- A letter from the president
The
newspaper industry catches a lot of flak for being behind the times.
But that's unfair, at least in one respect. Newspapers have been in
a deflationary economic spiral for decades. We're ahead of the curve!
I feel a little like Mikhail Gorbachev. (Except that the birthmark
on my head is covered by hair and says “666.”) On the one
hand, I'm honored to serve as president of the only organization I
truly love (and the only one to which I belong). On the other, I ...
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- Ooooo Look! Contests
Cartooning Contest Deadlines
National Headliner Awards
Deadline: January 16, 2009
Rules and entry form available online: www.nationalheadlinerawards.com
Headliner competition is open to all material appearing in a paid-circulation
publication or broadcast in the United States between January 1 and
December 31, 2008. There is no limit on the number of entries that
may be submitted. Registration fee of $75 per entry.
Mail entries to: ...
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- Fewer & Fewer ...
The Layoffs, Buyouts and Retirements Continued in the Latter
Half of a Bad 2008
In spite of a historic presidential election, the autumn of 2008 proved
to be a very bad time for editorial cartoonists on the job front. At
least a dozen cartoonists announced they were losing or stepping down
from their positions, including the mid-November news of three layoffs
in one week alone.
Here's the body count:
November
Steve Greenberg, of the Ventura County Star in California,
found out on November 10 his job would be eliminated at the end of
the month.
Greenberg ...
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- After 58 years, Lange Takes
'Early' Retirement
Cartoonist Jim Lange Leaves The Oklahoman After Nearly Six Decades
The drumbeat of news about editorial cartoonists leaving continued
with the announcement that The Oklahoman's Jim Lange has departed the
newspaper after nearly SIX decades. His final cartoon appeared Sunday,
October 12.
Lange, 82, drew about 19,000 cartoons and illustrations since joining
the Oklahoma City-based paper in 1950. He was an original member of
the 1957-founded Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and,
according to his wife Helen, even outlasted father and son publishers
at the paper.
She also noted that her husband's departure ...
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- Famed cartoonist job eliminated
By Jimmy Margulies
New York (November 12 ) — Harper's Weekly has eliminated the
position of Thomas Nast, famed editorial cartoonist, noted for his
pursuit of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall as well as the creation of the
Democratic donkey, Republican elephant, Uncle Sam and Santa Claus.
Harper's executives cited a declining economic outlook in the decision.
Nast will pen his final cartoon by month's end. Nast had recently turned
down a generous financial offer from Boss Tweed to stop drawing “them
damned pictures.” Since Harper's management's decision to terminate
Nast achieved this same ...
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- E&P Dumps Dave Astor After
25 Years
Dave Astor, the senior editor at Editor and Publisher who covered
syndication news, has been laid off in a cost-cutting measure. Dave
has been with E&P since 1983 when he was hired as an associate
editor to cover advertising and syndication. Shortly thereafter he
began covering syndicate columnists and cartoonists exclusively. In
2000 he was promoted to senior editor.
Dave tells me that his greatest experiences covering the cartoonists
was watching the comics page diversify since 1985 with more female
and minority representation and having the opportunity to meet the
cartoonists he covered professionally.ï¾
Two giants in ...
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- Julianne Warren, The Original
AAEC Archivist
Julianne Warren, long-time AAEC Archivist, died in Cincinnati, Ohio,
on November 5, 2008 at the age of 92.
She was a photographer for the Cincinnati Post for 20 years, and the
widow of Cincinnati Enquirer editorial cartoonist L.D. Warren, one
of the founding members of the AAEC.
Julianne began building the AAEC archives following her 1958 marriage
to Warren.
“Because she was a photographer for the Cincinnati Post, the
archives she amassed are particularly rich in photographs which are
of exceptional quality and contain a wealth of information in the notes
she made on the backs of the pictures,” wrote Lucy ...
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- News Briefs
AWARDS
Cartoonist Nate
Beeler of the Washington Examiner has been awarded the 2008 Clifford
K. Berryman and James T. Berryman Award for Editorial Cartooning,
the National Press Foundation announced.
The Berryman judges said they were “taken with Nate Beeler's
technical skill and wry sense of humor. His grasp of politics is excellent,
which is particularly important when you're drawing for an audience
of Washington insiders. Beeler is a new talent in one of the most popular
...
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- Roasting Mike Peters
By Tom Beyerlein
What do you get when you put four world-class editorial cartoonists
in a room and turn them loose? If you guessed side-splitting hilarity,
you get the kewpie doll.
It all happened Sunday night, Oct. 19, at the annual Bipartisan Bash,
a fundraiser for the Dayton region of Kids Voting USA, as Dayton Daily
News cartoonist Mike Peters was feted by colleagues Mike Luckovich
of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jim Borgman of the Cincinnati
Enquirer and Chip Bok of the Akron Beacon Journal.
The event at Sinclair Community College was truly bipartisan — the
320 guests included such luminaries as ...
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- Visiting cartoonists draw on
troops' experiences
By Steve Mraz
LANDSTUHL, Germany — The funnies came to Landstuhl Regional
Medical Center on October 1.
Eight cartoonists on a United Service Organizations tour used their
pens and sketch pads to brighten the day of troops recovering at the
hospital.
The group included internationally syndicated cartoonists, military
and editorial cartoonists and award-winning caricaturists including
Mike Peters, Chip Bok, Jeff Bacon, Jeff Keane, Stephan Pastis, Rick
Kirkman, Bruce Higdon and Tom Richmond.
“I think it's just kind of our way of paying back what the soldiers
have done for us,” said Bruce ...
