Picture This: Cartoonists Lean to the Left

By: Dave Astor Conservative editorial cartoonists aren't as plentiful as liberal ones ? as illustrated by the two major syndicates that list their artists by ideology. Tribune Media Services (TMS) offers 10 liberal and four conservative editorial cartoonists, while Universal Press Syndicate has a ratio of 8 to 2.

One possible reason for this disparity: The bigger dailies that hire many of America's cartoonists "tend to be more liberal," says Colin Hayes, co-founder of Rightoons.com and creator of "The Leftersons," a DBR Media-distributed comic that spoofs liberals.

"If the smaller papers could get it together to hire a few [staff] cartoonists, then there would probably be a net gain in conservative editorial cartoonists. It's a free market thing," adds Matt Davies, incoming president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and winner of a 2004 Pulitzer Prize for the cartoons he does for The Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., and TMS.

Davies did note that some cartoonists labeled as liberals aren't actually far to the left. And he says "there are quite a lot of conservative editorial cartoonists out there" with relatively low profiles because they don't have much to criticize at a time when Republicans control the federal government.