a great setup because our opinion pages are very progressive in design and content, and the ed page editor doesn't want me to pull any punches.

I'm still syndicated with KRT Campus, and the powers that be at my newspaper have mentioned the possibility of having my cartoons run in the San Francisco Examiner.

There's wild stuff going on for me. How often do you get to actually launch a newspaper in today's news industry, let alone in the nation's capital?

Thanks for letting me share the news!

Nate

E-mail your congratulations to Nate at nate@beelertoons.com

February 9, 2004

DOGS DOGS DOGS

Visit a great new collection of dog cartoons by our buddy, Mark Parisi, celebrating his new book, "CHEW THIS BOOK!" Click here to e-mail Mark. Click here to buy the book online.

TRUE, VALENTINES AND DOGS

Our regular readers know my "True!" cartoons that run at the bottom of the front page of our site. We have a new collection of TRUE cartoons about relationships for Valentines Day here. Click on any cartoon to send it as an e-mail valentine card. These are ... erm .. rather unconventional valentines.

The cartoon below is one that led to a big fight with my syndicate. At first, the syndicate refused to print this cartoon. I originally had "Tramp" thinking the word "Bitch." The syndicate people said, "We can't have him say 'bitch' in the comics." I pointed out that "Lady" is, in fact, a "bitch" and we cannot assume that "Tramp" has used the term with a derogatory meaning. I thought that was a logical argument, from a dog's point of view. The syndicate was quite insistant, saying, "We're not going to be the first ones to use the word 'bitch' on the comics pages even if it is not being used as a swear word in this context." So, I caved and put the last four letters of "bitch" in comicana swearing symbols. When the cartoon appeared in newspapers, the entire "bitch balloon" had been deleted.

Regular readers of our site will notice that the cartoonists often use trademarked characters to make a point. We're allowed to use trademarked characters in our cartoons thanks to a series of court rulings (one involving the Reddy Kilowatt electric utility character). The general rules cartoonists are asked to follow when lifting someone else's character are these:

1.) Don't do it often;

2.) Acknowledge that it is someone else's character, typically by writing "apologies to ..." somewhere in the cartoon.

3.) Really make an editorial point with the character (in this case, encouraging spaying and neutering of pets)

4.) And never ever put the cartoon on a product, because an editorial cartoonists freedom with other people's characters ends when the cartoon goes on a t-shirt.

Oh! There are so many rules for cartoonists to follow!

CRACKED?

Hey, did Cracked Magazine really get sold to some Arabian company? Look at this. Seriously. Is this right?

The past year has been a living nightmare for me, the children and the many other people affected by a woman's lies. Seems like I'm always in court.

There is no way anyone can imagine the pain and devastation left behind in the path of a bigamist. The potential for damage is overwhelming. Overnight, many lives are turned inside out when it has been revealed that the person that you gave your love and your complete trust to has betrayed you. The emotional and financial scars are deep.

The children and I are doing very well. We are looking forward to the day when all of this will be brought to an end.

To those of you who have sent words of support and encouragement to me and my family, I thank you. We appreciate and cherish all of the kindness that has been sent our way.

Sincerely,
Randy Bish

February 4, 2005

We post the cartoonist news here, whether we like it or not. It seems our buddy, cartoonist Randy Bish of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has filed to divorce his wife in a bizarre case of bigamy where his wife secretly married two other guys in Las Vegas after marrying Randy. Here's the story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; a half dozen other reports are also floating around the web, and the cartoonists are gossiping. We're Randy Bish fans here at the Cartoonists Index and we're sorry to hear about Randy's strange and unfortunate circumstances.

MY IRAQ ELECTION CARTOON


I've been getting some interesting, angry e-mail about my Iraq Election cartoon. The idea in the cartoon above was to show long-suffering Iraqi's who were happy to have voted. Not much of an idea, but, they suffer, they vote, they're happy about something in the face of their struggle. That's not how the readers saw the cartoon. Here's a selection from my mailbag. You too can comment by emailing us. Or comment in the Cagle Fray.

From: Robert M. Taylor
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 11:27 AM
Subject: No Surprise

Daryl Cagle's cartoon on the Iraqi election is just another example of our "DEFEATED DEMORAT LIBERAL MEDIA" refusing to acknowledge they "WERE WHIPPED", just like "TRAITOR KERRY", still can't see the writing on the wall. Well keep up this chain of thought and it will be the next millennium before the "BRAIN-DEAD DEMORATS" get back in power in this "FREE AMERICA".

Bob Taylor
Toledo OH. "BUSH COUNTRY"!!.

I am sure that the Brits has some derogatory cartoons re us in 1776 and look at our country now.

The majority of the people over there want to be free just like we did.

Get your mind right!

Vic

i see that you represented 6 iraqis that voted and were maimed or killed but you forgot to show the other 7 million that voted successfully.

Your cartoon sucked. You are such a putz.
Matthew Dagostino

Hey Daryl,

Dan Brokaw here. I know you are probably about sick of election cartoons, but i thought I'd show you mine anyway since I had a unique perspective on the event.

It was truly a special day. I saw that average Iraqis actually did care. They were willing to take that very dangerous first step. the courage it took for them to go to the polls is mind boggling all things considered. And yet they did, in droves. It was by no means a flawless day, and many lives were still lost.

I asked our interpretor if he got a chance to vote, since he had been on mission with some of our guys. He said, "no...but my wife did", as a smile beemed from his face. He said, in his heavy Iraqi accent, "the people go in groups of 30, 50, hundred,...they say f...you to the insurgents. They say we are not afraid of you."

As a soldier, it has meant a great deal. I often pray for this war to be worth it. Worth the lost lives; worth the life-changing injuries; worth the shattered families back home as well as in Iraq. This is a start, small as it may be, still, it is a start. It's often hard to find things to feel good about here and this was a nice change.

Take care, Dan (E-mail Dan at claw_design@yahoo.com)