Cartoonists continue to come and go and … ok, mostly go.
Sometime late in 2022, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s staff cartoonist Steve Kelley quietly left the newspaper he’d been at since 2018 — so quietly in fact, that there was no announcement until Tim Hartman posted on his Facebook page in January that he was now officially drawing for the paper.
“Well, it’s official. For those of you that didn’t like Steve Kelly [sic] as the Editorial Cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, I am now the official cartoonist for the paper. I will still be syndicated to newspapers across PA, but my signature will have the Post Gazette name attached to each cartoon.”
In reply to a query from The Daily Cartoonist, Hartman wrote, “I am freelance at the Post Gazette. However, the arrangement I have with the paper is that my ‘toons will run every Thursday, Friday and Sunday. I have been a self-syndicated cartoonist in PA for 40 years and my ‘toons appear in papers all over the State.”
https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2023/05/20/hartman-in-kelley-out-at-post-gazette/
Kelley continues to draw editorial cartoons for Creators Syndicate, along with his daily comic strip “Dustin” with Jeff Parker.
+ + +
In the least surprising news of the year, cartoonist Steve Breen announced in July he was out at the San Diego Union-Tribune, mere days after the paper had been sold to vulture capitalists Alden Global Capital. In the parting column Breen wrote about his departure, he did not mention if he took a buyout from the paper or was simply sacked by the new owners.
“Today marks the last time I will have something in The San Diego Union-Tribune as a full-time cartoonist. Since 2001, I’ve drawn over 5,500 editorial cartoons, hundreds of illustrations and dozens of digital, animated GIFs on topics big and small, with local, national and international targets.
“I was an editorial cartoonist at a major metro daily newspaper for 22 years. It was a dream come true. I’m proud of a lot of things: the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, the three Emmys for videos I helped make, the popular cartoon caption contest, the ‘Street Art’ series of illustrations on homeless people in San Diego, the “Drawn to America” series on migrants at our southern border, and much more.”
Update: On August 1, Steve confirmed on his Facebook page that he took the buyout. Definitely for the best, as Alden Global is well known for destroying the papers they’ve bought.
