Here are our most reprinted cartoons of last week (December 26th through January 2nd 2021).
Eight of the cartoons are on a New Years theme. As usual, there are no cartoons about Trump or Biden. Editors were most interested in cartoons about how terrible 2020 was.
The Top Ten cartoons are what most readers see since only 20% of the cartoons get 80% of the reprints.
The top cartoons on the list performed especially well, and the top three each would have been a number one cartoon in a normal week. Congratulations to #1 Dave Whamond, #2 Dave Granlund and #3 Bruce Plante!
Our Top Ten is a measure of how many editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the 62 cartoonists in our CagleCartoons.com syndication package. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers (around 700 papers) subscribe to CagleCartoons.com.
Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers sink too, and along with them, our Cagle.com site.
Peter Kuper rounds out the list with the only cartoon referencing the politics of the week.
Want to get EVERY new CagleCartoon from our 62 syndicated newspaper editorial cartoonists, in your email box every day? Just become a Cagle.com HERO and you get the exclusive daily emails of ALL THE CARTOONS! See all the cartoons before the newspapers print them and never miss a cartoon!
Here are our most reprinted cartoons of the year, 2020. We have about 700 newspapers in the USA that subscribe to our CagleCartoons.com syndicate service and we collect data on which cartoons newspaper editors download; these cartoons were the biggest hits – each was the #1 cartoons the week it ran.
The most reprinted cartoons of the year provide a clear lesson in what newspaper editors wanted to see with five of the cartoons explicitly about the pandemic and a couple of others generally about bad times. The cartoons emphasize how much editors want to see cartoons about holidays and events (Christmas, New Year, Election Day, Daylight Savings Time Day, change of season). The cartoons also clearly show how most newspaper editors tend to avoid cartoons about politics and president Trump, to the frustration of the political cartoonists.
What is most amazing about the Top Ten cartoons this year is the stellar performance of Dave Granlund who took the #1 and #2 spots with the most reprinted cartoons of the year. Jeff Koterba, Dave Whamond and I have two cartoons each on the list.
Congratulations to the other cartoonists with a most reprinted cartoons of the year: Dave Fitzsimmons. Rick McKee and Steve Sack! Check out the cartoons below!
Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers sink too, and along with them, our Cagle.com site.
Dave Granlund wins the year with this wildly popular Christmas/Pandemic cartoon.
#2
Dave Granlund also takes second place with this Election Day reminder cartoon. Call to vote cartoons were very popular this year.
#3
Jeff Koterba takes third place with his first of two cartoons in the Top Ten.
#4
Dave Whamond takes 4th place, with the first of two cartoons on the list. Cartoons complaining about what a terrible year 2020 was, were very popular.
#5
I took 5th place with this general complaint about the bad times.
#6
Jeff Koterba takes 6th place with this COVID/New Year combo – his second on the list.
#7
My second cartoon on the list was a call to vote emphasizing “mail-in voting” which President Trump claimed was fraudulent because more Democrats tend to vote by mail.
#8
Dave Whamond claims 8th place with this cartoon about distance learning. Cartoons about school during the pandemic were top performers with editors this year.
#9
Rick McKee takes 9th place with Christmas/COVID combo cartoon.
#10
Steve Sack nabs tenth place with this lovely Autumn/how-bad-things-are cartoon.
Want to get EVERY new CagleCartoon from our 62 syndicated newspaper editorial cartoonists, in your email box every day? Just become a Cagle.com HERO and you get the exclusive daily emails of ALL THE CARTOONS! See all the cartoons before the newspapers print them and never miss a cartoon!
Here are our most reprinted cartoons of last week (November 28th through December 5th 2020). The Top Ten cartoons were tightly bunched, and all were big hits with editors.
Five of the cartoons had Christmas themes. Seven of the cartoons are about the pandemic. As usual, no drawings of Trump were popular with newspaper editors. No cartoons about foreign issues were popular. 20% of the cartoons get 80% of the reprints – that means the Top Ten cartoons are what readers see.
Dave Whamond had a great week again this week, with strong #1 and #4 cartoons. RJ Matson had a very impressive week, with the #2 and #6 cartoons. Dave Granlund is also second to no one with two cartoons in the Top Ten.
Congratulations to the other cartoonists with the most reprinted cartoons of the week, John Darkow, Rick McKee,Adam Zyglis andJeff Koterbawho continues his long streak in the Top Ten.
Our Top Ten is a measure of how many editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the 62 cartoonists in our CagleCartoons.com syndication package. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers (around 700 papers) subscribe to CagleCartoons.com.
Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.
Dave Whamond wins the week with this very popular Christmas/pandemic cartoon.
#2
RJ Matson takes second place with his first of two cartoons in the Top Ten.
#3
John Darkow snags third place with this about the female football player at Vanderbilt – a topic that editors clearly wanted to see in cartoons.
#4
Dave Granlund is tied for 4th place again with the first of his three cartoons in the Top Ten.
#4
Dave Whamond is also tied for 4th place with his second cartoon on the most reprinted list. Editors love cartoons that complain about how terrible this year has been.
