Irish cartoonist Martyn Turner e-mailed me to take issue with my screed below:

Dear Daryl,

Interesting, and almost amusing though your blog on Portugal’s world press cartoon contest was, I think it a little misguided to discourage American participation.

This year’s choices may have been a tad more obscure than usual but they can only judge what is in front of them.The organisers, as far as I know, make sure that at least one of the 5 judges every year is from North America. Ann Telnaes and Guy Badeaux have been judges recently and so have I. And I’m not exactly a stranger to American political cartooning. Your pal, buddy, Mexican cartoonist, Angel Boligan, for example has featured in the prize winners more than once. I think he got first the year I was the judge…

The lack of captions in most of the prizes is sort of obvious, aint it..with all those countries and all those languages Visual becomes the lingua franca. One reason why I will never win the thing is that I’m not able to speak Visual. I can barely manage Metaphor……

But having seen the set up in Portugal and having appreciated the dedication and enthusiasm the organisers have for all cartooning, American and otherwise, I think it is something that should be supported. Encourage your fellow Americans to engage with strange foreigners. You never know they may get something out of it and for our part we usually welcome cultural invasions by America, it’s only the military sort that really gets us mad….

Best wishes,

Martyn Turner

The Irish Times

And from a reader …

From: “harley cahen”

Subject: Re: Ugly American?

All the work you do on behalf of cartoonists and cartooning is very important. But your commentary on the WPC contest winner sounded a wrong note. Surely you are not actually proud of being unfamiliar with the original Breughel paintings? Or, for that matter, proud of coming from a nation that finds the top world soccer players to be incomprehensibly obscure? 

Harley Cahen

Hyattsville MD

Not much different than if there was a contest in the USA that picked the bast cartoon in the world as being about baseball – or calling the the World Series “the World Series,” huh?

Thanks,

Daryl

You make a good point. Europeans could stand to be less parochial, too.

Harley

When American cartoonists look around the world at other cartoonists, we see strange cartoons and an even stranger business. While American cartoonists are most concerned about building a list of publications that print our cartoons, in much of the world cartoonists are motivated to build their CV’s (or resumes) by entering contests. For foreign cartoonists who live in countries where it is impossible to make a living selling cartoons for publication, it makes perfect sense to make a living doing something else while chalking up cartooning successes in contests.

The foreign cartoonists, and the people who run these worldwide contests often wonder why American cartoonists don’t participate. Some feel slighted that “arrogant and elitist” American cartoonists show no interest in their contests. For our part, these contests often include rules that American cartoonists find daunting. The winning cartoons often seem to us to be incomprehensibly foreign.

The winning cartoons typically have no words; the foreign cartoonists see the cartoons as simple and elegant where the American cartoonists often see them as unsophisticated. Winning international cartoons often depict dark scenes, like prison, or unrequited love, or torture, or frustration with authority or bureaucracy. American cartoonists call typical world contest winners “daisies in the gun barrels” cartoons. With recent winners we’re seeing more of the contrast between the human condition and new technology or bureaucracy.

One of the biggest contests, the World Press Cartoon (WPC) contest in Portugal, has been making a special effort to get American cartoonists to submit entries. They have three categories: gag, caricature and editorial cartoons, each with a 5,000 Euro prize. One of the three category winners brings home the grand prize, a whopping 20,000 Euros (or $31,400.00). WPC just announced their winners for this year which fall squarely into the “strange” and “incomprehensible” category.

The Grand Prize winning cartoon is by German cartoonist, Rainer Ehrt, whose big win can be seen in excited announcements on dozens of web sites, none of which are in English. All the winning cartoons can be seen on the WPC web site at worldpresscartoon.com.

The Grand Prize winning cartoon is a lovely rendering but I didn’t get it. A bunch of guys are sitting in a pile of desks, each with a European Union flag; more desks are being added, and one desk is smoking. I know, it’s a Euro-thing and my mind isn’t running in Euro-mode. I wrote to the WPC people, asked them what the cartoon means and I got this reply:

The Grand Prix, Rainer Ehrt cartoon is based on a Brueghel painting. He uses the idea of a Babel Tower applied on an endless enlargement of Europe with its multiple languages and differences, and also, with a threatening dark clown above the Tower that give us an idea of an uncertain future…

OK. I don’t see a threatening clown, but maybe they mean “cloud.” Nothing was really on fire. That’s not smoke. It’s a cloud. I’m good. Big European bureaucracy. Too many desks. Dark cloud. It’s an allusion to a painting I don’t know. I get it now.

