Cartoonist Jim Borgman Taking Buyout From 'Cincinnati Enquirer'

By: Dave Astor Editorial cartoonist Jim Borgman will be leaving The Cincinnati Enquirer after 32 years, the newspaper reported today.

The 1991 Pulitzer Prize winner applied for -- and was granted -- severance under the paper's voluntary severance program. He was one of 60 people accepted for that program, which includes up to a year's pay for employees with longtime service.

Although Borgman's daily cartoons will end later this month, he'll create a new cartoon feature later this year that will appear in his usual space on the cover of the Enquirer's Sunday Community Forum section.

"I've enjoyed doing two of the best jobs I can imagine -- drawing editorial cartoons and my comic strip 'Zits' -- and I have loved it all, although it's exhausting," said Borgman, as quoted in the Enquirer. "Continuing 'Zits' while doing a new weekly feature sounds like a great balance."

The Cincinnati native, whose editorial cartoons are distributed by Universal Press Syndicate, does "Zits" with Jerry Scott for King Features Syndicate. That 1997-launched comic runs in more than 1,500 newspapers.

Borgman (profiled in E&P's July 2006 magazine at the time of his 30th anniversary with the Enquirer) joined the Cincinnati paper right after graduating from Kenyon College in 1976.