In an email following up on his entry in this year's Rex Babin Memorial Award for Excellence in Local Cartooning, Robert Ariail noted he had been let go from his long-time newspaper The State in June. This was the second time the cartoonist had been laid off from the South Carolina paper for budgetary reasons, having been rehired back a few years ago at a reduced salary.
Apparently even that was too much for the bean counters.