Hot Toons Rejected

By: Dave Astor Rejection. It's part of the process for many editorial cartoonists. Their newspapers might kill a drawing for suspect reasons (such as fear of bothering a politician or an advertiser) or legitimate ones (such as saving readers from tastelessness).

"I don't mind getting a cartoon killed as long as I'm being encouraged to do work that pushes the

limit," says Rex Babin of The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee and King Features Syndicate. "When you're in that type of environment, you'll occasionally go over the line."

What constitutes "over the line"? As it was once said about pornography, editors know it when they see it. "It's a moving line," says Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "It may change with the subject."

Is there a change in the number of cartoons getting rejected today compared with years past? No one interviewed could say.

Among the editorial cartoonists E&P talked to were more than a dozen who almost never get rejected. "I don't really have that problem ? thankfully," says Walt Handelsman, a Pulitzer Prize-winner with Newsday in Melville, N.Y., and Tribune Media Services. Having a Pulitzer and/or a courageous editor obviously doesn't hurt.

Cartoonists also avoid spiked drawings by having frequent talks with their editors during the idea and sketch stages. And some creators don't get rejected simply because they play it safe.

But drawings do get killed on occasion ? which led the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists to create the annual Golden Spike Award almost a decade ago. And E&P (working independently of the AAEC) solicited examples of nixed drawings dating from the late 1980s to earlier this year. Here are the stories behind eight of these cartoons.


Rick McKee, The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle


A gracious concession speech by Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore led to a killed cartoon for Rick McKee of The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.

As McKee tells it: "It was December 13, 2000, and the election fiasco had been going on for more than a month. Gore had pretty much used up all his appeals and it was announced that morning that he would concede that evening. ... I expected him to offer a very caustic, caveat-filled speech, so I drew this cartoon to appear on the 14th. ... Gore went on TV that evening around 8 and gave a very statesmanlike, incredibly magnanimous speech. My publisher had the cartoon pulled and replaced with a syndicated cartoon at about 9. He felt like the cartoon did not reflect the tenor of the speech at all ? which it didn't ? and might come across as mean-spirited as well as inaccurate. Although I was disappointed, I had to reluctantly agree that pulling it was probably for the best."

McKee at the time had yet to sign with King Features, so he didn't need to decide whether or not to send the syndicate the Gore cartoon.

Mike Luckovich, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution



After doing the sketch below late last year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Mike Luckovich thought it would be approved by AJC Editorial Page Editor Cynthia Tucker. "I don't get turned down often, and she's got a lot of guts," he says. But Tucker rejected the idea. Why? Luckovich says coffin images seem to bother his editor.

Tucker agrees. "Readers see images of caskets before they can digest the cartoon," she says, leading some to possibly get the wrong impression that the drawing is making fun of dead soldiers. She adds that while the AJC editorially questions the Iraq war and feels the United States entered it based on misleading claims, showing coffins "comes a little too close to suggesting George W. Bush is more directly responsible" than he actually is for American soldier deaths.

Another nixed Luckovich cartoon showed coffins spelling out: "W. lied."

Luckovich is a Pulitzer Prize- winner distributed by Creators Syndicate. Tucker was a 2004 Pulitzer finalist for her AJC/Universal Press Syndicate column.


Steve Breen, The San Diego Union-Tribune


"As soon as I conceived this idea, I knew I would have an uphill battle getting it on the editorial page," The San Diego Union-Tribune's Steve Breen says of the Mount Rushmore-themed cartoon on the previous page.

Breen, a centrist working for a newspaper that has strongly supported President Bush and the Iraq war, adds: "I can disagree with the paper, but this was such a big issue and such a powerful cartoon." So the Pulitzer Prize- winner asked if the February 2004 cartoon could move from his usual slot to the Op-ed page. The answer: no.

Finally, the Union-Tribune agreed to run it a few weeks later in the Sunday "Insight" section's cartoon roundup ? meaning Breen appeared next to syndicated cartoons in his own paper. "I feel it was a fair compromise," says Breen, who didn't send the cartoon to his syndicate ? Copley News Service, owned by the same company that owns the Union-Tribune.

Nick Anderson, The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.

When openly gay Episcopal Rev. V. Gene Robinson was falsely accused of inappropriately touching someone last fall, Nick Anderson of The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., sketched the cartoon at right. Did he think it would get approved by his editors? "It obviously was going to be questionable," recalls Anderson. "Everyone who looked at it laughed out loud, and it actually got a thumbs-up from some people." But the ultimate decision was no, and Anderson opted to do a cartoon on another topic.