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- Levine in Winter
David Margolick has written a profile of long-time AAEC member David
Levine for the November 2008 issue of Vanity Fair. In it he chronicles
the recent medical problems the 81-year-old cartoonist has faced, and
the questionable way The New York Review of Books has treated their
staff cartoonist. Here is an excerpt:ï¾
For four decades, David Levine's acid-tipped portraits of everyone
from Castro to Cheney gave The New York Review of Books its visual
punch. Now that the greatest caricaturist of the late 20th century
is going blind, is he owed more than a fond farewell?” ....
Gradually, his universe had grown darker and ...
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- Cole's Catholic Controversy
In
October, a John Cole editorial cartoon was protested by about 45 people
who gathered outside of the Scranton, Pa., newspaper accusing it of “anti-Catholic
bigotry.”
The cartoon referenced an order by the bishop to his priests to remind
parishioners “to keep the church's position on abortion paramount
in their minds” in this year's election.
The October 4 staff cartoon pictured Diocese of Scranton Bishop Joseph
Martino as a part-elephant (symbol of the Republican Party) holding
a paper saying ...
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- How now, Kal
Kevin “Kal” Kallaugher
continued the “busiest year of his life” through the fall
of 2008. He lectured at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. and appeared
live on Broadway with the Second City comedy troupe doing their “Art
of Satire” show, all while continuing to experiment with his
animation and do cartoons for The Economist and the New York Times
Syndicate-marketed CartoonArts International.
In October, Kallaugher announced the launch of a Web site called
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- Letters to the Editor
By Ted Rall
The Times reviewed Jules Feiffer's latest book collection of his early
Village Voice cartoons, on October 19 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/books/review/Kamp-t.html).
I've written them the following Letter to the Editor. Don't hold
your breath seeing it in print.ï¾
To the Editors:
You wouldn't assign the review of a political memoir to a writer who
doesn't know much about politics. You wouldn't let a food writer tackle
a history book. So why didn't you respect Jules Feiffer's collection
of early cartoons ...
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- From Conventions to Candidates
Cartoonists Enjoy a Rollicking and Historical Presidential Race
By Mark Weisenmiller
In spite of budget cutbacks, the challenge of learning to do their
work with ever-changing computer software and other pressures, U.S.
newspaper editorial cartoonists are thriving in the closing months
of the 2008 presidential election.
As the media-driven frenzy over whether or not Senator Barack Obama
was snidely referring to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin when the Democratic
presidential candidate used the phrase “lipstick on a pig” (because
the punch line of a joke Palin used in her convention speech was ...
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- Down the Home Stretch ...
At least a half-dozen cartoonists spent election night live blogging
the returns and posting cartoons throughout the evening. Here are some
links and highlights:
Nick Anderson posted a number of cartoons throughout the evening at http://blogs.chron.com/nickanderson/archives/2008/11/liveblogging_1.html.
One of George Bush came with Anderson's comment “I'm going to
miss this guy. He's been very good to me.”
•••
Mike Thompson, November 4, 5:40 ...
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- Free speech, without the 'but'
Cartoonists: Helping to Illustrate America's Partisan Divide
By Josh Nichols
“Shame on you!”
I've heard those words a lot recently.
It started a few weeks ago when we ran an Oliphant political cartoon
depicting Sarah Palin speaking in tongues into a telephone to God.
After people who called in or wrote said “shame on you,” they
said they couldn't believe we endorsed such an inappropriate, hurtful,
hateful viewpoint.
Most of them would say, “I believe in free speech, but ... ”
I responded first to those people by saying that the political cartoon
...
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- K Chronicle Controversy
College newspaper apologizes for comic strip
By Mark Mueller
Editors of the student newspaper at Montclair State University issued
a campus-wide apology October 28 for running a comic strip that referred
to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with a racial slur.
Angry students have complained to the university's dean of students,
other campus officials and the editors since the strip ran the previous
week in The Montclarion, which has a circulation of about 4,000.
“My heart just dropped when I read it,” said Tamar VanDerVeer,
21, a senior who serves as secretary of ...
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- Cartoonists and Race
By Alex Carnevale
The last eight years haven't been kind to many, but political
cartoonists did have George W. Bush's puffy face to expand, his ears
to tug, and his policies to ridicule. The prospect of a less easily
mocked president is a challenge for cartoonists like Michael Ramirez,
who is better than most at finding a way to satirize Obama and his
policies without crossing lines real or imaginary. Fortunately, they'll
have a long history to learn from.
Master cartoonist Thomas Nast proved political cartoons could be used
to subvert racism, as in his classic satire of whites congratulating
themselves for the ...
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- An Editor's View: Political
Cartoons Tricky To Create, Hard To Choose
By Richard Wiens
One of the charms of this job is that every afternoon, the time rolls
around to look at cartoons.
No I don't turn on “Sponge Bob” or “The Simpsons.” I'm
talking about political cartoons, those little mixtures of artwork
and pithy words intended to lend insight and maybe even brighten your
day.
The Triplicate has 8-10 cartoons to choose from most days. Depending
on the layout of the Opinion page, we print anywhere from one to three.
Some days the choice is hard because there are so many good ones — genuinely
humorous and/or insightful with a new slant on an ...
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- Why Cartoons Matter
By Ted Rall
[In September, as his first act as AAEC President, Ted Rall wrote
the following for his weekly syndicated column.]
“I could not help but notice the editorial cartoon,” complains
a Canadian newspaper reader, “which in my opinion was not funny
or satirical at all — in the past, the purpose of an editorial
cartoon.” An editor at the Houston Chronicle disagrees. “The
point of satire is not to be funny,” he argues. “The point
is to be critical.”
Who's right? Both. Neither. Who knows? And that's the problem.
For some reason my colleagues ...
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