Editorial Cartoonists Trade Blog Posts About the State of Their Profession

By: E&P Staff A couple of editorial cartoonists have been using their blogs to discuss the state of their profession and its future.

Last week, Jim Borgman of The Cincinnati Enquirer and Universal Press Syndicate wrote: "Is herky-jerky animation the only thing editorial cartooning can look forward to?

"Isn't this profession due for a makeover? The last Renaissance was more than 40 years ago when Oliphant came to the states (with Rigby, Low, and Searle in his suitcase) and reinvented the artform here. Everything's been incremental since. Why hasn't a new messiah come along?

"Does color improve an editorial cartoon? Is black-and-white drawing viable on a computer screen?

"Is an original still an original if it's significantly manipulated after scanning? Would you still want to hang a drawing on your wall if you know that the artist digitally edited it before publishing it?"

This week, Henry Payne of The Detroit News and United Media responded by saying Borgman "missed two evolutions in cartooning."

Payne wrote: "First, the Oliphant formula has not been the newspaper standard for some time. Cartoonists as varied as Clay Bennett, Sean Delonis, and Ted Rall have found their inspiration from computer animation, Mad magazine, and comic books, respectively. Their work is as different from Oliphant as he was from Herblock or Conrad.

"Second, and more importantly, there is a whole new satirical art form that newspapers have missed entirely [and that gets] e-mailed around everyday." Payne said these images "use a different medium (Photoshop) and they are cutting edge, funny, controversial, sometimes tasteless.... They can't be found in prudish newspapers...."

He added: "In terms of content, there are simply more choices out there today. Just as broadcast news now has cable to compete against, so do we have the Internet. Satirical humor is forever evolving, but in media that accept that evolution: the Internet, Wired magazine, etc.

"The political gag cartooning that you and I practice will always have an audience ... but even The New Yorker now publishes off-color puns about ethnicity and sex. Tried that in a newspaper lately? The revolution is out there -- it's just not in newspapers."