The winner of the caricature category is a by Italian cartoonist Achille Superbi. I couldn’t tell who was depicted in this caricature, so I asked. I was told it is “Michael Ballack.” I had no idea who “Michael Ballack” is, so I Googled him and learned that he is a German soccer player with a big Wickipedia page. For me “Michael Ballack” is an incomprehensibly obscure guy – but they love their soccer in Europe. OK.

I couldn’t tell who the second and third place caricatures were either. I’m told that the second place one is Elvis Presley (looks like Elvis would make a lovely lamp) and the third place one is Manuel Noriega (I thought it was Robert Mugabe).

The winner in the gag cartoon category is by Iranian cartoonist Hassan Karimzadeh, showing a framed, green guy, whose mouth is “loading” like a computer slowly downloading a file. Maybe we’re all becoming like computers, or you can’t eat information, or well I don’t know. But for the worldwide contest folks, this one is a knee slapper.

I like seeing big contests for cartoons, with big cash prizes, but I think I may not be sending in an entry to the World Press Cartoons contest again next year.

Congratulations to Nate Beeler on his new son, 8 pound five ounce Maxwell Owen Beeler.

Also, congrats to my Greek cartoonist buddy, Michael Kountouris, on his new web site, www.michaelkountouris.com. Also, congratulations to my buddy, Mexican cartoonist, Angel Boligan, for his new site at boligan.com.

Cartoons about Israel and the Palestinians always brings in the mail, with questions like those from the reader below. After I drew and sent out this cartoon I was shocked to realize my error – I had drawn two sets of ears on each dog – both human ears and doggy ears. Yipes! I’m just so used to drawing ears on human heads, and my drawing hand was running on automatic, I didn’t even think that I was giving out surplus ears. Oooh! Sometimes my cartoons about the Middle East are so wrooong!

From: Jake Barlow

Subject: regarding your Carter/Hamas cartoon

Question, Daryl: When was the last time you were in Israel, and/or the occupied territories? And as a follow up, do you have a well informed opinion on what the situation truly is in the region of Palestine from an eye-witness account, or do you form your opinions based on what you read in the papers?

Second question: How do you justify the cartoon you drew of Carter being a dog pissing on Israel? Who were you personally showing solidarity with, and why? Or are you simply a hack who was trying to capitalize on well-worn bigotries that the US media has been reinforcing through propaganda? Follow up: Why are you so disingenuous?

Regards,

Jake

Visit our collection of cartoons about President Carter’s visit with Hamas.

The National Cartoonists Society Foundation (NCSF) announced the winner of the first annual Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship, Juana Medina, a sophomore at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She was chosen by a jury of ten of the nation’s top cartoonists, including Michael Ramirez, this year’s Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, Rick Kirkman who draws “Baby Blues,” Mad Magazine’s Tom Richmond, greeting card artist Sandra Boynton and other ‘toon luminaries. I’m the president of the NCSF, and I have to say that is fun giving out scholarships.

Juana Medina was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. She completed high school in 1998 then moved to the U.S.A. where she has lived ever since. For two years, she studied at the Corcoran College of Art & Design in Washington, D.C.; she is now majoring in Graphic Design at RISD. She is a regular contributor to the College Hill Independent, a weekly magazine produced by students at Brown University and RISD. Her work has appeared in publications in South America and has been part of collective exhibitions in Colombia and Mexico.

In her application for the award, Medina wrote:

” I grew up in a country where war has been a constant since long before I was born. Our voices have been quieted by terrorist acts and constant threats from both governmental and clandestine groups, up to a point where the smell of gunpowder and the countless bomb threats became a part of our daily life … I found situations where there is little I can do to change reality but I have found in cartooning a voice that strongly reflects my feelings and intentions. I have found a way to raise consciousness without scolding, fuming or losing my stomach to an ulcer.”

Medina will receive her award, and a $5,000 scholarship, and will meet the professional cartoonists who selected her at the National Cartoonists Society’s Annual Reuben Awards banquet in New Orleans on May 24th. The Scholarship was created to honor Jay Kennedy, a beloved comics editor at King Features Syndicate, which endowed the scholarship. This is the first year for the scholarship and we got more than 200 submissions ­ which amounted to a huge stack of stuff. I expect it will be an even bigger stack next year. Two samples of Juana’s work are below.

