My editorial cartoonist buddy, Randy Bish, recently retired from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the conservative paper in a rare two newspaper/two cartoonist town. Randy is the latest in a long line of cartoonists losing newspaper staff positions –where the newspaper doesn’t hire a new cartoonist.
Randy is a long time contributor to Cagle.com and PoliticalCartoons.com. Here is Randy’s post about leaving his position and a few of Randy’s cartoons – see Randy’s cartoon archive on Cagle.com
In the same year that “Back To The Future” was in theaters, the wreckage of the Titanic was discovered and Microsoft released Windows version 1.0, a young man from Walkchalk walked into the offices of the Tribune-Review to nervously start his first day as an editorial cartoonist.
It was March 11, 1985, and I was that nervous young man.
Since that day, the world has changed in so many ways.
Two space shuttles (Challenger, Columbia) and their crews were lost. An American president was impeached.
An iPhone was invented. The nation was gripped by a court trial when a famous athlete, accused of killing his wife, was found not guilty. On a September morning, terrorists took down four airliners and two towers.
During these years, I’ve had the honor of drawing five American presidents.
(six, if you count the drawings that I did of Jimmy Carter back when I worked for the Valley News Dispatch)
I’ve drawn every crooked politician from the time when they worked in Harrisburg or Washington until the time when they went to prison.
In my time at the Trib, I’ve been blessed to have been able to meet the people who were my heroes. One of the saddest parts of my job was having to be the one to draw memorial cartoons of the heroes that we have lost. My salutes to the people who have left their marks on our world became some of the most popular cartoons among readers. To this day, I still have people who ask for copies of my tribute to Snoopy cartoonist Charles Schulz.
I’ve seen my cartoons travel across the world, going to places that I never could have imagined. They’ve been reprinted in textbooks in Europe and found homes in museums. The mother of an American soldier once told me the story of how her son made a poster-sized copy of a cartoon that I had drawn of Saddam Hussein. When the soldier’s unit entered one of Hussein’s palaces, the young man hung the cartoon across the headboard of Saddam’s bed.
My time here at the Tribune-Review will end after September 9, when I will leave to pursue other interests.
I’ve been fortunate to have worked with some great people in the past and blessed incredibly with all of you who have read my cartoons through the years, whether in the paper or online. And now, as I face a new chapter in my life, I look forward to seeing what the future holds.
Any man who can spend over 30 years of his life doing the things that he loves to do is a lucky man.
I cannot begin to tell you just how much your friendship and your support has meant to me.
You have all made my world a better place, and for that, I thank you.
We have a great collection of EpiPen cartoons! Come take a look!
Interest in politics doesn’t translate into better sales for editorial cartoons; there is still only one hole for a cartoon on the editorial page of each newspaper, even when the news is brisk.
Cartoonists didn’t have a conversation that ended up with Trump as Hitler, we drew Trump as Hitler from the start and the Trump/Hitler metaphors continue unabated. There are countless monster cartoons with Trump’s hair or face on Godzilla, King Kong, Frankenstein, Satan, the Ku Klux Klan and Dracula.
The most famous example of matching cartoons came the day after the 9/11 attack when virtually all of the cartoonists in the world drew a weeping Statue of Liberty witnessing the burning twin towers. The satirical newspaper “The Onion” continues to rub salt in this cartoon wound with their parody cartoons that always feature a weeping Liberty. Nowadays the Statue of Liberty kicks Trump out, or Trump is Lady Liberty kicking immigrants. Every famous statue has Trump hair, or a full Trump face, especially the Lincoln Memorial and Mount Rushmore. There are not enough cliché statues for Trump. When passions run high there are too few arrows in the cartoonists’ cliché quiver that are powerful enough to express outrage.
We don’t see positive cartoons about Hillary Clinton either. Cartooning is a negative art and a supportive cartoon is a lousy cartoon. Hillary is a rich character that we have known for decades. There is a grand history with Hillary and Bill Clinton that gives us many more clichés for a broader cartoon palette. If Trump loses in November we should enjoy four years of great Hillary cartoons.
