2009 Herblock Prize Winner Announced

By: E&P Staff The Salt Lake Tribune?s Pat Bagley is the winner of the 2009 Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning, the Herb Block Foundation has announced.

The prize is awarded each year by the Foundation for ?distinguished examples of original editorial cartooning that examplify the courageous standard set by Herblock.? Bagley will receive the prize -- $15,000 and a sterling silver trophy -- on April 2 in a ceremony at the Library of Congress. Newsman Ted Koppel will deliver the 2009 Herblock Lecture at the evening ceremony.

This year's panel of judges, Garry Trudeau, Jules Feiffer and John Sherffius, said Bagley was the unanimous choice.

?If The New Yorker published political cartoons, Bagley would he their main man,? Trudeau said of Bagley's work. ?Bagley's drawings have the looseness of back-of-the envelope dispatches, yet the speedy strokes belie a rigorous compositional discipline. These are good-looking cartoons,?Trudeau said, adding that Bagley's ?takes on the passing parade are uniformly deft and witty. With just the right balance of caricature, dialogue and labels, he puts the reader away, licity split, no fuss.?

Sherffius, who won last year's Herblock Prize, added, ?There is no doubt where Pat Bagley stands on the issues -- the opinions expressed in his impressive portfolio ring loud and clear. Combine that with Pat's political insight, biting humor and colorfully original drawing style, and you've got our 2009 winner. Herblock would be very proud.?

Bagley began his editorial cartooning career in 1977 during a finance class at Brigham Young University, during which he doodled a political cartoon which he submitted to the student newspaper, The Daily Universe. It was his first published cartoon, and a few weeks later it was reprinted in Time magazine. Six years later he was featured in People magazine as one of America's leading editorial cartoonists. After graduation he worked briefly as a caricaturist in a local mall before being hired as the editorial cartoonist at the Salt Lake Tribune where he has worked ever since.

Bagley's work is syndicated in newspapers in both the U.S. and abroad. His cartoons have appeared in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian of London.

Bagley was a longtime Republican until the election of President George W. Bush. ?He radicalized me,? the cartoonist says of the former president. He now describes himself as a liberal independent. In addition to his cartoons, Bagley has written ?101 Ways to Survive Four More Years of George W. Bush? and the ?Clueless George? parodies of the children's ?Curious George? books.