Newspaper editorial cartoonists become fading breed

A fading staffer of many daily newspapers is the editorial cartoonist.  Blame it on lower newsroom budgets.

Grumpy Editor spotted a recent piece in the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, by staff editorial cartoonist David Fitzsimmons relating that nearly 2,000 cartoonists were on board at U.S. newspapers a century ago.  Today, he reveals, there are less than 80 “interpreting events, zinging their targets, challenging the perspectives of their readers and making their editors uneasy.”

With the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists marking its 50th year, “cartoonists, right and left, are being erased from newsroom budgets,” points out Fitzsimmons, Star editorial cartoonist since 1986.  “Kenneling and feeding a rabid local cartoonist seems like a poor bargain when benign drawings scrawled in distant newsrooms about distant topics are available for peanuts.”

He mentions that the New York Times has no staff editorial cartoonist “because it views cartoons as a grotesque, low art form that oversimplifies and distorts the truth to convey an opinion.”

Fitzsimmons explains that “a good cartoon condemns and executes on the spot.  Evoking a quick and intense reaction with an extreme and often absurd image, the cartoonist traffics in a unique persuasive art.”

As Fitzsimmons notes:  “The ferruginous pygmy owl of the newsroom, the American cartoonist is a cranky and endangered critter.”

Comments

[Jean Albano]

We agree that cartoonists are a lost breed. We represent the Estate of Bill Mauldin and the cartoon art of Jules Feiffer as we are interested in promoting this endangered art.

[Jean Albano]

To keep cartoons alive, we have just issued a special edition of Bill Mauldin"s Weeping Lincoln - November 22, 1963 - in honor of JFK - after his assassination, from the original printing plate. Visit jeanalbanogallery.com