Readers Rate Luckovich's Cartoons

By: Dave Astor While some voters are picking Kerry or Edwards, others are deciding between "I like Mike" and "I don't like Mike."

That choice is part of the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Web site (http://www.ajc.com), which launched the poll about two years ago. Every time a new Mike Luckovich editorial cartoon is posted, readers can click to indicate whether or not they approve of it.

"It's a great way for newspapers to get reader interaction," Luckovich told E&P. "If I can dish it out, I should be able to take it. The poll is totally unscientific, but it's interesting to look at the results. And it gives readers who object to my cartoons a way to fire back."

Actually, Luckovich almost always gets more "I like Mike" than "I don't like Mike" tallies -- with reaction to anti-Bush cartoons indicating how much the president's popularity has waned. Two years ago, pro and con votes for those drawings ran roughly 50/50. Now, a significant majority of readers approve of Luckovich's anti-Bush commentary. Earlier today, for instance, 87% of voters were favoring and 13% were opposing a Luckovich cartoon showing the president saying: "I predict 2.6 million new jobs by the end of the year." In the second panel, Bush's press secretary notes: "The statement stands minus the word 'million.'"

Another category that draws a lot of votes are tribute cartoons, such as the one Luckovich did last year after the shuttle disaster.

Thousands of people usually vote each time a cartoon runs, said Carolyn Warmbold, online executive producer for the Journal-Constitution site, which did not have more exact figures. She added that the site conducts a lot of polls, but that Luckovich's feature may be the only one with a survey regularly attached to it. And Luckovich said he's not aware of other newspaper sites doing a similar editorial cartoon poll (though there may be some).

Do the poll results influence his work? "No," replied Luckovich, who draws five or six cartoons a week. "I have my own belief system and feelings about things."

Luckovich's work is distributed around the country by Creators Syndicate. And many people voting on his cartoons are from outside the Atlanta area. "Mike pulls in a national audience," said Warmbold. "He's one of the people who makes the Web the World Wide Web."