Following the recent spate of editorial cartoonist layoffs, including Lee Judge of the Kansas City Star and Steve Greenberg of the Ventura County (Calif.) Star, Washington Post blogger Michael Cavna offers a "Requiem for the Staff Political Cartoonist" Thursday on his "Comic Riffs" blog at washingtonpost.com.

Cavna speaks with Greenberg and syndicated cartoonist Ted Rall about the future of the profession, which Cavna maintains is hardly a bright one.

?If what plagues almost all American newspapers continues to ail us, then for political cartoonists, 2009 could be a bloodbath -- and unfortunately, federal regulators may bail out a Bear Stearns, but not so the artists who can deftly draw a political pachyderm, donkey or snarling Russian bear,? Cavna writes.

Check it out, here.