|
 The Best Editorial Cartoons
of the Year 2001
Click here to go
straight to the cartoons
September 11 Brings Out the Worst in Editorial
Cartoons
by Daryl Cagle
During a year when dramatic events
in the news increased the audience for editorial cartoons, cartoonists
have responded with some of the worst work in the history of
the profession.
 Editorial cartooning thrives as an art form when there
is a diversity of views, a hearty public debate and editors who
are open to different ideas --this diversity was lost on 9/11.
Nearly all Americans, cartoonists and editors alike, came to
share the same perspective in support of America's War on Terror.
Local and national newspapers led with the same headlines as
we all watched the same news each day. The cartoonists responded
with one mind.
 In the days after 9/11, almost all of the cartoonists
drew the same image, a weeping
Statue of Liberty witnessing the tragedy. More duplication
followed as dozens of cartoonists drew matching images: a fireman
and policeman standing as the "twin towers," Osama's
face in the smoke, firemen raising a flag in the position of
the Iwo Jima memorial statue, a sad or militant Uncle Sam, an
angry or crying eagle and Pearl Harbor. The lack of originality
is clear to see on our web site. In recent days we've seen dozens
of Osama in an hourglass, Osama escaping from Afghanistan wearing
a burka, Osama clones and Osama running away from a missile.
One of our readers wrote, "if I see another cartoon of Osama
meeting Dick Cheney in a cave, I'm gonna puke."
The sameness hurts the profession
in the eyes of editors. The job market for cartoonists has been
shrinking in recent years as the newspaper industry consolidates
and editors turn to less expensive syndicated cartoons. Why should
a newspaper hire a local cartoonist to draw Osama digging a hole
to Hell, when there are six other syndicated cartoons on the
editor's desk with the same gag? Cartoonist jobs have been lost
this year at the Orlando Sentinel, The Columbus Dispatch, the
Boston Globe, the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury-News
and the Honolulu Advertiser. Prominent drawing boards remain
empty at the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, the New Orleans
Times-Picayune and the Seattle Times.
 Ironically, cartoonists are
under economic pressure to draw the similar, syndicated cartoons
that hasten the demise of the profession. In the 1960's, cartoonist
Pat
Oliphant started a trend with a compelling drawing style,
showing a funny take on the news in a single, horizontal panel.
Jeff
MacNelly followed in Oliphant's mold and popularized the
new style of cartoons in the 1970's. Young cartoonists copied
MacNelly and were dubbed "McCartoonists" because they
drew the same --like burgers at McDonalds, and like MacNelly.
Cartoonists with roots in the1950's looked out of date, with
a vertical format, clumsy symbolism and tear-jerking sentimentalism.
The new cartoonist was a cocky child of Saturday Night Live,
drawing cynical, gag cartoons about current events.
 Cartoonists drew many powerful
images that reflected our feelings about the 9/11 tragedy more
clearly than words, but the weekend after the terror attack,
the New York Times didn't print their regular, weekly cartoon
round-up, noting that cartoons were inappropriate in light of
the tragedy. Poignant cartoons are not popular with editors.
"Newsweek cartoonist"
is the term used to describe the style of the conventional, cross-hatching,
gag cartoonists whose work is reprinted regularly in Newsweek Magazine. Newspaper syndicates market
inexpensive "packages" of cartoonists who draw in the
acceptable format and are reprinted more often than their peers.
The Chicago Tribune announced the finalists for their coveted
editorial cartoonist position, Mike Luckovich, Jack Ohman and Nick Anderson three of the best "Newsweek
cartoonists."
To compete for an editor's eye,
cartoonists are squeezed into a horizontal box, pressured to
be funny, to use few words, to have acceptable opinions, to have
an acceptable drawing style and to draw a cartoon on the subject
being discussed each day on CNN. After 9/11, the editors, cartoonists
and readers had the same opinions. It should be no surprise that
most cartoons were similar and banal.
This was a bad year for our nation
and a bad year for editorial cartoons. Our Best Cartoons of the Year is a selection
of the images that shine brightly through the doom and gloom
of tragedy in an art form suffering from competitive mediocrity.
|