His syndicate, the Washington Post Writers Group, also turned down the cartoon ? as Anderson expected. WPWG's comment: "Is this a joke?"

Anderson said he "wasn't put off" by the rejections. "On questions of taste, I'm pretty deferential to my editors," he says. One Courier-Journal editor declined to discuss with E&P the reason for rejecting the cartoon.

Bill Day, formerly of the Detroit Free Press

When U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese was deciding whether or not to approve a JOA (joint operating agreement) between The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press in 1988, word got out to Free Press cartoonist Bill Day: Don't mess with Meese.

But Day kept drawing anti-Meese cartoons (including the one shown above), even though the liberal paper wouldn't run them. He did send them to Tribune Media Services for distribution to other papers.

"It was very awkward for me ? and a big embarrassment for the Free Press," says Day, now with The Commercial Appeal in Memphis (where he says rejected cartoons are not a problem for him) and United Media.

David Lawrence, publisher of the Free Press in 1988, wrote at that time: "Whatever we do, we cannot win. If we are not tough enough ... we are apple polishing. If we are too tough ... maybe we are seen as reckless bullies, trying to force Meese out of office so someone else will make the [JOA] decision."

After The Washington Post published a story about the censoring of Day's work, the Free Press published its own news-section article. Accompanying the piece were the Day-created Meese cartoons that weren't allowed on the editorial page.

Bruce Plante, Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press

The 1989 Bruce Plante cartoon shown below ? drawn after the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill ? was rejected by what is now the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press. The editor, who's no longer with the paper, didn't like the "s--t happens" reference.

"My argument was that I didn't say it ? the reader had to infer," remembers Plante. "But they held fast ? until the cartoon was reprinted in Discover magazine." The Chattanooga newspaper then reversed course and published the oil-themed drawing.

The Universal Press Syndicate-distributed Plante said he's had only two other cartoons (deservedly) killed in his nearly 20 years at the Times Free Press. "They let me do my job," says Plante, the immediate past president of the Assocation of American Editorial Cartoonists.

Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Rob Rogers did this "good vs. evil" cartoon less than three weeks after 9/11 ? and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette would not publish it during that hyperpatriotic time. "Emotions and feelings were too raw," Rogers says. "They probably would have run it six months later."

"America was still mourning heavily," say Post-Gazette Op-Ed Editor John Allison and Deputy Editorial Page Editor Reg Henry in an e-mail. "The cartoon was like standing up at a funeral and delivering a eulogy that pointed out that the deceased was a real jerk." They add that the cartoon "seems mild" today but that they continue to think it's wrong.

Then-Editorial Page Editor Michael McGough says "some of Rob's cartoons immediately after 9/11 flirted with suggesting a moral equivalence between Osama and the U.S. This one certainly is open to that charge."

And John Craig, editor of the paper at the time, says one possible reason for the cartoon's rejection was that it was "crude in the extreme in its historical analysis."

Rogers, who's distributed by United Media, says: "Normally, if something is killed, I accept it and move on." But in this case, Rogers felt strongly enough to rewrite the Sept. 29, 2001, cartoon's dialogue in a way that commented on the rejection of his original premise. The new words read: "I've got news for terrorists. I won't be afraid to criticize my country's policies at home and abroad. I won't be afraid to scrutinize the president and other elected officials, even if it means being branded unpatriotic. Because the minute we give up our right to free speech ... they win." The Post-Gazette published that version on Oct. 2, 2001.

Jimmy Margulies, The Record, Hackensack, N.J.

Many in the media backed President Bush's early 2003 push to invade Iraq, but there were doubters such as Jimmy Margulies of The Record in Hackensack, N.J. Margulies submitted a sketch of this cartoon around the time of last year's Academy Awards, but The Record turned it down and instead published another of his drawings questioning the invasion. (Margulies submits about a half-dozen roughs a day.)

"I was a little surprised it wasn't used, because the editors here were also pretty skeptical of Bush's case for going to war," recalls Margulies, who usually agrees with Record editors on non-Iraq topics, too. Editorial Page Editor Richard Benfield tells E&P: "I had no problem with the Iraq commentary, but I thought the cartoon was kind of flip."

Margulies liked the Oscar-themed cartoon enough to send a finished version to King Features, which syndicated it to other papers without questioning it.

More than a year later, Margulies is glad he did the cartoon. "I hate to pat myself on the back, but I was correct in my point of view at the time," he says, noting that no weapons of mass destruction and no Iraq link to 9/11 have been found. Benfield adds: "Now the cartoon seems kind of innocuous, but things were different then."