 

The National Cartoonists Society Foundation (NCSF) announced the winner of the first annual Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship, Juana Medina, a sophomore at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She was chosen by a jury of ten of the nation’s top cartoonists, including Michael Ramirez, this year’s Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, Rick Kirkman who draws “Baby Blues,” Mad Magazine’s Tom Richmond, greeting card artist Sandra Boynton and other ‘toon luminaries. I’m the president of the NCSF, and I have to say that is fun giving out scholarships.

Juana Medina was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. She completed high school in 1998 then moved to the U.S.A. where she has lived ever since. For two years, she studied at the Corcoran College of Art & Design in Washington, D.C.; she is now majoring in Graphic Design at RISD. She is a regular contributor to the College Hill Independent, a weekly magazine produced by students at Brown University and RISD. Her work has appeared in publications in South America and has been part of collective exhibitions in Colombia and Mexico.

In her application for the award, Medina wrote: “… I grew up in a country where war has been a constant since long before I was born. Our voices have been quieted by terrorist acts and constant threats from both governmental and clandestine groups, up to a point where the smell of gunpowder and the countless bomb threats became a part of our daily life … I found situations where there is little I can do to change reality … but I have found in cartooning a voice that strongly reflects my feelings and intentions. I have found a way to raise consciousness without scolding, fuming or losing my stomach to an ulcer.”

Medina will receive her award, and a $5,000 scholarship, and will meet the professional cartoonists who selected her at the National Cartoonists Society’s Annual Reuben Awards banquet in New Orleans on May 24th. The Scholarship was created to honor Jay Kennedy, a beloved comics editor at King Features Syndicate, which endowed the scholarship. This is the first year for the scholarship and we got more than 200 submissions – which amounted to a huge stack of stuff. I expect it will be an even bigger stack next year.

———-

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; his cartoons are syndicated to more than 800 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. He runs the most popular cartoon site on the Web at www.cagle.msnbc.com. His books “The BIG Book of Bush Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 Editions,” are available in bookstores now.

For more information on the NCSF and the Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship, contact John Kovaleski, NCSF Education Committee Chairman at (717) 334-5926. High-resolution images of Juana Medina’s artwork and her photograph are available to download at: http://cagle.msnbc.com/news/blog/medina.asp

The images below are © Juana Medina

This column is posted courtesy of my buddy, Dave Astor, at Editor & Publisher.

PULITZER WINNER: Ramirez Hopes His Award Illustrates the Need for ‘Substantive’ Cartoons

By Dave Astor

Published: April 07, 2008 5:05 PM ET

NEW YORK Last year, the buzzword in the Pulitzer Prize editorial cartooning category was “animation.” This year, winner Michael Ramirez hopes the buzzword is “substantive.”

“My approach is to have a powerful image along with a significant statement,” said the Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) cartoonist, when reached by phone this afternoon. “It’s great to be funny, too, but the most important element is the message — to have an impact and make people think.”

Ramirez added: “Editorial cartooning is an extension of journalism, not just entertainment.”

Some editorial cartoonists — whether on their own volition or because of pressure from controversy-averse papers — rely a lot on gags these days.

Ramirez, who now has two Pulitzers, said cartoonists trying to make substantive statements “have to do their homework.” He’s helped in this respect by being part of the team running the IBD editorial page — a level of responsibility few other staff cartoonists have at their newspapers.

“It gives me a better perspective on the news,” he explained.

Ramirez, 46, joined IBD in early 2006 — soon after being forced out of the Los Angeles Times. When asked if winning the Pulitzer was especially satisfying after that experience, he took the high road.

“I’m very grateful for the time I spent at the Times,” Ramirez said. “There were some wonderful people there. They gave me a great deal of creative freedom, and were very supportive until the last one-and-a-half years. I’m sad I wasn’t able to win a Pulitzer for them.”

But Ramirez said he’s thrilled to win for his current paper. “It’s fantastic to bring one home for IBD,” he said.

Ramirez previously won the Pulitzer in 1994 for The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, for which he worked from 1990 until joining the Times in 1997.

