SPECIAL REPORT: Will the Editorial Cartoonist Vanish?

By: Mark Fitzgerald To be a newspaper staff editorial cartoonist these days is to live in dread that the next phone call is coming from the human resources department. "There's a great sense of dismay and gloom in the editorial cartooning world," says Steve Greenberg, a member of that fraternity. Because their numbers were so small to begin with, the departure of cartoonists amid the mass layoffs in newsrooms around the nation has had a huge impact on the craft.

MSNBC cartoonist Daryl Cagle, who hosts the Political Cartoonists Index Web site, counts more than 30 who took buyouts or were laid off by mid-April, including such well-known figures as Don Wright at The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, Jim Borgman at The Cincinnati Enquirer and Bill Day at The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn. More recently, the departures of editorial cartoonists have been coming at a rate of two or more a month.

"The number of staff editorial cartoonists who are extremely safe is tiny," says Greenberg. He speaks from experience: Before he was laid off at the Ventura County (Calif.) Star last November, he reasoned that he was safe because cartooning was a secondary job to his main occupation there in news graphics.

Winning a Pulitzer Prize isn't even enough in some cases. David Horsey, who won Pulitzers for cartooning in 1999 and again in 2003, lost his job when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased print publication. Though he stayed on as the newspaper went online-only, he now draws for all Hearst papers, but not as a local cartoonist. Following the layoff of Eric Devericks at The Seattle Times last December, there is no major-metro local editorial cartoonist in Seattle.

Being syndicated is also no job guarantee. In King Features' stable of editorial cartoonists, for instance, are Brian Duffy, who was laid off from The Des Moines Register in December, and John Branch, who was let go at the San Antonio (Texas) Express-News in March. The two continue to draw, and are included in the syndicate's weekly "The Best and the Wittiest" package. "They're still extremely good at what they do, and we still value what they do," says King Features Comic Editor Brendan Burford.

Losing their staff positions hasn't affected their marketability, Burford adds: "I think there's a lot of sympathy for those cartoonists who are laid off or take the buyouts. It doesn't speak to how good they are, it just speaks to the economy of newspapers these days."

Chip Bok, who took a buyout from the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, is another example of a cartoonist without a newspaper who continues to be syndicated, in his case by Creators Syndicate. "I'm concerned about them as a friend, but on the other hand we're hoping there will be opportunities" in new media in the future, says Creators President and CEO Richard S. Newcombe.

This exodus of editorial cartoonists, however, isn't creating any real selling opportunities to newspapers suddenly without staff artists, syndicates say. "I wish I could tell you there was something positive out of this," Newcombe adds. "That certainly seems to be what logic would dictate ? but at the same time, budgets have been cut so much that I haven't seen any change. It's just such a depressed market these days."

Another reason there's been no bump for the syndicates is that newspapers with staff editorial cartoonists often were also substantial buyers of syndicated cartoons, says King Features' Burford. While the demand for that material hasn't slackened, neither has it increased, he notes.

Greenberg, who self-syndicates cartoons themed for Jewish newspapers, admits he is experiencing the same stalled demand. "I would have thought there would be more opportunity for freelance work because of the cuts," he says, "but unfortunately, freelance budgets are being cut too."