Herblock Prize Goes to Editorial Cartoonist Jeff Danziger

By: E&P Staff Jeff Danziger has won the $10,000 Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning.

He'll receive the award April 18 at the Library of Congress, where retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is slated to give the 2006 Herblock Lecture.

Danziger is with the Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate/New York Times Syndicate, and is a regular contributor to the Rutland (Vt.) Herald.

Jules Feiffer, one of three judges for this year's contest, said Danziger's cartoons "have a sense of literary intelligence." The former Village Voice/Universal Press Syndicate cartoonist added that the Herblock Prize winner's Iraq War commentary is "the closest thing to the feeling Bill Mauldin gave us in his best days." The late Mauldin was a World War II veteran, while Danziger is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War.

Other contest judges included Philadelphia Inquirer/Universal cartoonist Tony Auth (last year's Herblock Prize winner) and Harry Katz, a former Library of Congress curator who currently curates the archives of Herblock -- the legendary cartoonist who died in 2001 after a 72-year career, much of which was spent at The Washington Post.

The annual Herblock Prize is awarded by the Herb Block Foundation, which was created in Herblock's will.