Cartoons in Ramirez’s Pulitzer portfolio this year included ones that commented on the vagueness of some of Barack Obama’s stands, on the troubled U.S. economy, on the use of corn to make ethanol rather than as food, and on other topics. Ramirez is considered a conservative cartoonist, but said he tries to approach every issue with an open mind. Sometimes, he noted, conservatives criticize his work.

Last year, all three cartoon finalists did some animation in addition to print work, and observers wondered if this was the shape of things to come for the Pulitzer. But Ramirez doesn’t do animation.

The California resident did say he likes some of the animation out there, and may try it himself at some point. But Ramirez reiterated that the most important thing about a cartoon is the message — whether it’s conveyed in a black-and-white print cartoon, in a color print cartoon, or in an animation.

Ramirez’s work is syndicated by Copley News Service.

When reached by E&P, Copley Vice President/Editor Glenda Winders said: “We are thrilled and so proud of Michael. He is the master of integrating art and idea, and he richly deserves this second Pulitzer. It’s a happy day here at CNS!”

Dave Astor ([email protected]) is a senior editor at E&P.

Visit our newsletter sign-up page and subscribe to your favorite cartoonists and columnists. We’ve had free e-mail newsletters for a few months now, we’re seeing some new trends in subscriptions and I thought I would post a new “Top Ten” list now that we have a much bigger list of subscribers. My own name in the top spot is an aberration, because this is my own site and I’m probably the most recognizable name on the list.

1. Daryl Cagle

2. Eric Allie

3. Pat Bagley

4. Brian Fairrington

5. Monte Wolverton

6. Andy Singer

7. Matt Bors

8. Shannon Wheeler

9. Chuck Asay

10. Kirk Anderson

The most interesting change is Kirk Anderson’s climb to number 10 on the list – since Kirk hasn’t submitted a new cartoon for four months! Maybe this just shows that Kirk has fans who are frustrated by his hiatus. I e-mailed Kirk and asked him what’s happening with his ‘toon drought”, and he tells me he will be drawing more and wants to keep his stale slot on the site, so I share the frustration of our readers. That Kirk can gather hundreds of new subscribers while he draws no new cartoons is truly amazing.

The other newcomer to the newsletter top ten is Christian-conservative cartoonist Chuck Asay, who draws in a multi-panel format. I remain impressed with the popularity of altie cartoonists Matt Bors, Shannon Wheeler and Andy Singer. Jen Sorensen was on our top ten list last November, and she dropped to number 11. Lloyd Dangle is number 13. These are alternative cartoonists who don’t get a lot of ink in mainstream, daily newspapers and it is instructive to me to see their popularity on our site over many of the stars of traditional editorial cartooning.

My buddy, Steve Greenberg has a new book out. called Fine-Tooning the Problem, available here from his web site. I asked Steve to send me a cartoon that caused him some trouble, and that’s his trouble making cartoon below, along with Steve’s comments. See Steve’s online archive here. E-mail Steve.

I definitely get grief when I do cartoons sympathetic to Israel, like the recent one about the endless rocket attacks on the town of Sderot, near the Gaza border. I got snarling diatribes about “U.S. sponsored terrorism” and massacres of civilians and even a brutal Arab cartoon of an Israeli soldier mowing down bottle-fed tots who were merely throwing paper airplanes. But those aren’t paper airplanes being hurled at Israel, they are rockets, and although crude, have killed and injured many people, destroyed buildings, and left civilian populations living in fear at all moments.

Hamas supporters are shooting 50 to 100 or more rockets at Israeli civilians, aiming indiscriminately, and doing so every day. The Israeli response has been to try to take out the attackers, which is a far cry from Hamas specifically targeting civilians, but the rocket launchers are deliberately mixed among civilian structures in Gaza. For Hamas, a non-response from Israel is a win, but a response that kills bystanders and generates sympathy is a win too.

I’ve done cartoons critical of Israel, which sometimes draws mild rebukes from Jewish readers. But do a cartoon sympathetic to Israel nowadays, and screaming vitiol and sometimes blatantly anti-Semitic remarks start coming in. The only comparable responses are from cartoons relating to abortion. –Steve Greenberg

The columnists and cartoonists have been focusing on Hillary Clinton’s goofy claims to have dodged sniper fire on a visit to Bosnia with her daughter, Chelsea and comedian, Sinbad.

