Clay Jones, a funny cartoonist who have been a long-time contributor to Cagle.com (check out his cartoons here), announced today that he’s been laid-off from his staff cartooning job at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

“I’ve enjoyed the camaraderie of the newsroom, election night pizza, breaking news, racing to the newsroom at midnight on a Sunday to cover the death of Osama bin Laden, receiving angry phone calls from readers, physical threats from a fireman, and that exasperated look on my editor’s face every time I showed him a cartoon he didn’t like.”

Jones doesn’t know what he’ll do next, although he does mention he’ll still be drawing two cartoons a week for the Free Lance-Star, and will continue drawing for syndication.

“I do know my career as a staff cartoonist, something I spent seven years fighting for before it finally happened, is over.  I do have other skills and I’m going to try to figure out what those are.  There’s gotta be an opportunity for a professional smart ass somewhere out there.”

UPDATE: After his editor killed his final cartoon and asked him to draw a new one as he walked out the door, Clay has decided not to freelance two cartoons a week for the Free Lance-Star. Interestingly, the killed cartoon (which I have featured above) is live on the Free Lance-Star’s web site.