Since this site was down during the spring — ie, peak award season — here is a quick recap of the prizes and winners in this post-pulitzer world.
Ann Telnaes won the Herblock Prize for her exemplary work in The Washington Post, including full-page print cartoons that had interactive or animated counterparts online. Said judge Signe Wilkinson, “Ann Telnaes’ elegant line and critical eye combine to eviscerate Donald Trump and dozens of his marauding January 6th entourage and enablers in a tour de force masterpiece that includes 35 caricatures. If that weren’t enough, online it was enhanced by interactive bios of every character. This groundbreaking work was the judges’ immediate first choice, even before getting to her other, simpler but also powerful drawings. Bravo.” Michael Ramirez was named the finalist for his work in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
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Chattanooga Times Free Press cartoonist Clay Bennett received the 2023 National Headliner Award for Editorial Cartoons. This is the fifth Headliner Award for Bennett, who’s also received the Sigma Delta Chi Award, Overseas Press Club Award, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. The Buffalo News’ Adam Zyglis and Michael Ramirez, again, were also recognized for their editorial cartoons, with second and third place finishes.
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Adam Zyglis was also named the winner in the Overseas Press Club of America‘s “Best Cartoon” division. The judges noted: “Zyglis submitted a portfolio of consistently high-quality cartoons tackling a myriad of issues with spark and ingenuity. Employing simple ink lines, impressive caricatures and minimal dialogue, Zyglis brilliantly channels the old masters of art and editorial cartooning to take on the global crises of today.” The annual OPCA award is given to cartoons on international affairs.
(Editor’s note: Still no reply from the OPCA to the AAEC’s official request from last year to change the name of the award from “Best Cartoon” to “The Bill Mauldin Award” and bring it in line with the practice of naming literally every other Overseas Press Club award after a prominent journalist.)
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Joel Pett of The Lexington Herald-Leader was named the winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Cartoon Award for 2023. It is the second time Joel took the honor, having won the RFK in 1999. Said the organization: “For years [Joel Pett] has been speaking truth to power through excellent cartoons that synthesize art, humor, and commentary. For years, his award-winning work draws searing attention to social issues.”
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This year’s Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award Honorees are Gary Markstein, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Michael Ramirez. The judges noted, “It’s a testament to both the art and the opinions that even judges who disagree with Markstein’s political views had no trouble declaring his concise cartoons as the clear winner. You know editorial cartoonist is excellent when judges say ‘ouch’ repeatedly.” The judges commented on Ramirez’s work, saying: “His cartoons feature a strong unique style and clear statement about important news.”
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The Association of Alternative Newsmedia announced the winner of their 2023 AAN Award for Cartooning: Robert Ariail of The Charleston City Paper. Tim Newcomb, Seven Days, took Second Place; and Charleston City Paper‘s other cartoonist — Steve Stegelin — took Third. The so-called “Altie Awards” celebrate excellence in local journalism, and make an effort to recognize outstanding reporting, writing, photography, and multimedia storytelling across various categories.
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The SPJ’s Green Eyeshade Award is quite possibly the last of the regional awards, celebrating journalists in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and … West Virginia? Okay then! This year, First Place in the Editorial Cartoon category went to Al Goodwyn of Creators Syndication. Robert Ariail, of Andrews McMeel Syndication, took Second Place, and Third Place went to Artizan’s Ed Hall. Congrats all!
Ed Hall was also the First Place winner of Florida Press Association’s Weekly Newspaper Contest for Original Local Editorial Cartoon.
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Bruce MacKinnon, of the Halifax Chronicle Herald, was awarded this year’s National Newspaper Award in the Editorial Cartooning category. It is Bruce’s eighth win. Michael de Adder (Halifax Chronicle Herald/Toronto) and Serge Chapleau (La Presse) were finalists. The National Newspaper Awards celebrate “the best in Canadian journalism.”
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Sage Stossel, of The Boston Globe, was selected as the winner of the 2023 NSNC Award. The National Society of Newspaper Columnists only recently added an Editorial Cartooning category to its lineup of journalism prizes, but Sage has won the award two years in a row. (Stossel’s cartoons are more long-form visual essays, which — as The Daily Cartoonist noted — is probably why a Society of Newspaper Columnists leans toward her work. The above is just a snippet of a single panel of a much longer work, all of which can be seen at www.sagestossel.com.)
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Here’s a welcome change up: Cartoonist Pedro X. Molina was awarded the 2023 Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation. The HRF “promotes freedom where it’s most at risk: in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes” and gave out three prizes to six artists and authors. Molina is a Nicaraguan political cartoonist who was forced into exile on Christmas Day in 2018 after Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega’s political police killed a journalist, jailed two others, and ransacked the offices of El Confidencial — the digital newspaper that featured Molina’s caricatures of Ortega and his tyranny.
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Speaking of cartoonists, awards and death threats from despots, this year’s Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award had to be given in secret due to concerns of retaliation against the winner, Bolivian cartoonist Abel Bellido Córdova (Abecor). Cartoonists Rights — which recently changed its name from Cartoonists Rights Network International — presented the 2023 Courage in Cartooning Award to Abecor at a private, unannounced, ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. You can read more about Abecor, who continues his crusade against corruption in spite of death threats to himself and harm to his family, here: cartoonistsrights.org/award-2023/
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Finally, congrats are due to editorial cartoonists Matt Davies, of Newsday, and Pia Guerra, a contributor to The Washington Post, for being named finalists for something called a “pulitzer” in its ersatz “Illustrated Reporting and Commentary” category. (Editor’s note: the recent self-inflicted changes to the pultizer prize should not in any way take away from the fact that both Davies and Guerra have been killing it during the Trump years, particularly Pia, whose blistering takes frequently go viral online.)
If I missed mentioning any awards or prizes on this list, let me know!
— Compiled from online sources by JP Trostle