As he often does, comedian Bill Maher stole from the week’s political cartoons for his monologue, including the Bagley cartoon at the right, for his joke about Hillary claiming to raise the flag at Iwo Jima. See our Hillary Under Fire collection here.

Here are some interesting columns on Hillary’s travels and bullet dodging experience, by Michael Reagan, Leonard Pitts and Michelle Malkin. Bill Maher railed about this interesting Pat Buchanan column on his weekly show. Visit our sites each week and you can write a TV show just like Bill Maher!

I used to be more assertive about posting “Yahtzees” (my term for when five or more cartoonists draw matching cartoons). Some of the most Yahtzee-prone cartoonists got their noses out of joint by my pointing out their similaries, and they chose to leave the site. I’m a bit less motivated to rub the noses of our loyal contributors in their similar cartoons now that some of the worst offenders escape criticism by bailing out. That said, our readers love the Yahtzees, and I get e-mails asking whether I’ve noticed this Yahtzee or that Yahtzee – and why don’t I post them?! OK, I won’t post them all, but here are some representatives from three big, recent Yahtzees.

Olympics Logo Yahtzee

The Olympics logo as the wheels on a tank is a mega-Yahtzee that we see each time the Olympics come around, particularly among the international cartoonists who prefer cartoons without words and who like to use logos and flags to complain about militarism. I must have seen a couple of dozen of these logo-tank cartoons, here are some recent ones from Julius Hansen (Denmark), Martin Sutovek (Slovakia) and Frederick Deligne (France). I’ve included three oldies from Dick Wright, Bob Gorrell and Patrick Chappatte.

Faucet and Pills Yahtzee

We got a lot of pills coming out of the water faucet in response to the news that traces of drugs were found in municipal water supplies. These are from John Sherffius, Gordon Campbell, Robert Ariail and Nate Beeler.

 

Castro Cigar Yahtzee

Here are a few from the Castro Cigar Mega-Yahtzee. These are from Michael Ramirez, John Deering, Gary Brookins, Arcadio Esquivel (Costa Rica) and Christo Komarnitski (Bulgaria).

That’s all for now.

Today we’re adding cartoonist Gordon Campbell to our site. This is ironic, because Gordon is the latest casualty in the parade of cartoonist job layoffs. Even without a job (at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin), Gordon will continue to draw cartoons regularly as a freelancer – a fate that seems to be in the future for every cartoonist. See Gordon’s cartoon archive. E-mail Gordon. I asked Gordon to tell us a bit about his situation.

And the year started out so promising, too! For over six months a full-blown, knock-down, drag-out political war has been going on over who would be every editorial cartoonist’s favorite target over the next four years. Maybe I was energized by the smell of metaphorical cordite and sulfur, but I’ll be damned if my cartoons weren’t getting better and better as the conflict raged. But, like the theme in Les Miserables, there was an ominous soundtrack playing in the background, increasing in volume, that I was desperate not to hear! This tune, signaling the post-journalistic revolution, was accompanied by another, grating rasp like the sound of hardwood rolling on cobble. The guillotine was wheeling into the newsroom!

Our paper had gone through a lot of down-sizing, right-sizing, cut-backs, re-organizations, re-tooling, ill-conceived projects that begat other ill-conceived projects etc. over the past few years and of course the whole “dead tree biz has been in the gravity of the black hole of “Alternative Media Sources for sometime. On top of all that, Media News had bit off a whole lot more than it could chew when they picked up the northern Cal properties just before the property bubblewell, you all know the tune. Every paper in America has a similar sad song to sing these days.

To “burrow myself in,” so to speak, in 2003 I had begun offering my work to the other papers in the chain por nada. As company papers in our area were functionally merged, my work appeared in all those papers every day as well. I was also the highest “hit man in the on-line editions, a top priority endeavor according to management, so I felt somewhat safe. A week before my papers executions the Daily News of Los Angeles had a similar layoff and cartoonist Patrick O,Connor survived that round. Surely, I thought, I’m in no immediate danger. Ha!

So now I’m free. All my toonist buddies tell me so. They say I just have to see this as an opportunity to soar above the turkeys and fly up to the highest peaks of graphic commentary. I know I should feel liberated but it still seems like part of me is rolling around in a basket on Bastille Day!

Gordon Campbell