By: Dave Astor What is an editorial cartoonist's reward for obeying his newspaper's edict to do more local cartoons? He's forced to take a buyout anyway.
Stuart Carlson -- who will leave the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Aug. 15, his 25th anniversary with the paper -- said he was asked to do more local work about two years ago. The idea, of course, is that local content enables newspapers to run something readers can't find anywhere else.
Soon, Carlson's ratio of local to nonlocal cartoons soared to 70/30. "I was doing my darnedest to conform to the idea that they needed more local cartoons," said Carlson, when contacted Friday afternoon by E&P. "Ultimately, it didn't seem to factor in."
Carlson said he was told in the latter part of July that the Journal Sentinel "could no longer justify a full-time cartooning position" as the paper was cutting back. "So I was faced with either taking a buyout or being laid off," he added. "I took the former."
The Journal Sentinel staffer is one of many editorial cartoonists losing their jobs in recent years. "I'm certainly not the first cartoonist to go like this," said Carlson. "But it does hit home when you hear it from your own editor's lips."
He added: "It's such a downer. Just a continuing string of bad news for the profession."
Carlson's future plans? He'll still draw cartoons for syndication by Universal Press, which signed him in 1992. "I've also been approached to do some freelance stuff, just to keep body and soul together," added Carlson.
But the Journal Sentinel veteran said it's "too soon to tell" what he'll ultimately do. "Maybe I'll go into teaching," Carlson told E&P, before adding wryly: "Maybe I'll make macrame hats. Or something the world really needs, like buggy whips. I don't know."
He did say that the Journal Sentinel offered "reasonably decent" severance packages that are better than what many people losing jobs get.
Carlson has received many well wishes from readers sorry to see him go. Some of these messages have even come from people who disagreed with his work, but said they will still miss it.
The news about Carlson being forced to take a buyout might have been first reported on the MilwaukeeWorld.com blog.
Actually, the Journal Sentinel used to have two staff editorial cartoonists before Gary Markstein was reassigned in 2004 to be an illustrator/designer at the paper. Markstein still does editorial cartoons for Creators News Service as well as the "Daddy's Home" comic (with Tony Rubino) for Creators Syndicate.
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