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December 5, 2005
'KAL' Among 'Sun' Staffers Taking Buyout
Editor and Publisher reported today that Editorial Cartoonist Kevin "KAL" Kallaugher has accepted a buyout offered by the Baltimore Sun's management.
Kallaugher was one of 70 Sun staffers accepting a buyout, the Baltimore newspaper reported on its Web site Saturday.
The Sun article said the paper "doesn't plan to fill that [cartooning] position in the foreseeable future."
Kallaugher had previously told E&P he might leave The Sun (E&P Online, Nov. 16). He could not be reached for comment Friday in Baltimore or Monday in Germany, where he traveled to receive the Thomas Nast Prize for Editorial Cartooning on Dec. 8. [Oh, the irony. -ed.]
Hired by The Sun in 1988, Kallaugher's work appears worldwide via the Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate -- which is marketed by the New York Times Syndicate. He's also a weekly cartoonist for The Economist magazine.
The Sun is the latest Tribune Co.-owned paper that will be without a staff cartoonist. The Los Angeles Times announced last month that it was laying off Michael Ramirez at the end of 2005 and eliminating the position. The Sun's Mike Lane, who shared editorial cartooning duties at the Baltimore paper with Kallaugher, accepted a buyout in July 2004. And the Chicago Tribune never replaced Jeff MacNelly after he died in 2000.
In a letter to fellow cartoonists, KAL said he will officially leave the Baltimore Sun in mid-January, and intends to take a short break from daily cartooning.
He also says he sees this as an opportunity and plans to "reacquaint" himself with animation — something he had worked on back in college.
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