#6
RJ Matson takes 6th place with this beautiful rendering. Waterfalls are hard to draw, the Capitol building is hard to draw, and it is hard to make this dramatic perspective work. This one is an eye-popper.
#7
Jeff Koterba claims 7th place with another Christmas/pandemic cartoon. Jeff seems to have carved out a permanent home on the weekly Top Ten.
#8
Dave Granlund is tied for 8th place with his second cartoon in the Top Ten.
#8
Rick McKee shares the tie for 8th place. Editors don’t seem to shy away from Biden cartoons, as they do with Trump cartoons, but cartoonists don’t draw Biden often.
#10
Adam Zyglis avoids drawing a self-portrait in this auto-biographical cartoon.
Want to get EVERY new CagleCartoon from our 62 syndicated newspaper editorial cartoonists, in your email box every day? Just become a Cagle.com HERO and you get the exclusive daily emails of ALL THE CARTOONS! See all the cartoons before the newspapers print them and never miss a cartoon!
Here are our most reprinted cartoons of last week (November 7th through November 14th 2020). This week the editors flocked to the same cartoons, as usual, with the few, most popular cartoons far outpacing the rest.
This week’s #1 cartoon by Jeff Koterba is the second most reprinted editorial cartoon of the year, and it may yet overtake Dave Granlund’s #1 cartoon of the year so far, from three weeks ago. The #2 cartoon by Dave Whamond would have been a strong #1 in a typical week where the usage curve wasn’t quite so steep.
The most popular topic this week was Alex Trebek. Only two cartoons referencing the pandemic made the Top Ten list. Cartoonists drew scores of cartoons about Trump’s refusal to accept the election results this week, but only three were popular with editors who ignored most of these cartoons.
Our Top Ten is a measure of how many editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the 62 cartoonists in our CagleCartoons.com syndication package. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers (around 700 papers) subscribe to CagleCartoons.com.
Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.
Jeff Koterba‘s #1 cartoon was the most reprinted cartoon of the week by far.
#2
Dave Whamond has the first of three Alex Trebek obit cartoons in the Top Ten. Editors seem to love cartoons that marvel at what a bad year 2020 is.
#3
Dave Whamond also nabs third place. In a week where Trump’s refusal to accept the election results dominated the news, few cartoons on the topic were popular with newspaper editors.
#4
Dave Fitzsimmons takes 4th place with the second Alex Trebek cartoon on the list.
#5
Dave Granlund takes fifth place with the third Alex Trebek obit cartoon.
Randy Enos nabs 9th place with this nice pandemic cartoon.
#10
Gary McCoy wraps up the Top Ten with this Veterans Day cartoon. In other years, Veterans Day got more attention from both editors and cartoonists.
Want to get EVERY new CagleCartoon from our 62 syndicated newspaper editorial cartoonists, in your email box every day? Just become a Cagle.com HERO and you get the exclusive daily emails of ALL THE CARTOONS! See all the cartoons before the newspapers print them and never miss a cartoon!
This was a crazy election week! Here are our most reprinted cartoons of last week (October 31st through November 7th 2020). Newspaper editors found lots of cartoons they liked this week and the usage curve was flattened. Many cartoons were bunched together in the stats, with each getting lots of reprints – very different from recent weeks when editors all reprinted the same, few cartoons. Editors found a lot to like this week.
We have a crazy, improbable, four way tie for first place, with each first place cartoon getting about half as many reprints as last week’s #1 cartoon. Every Top Ten cartoon this week was about the election but, as usual, none of the most reprinted cartoons included drawings of Trump or Biden. This is the first week for many months where no coronavirus cartoons made the Top Ten.
Congrats to Jeff Koterba who has two cartoons on the list, including one cartoon tied for #1. Two of my own cartoons tied for #1. Kudos to Rick McKee who also shares the four-way tie for #1 this week.
I was pleased to see our new CagleCartoonist, Pat Byrnes, made the Top Ten list this week. Congratulations to the other cartoonists with the most reprinted cartoons this week: RJ Matson, Dave Granlund, John Darkowand Pat Bagley.
Our Top Ten is a measure of how many editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the 62 cartoonists in our CagleCartoons.com syndication package. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers (around 700 papers) subscribe to CagleCartoons.com.
Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.
Pat Bagley nabs 9th place with this nice “call to vote” cartoon.
#10
Jeff Koterba wraps up the Top Ten with this cartoon.
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Here are our most reprinted cartoons of last week (October 17th, through October 24th, 2020). As usual, drawings of President Trump were not popular with newspaper editors, but a tiny Trump sneaked into the Top Ten in John Cole‘s #4 debate cartoon. Again this week the Top Ten cartoons dominated newspaper reprints as less popular cartoons got little or no ink and editors flocked to the same cartoons.
Dave Whamond had a fantastic week with three cartoons in the Top Ten – Dave’s #1 cartoon was a hit that ranks in the top five of the year. John Cole also had an impressive week with two cartoons in the Top Ten.
Our Top Ten is a measure of how many editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the 62 cartoonists in our CagleCartoons.com syndication package. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers (around 700 papers) subscribe to CagleCartoons.com.
Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.
Chris Weyant caps off the Top Ten with this cartoon, tied for 9th place.
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Here’s another debate cartoon that manages not to bash Trump, by Peter Kuper. Editors like cartoons about everyday folks reacting to the topics of the day, and editors like cartoons that avoid bashing Trump, so I’m guessing that this one will be popular.
Here’s one by Austrian cartoonist Petar Pismetrovic that puts Trump and Biden on equal footing.
Here’s Pat Bagley with a rare, even handed cartoon.
Here’s a similar, even handed cartoon from Jeff Koterba, who is usually even handed.
This rare, even handed cartoon comes from conservative cartoonist Gary McCoy.
Who would have thought that this crazy debate would lead to even handed cartoons?
Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.
Here are the ten most widely published cartoons of the week (August 15th through August 22nd, 2020). As usual, no drawings of president Trump were among the most popular with newspaper editors. No cartoons about the Democratic Convention, Joe Biden or Kamala Harris got much ink. Steve Bannon’s arrest garnered some cartoons but got few reprints. Foreign cartoonists drawing about Belarus and the poisoning of a top Russian dissident were ignored by editors.
The top performing cartoons this week are a clear lesson in what editors want now: light cartoons about the tough times Americans live in. There are four pandemic/back-to-school cartoons on the list this week, which remains the most popular topic with editors, as it has been for the past three months.
The CagleCartoonists who are usually the most reprinted were again the most reprinted this week. Congratulations to the four cartoonists who each have two cartoons in the Top Ten, Dave Whamond (#1 and #8), Jeff Koterba (#2 and #4), Steve Sack (#5 and #9) and Dave Granlund (#5 and #7). And kudos to the two other cartoonists who made the most reprinted list this week, John Darkow and Adam Zyglis!
Our Top Ten is a measure of how many editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the 62 cartoonists in our syndication package. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers (around 700 papers) subscribe to CagleCartoons.com.
Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.
Congratulations to Dave Whamond who drew the #1 most reprinted cartoon this week, the first of Dave’s two cartoons in the Top Ten!
#2
Jeff Koterba takes second place with the first of two cartoons in the Top Ten, and the best performance by a CagleCartoonist this week for overall reprints.
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Newspaper editorial cartoonists love to draw president Trump! We make Trump fat. We give Trump a crazy, long, red tie, a bright, orange face and a grand swoop of yellow hair. Trump appears in editorial cartoons more than any other president, or anything else, has ever appeared in cartoons before. Just as Trump dominates the news on TV every night, he dominates political cartoons. Our problem is that newspaper editors don’t like publishing drawings of Trump.
I’m a cartoonist who runs a newspaper “syndicate” that distributes the work of about sixty of the top cartoonists from around the world to newspaper editorial page editors. Close to half of America’s approximately 1,400 daily, paid-circulation newspapers subscribe to my “package” service at CagleCartoons.com, where editors can pick what they like from a collection of up to twenty different cartoons on a single day. We have a broad range of political cartoons, reflecting a spectrum of content from liberal to conservative, across a range of issues, and editors are free to choose from any of it, with each cartoon presented in the same way. Subscribing editors choose to download high-resolution images of the latest cartoons to print in their papers, and I track the statistics of what the editors choose to download.
Since our our subscribing editors represent a very large and fairly random sampling of newspapers, I can safely project that the trends we see in editors’ choices are representative of all American newspapers, including those that subscribe to our competitors who offer a similar range of editorial cartoons in their syndicate packages. I don’t think anyone has ever tracked statistics like this before, and what the stats reveal about editors is surprising.
The most surprising thing the statistics reveal is that editors simply don’t want political cartoons that depict Trump. Sometimes, when Trump makes lots of news, the majority of the editorial cartoonists draw the president and editors still avoid the Trump cartoons.
The last cartoon depicting president Trump, that made our Top Ten cartoons of the week, was this one I drew of Trump and a looming COVID 19 wave, back in March.
I post a collection of the Top Ten most reprinted cartoons of the week, every week on my blog at DarylCagle.com. 20% of our cartoons get 80% of the reprints, and the Top Ten cartoons are by far the most reprinted. The last time a drawing of Trump made our Top Ten list was in March; it was a drawing I did of a tiny Trump who is oblivious to a giant wave of coronavirus that was about to hit him.
Most newspapers are small, rural or suburban newspapers in conservative areas; big city papers tend to be the liberal ones. Most cartoonists are liberal, and the conventional wisdom among cartoonists has been that conservative cartoonists are more widely reprinted because there are few conservative cartoonists and most, small and red state papers want conservative cartoons; recent stats show that this is all wrong. Even though we hear from conservative editors who complain that there aren’t enough conservative cartoons, editors from both liberal and conservative regions tend to select the same cartoons – funny cartoons about newsy topics that express little or no opinion. In fact, the more strongly an opinion is expressed in a cartoon, either liberal or conservative, the less likely editors are to choose to reprint the cartoon.
Editorial cartoonists have their own, macho culture. We like to draw strong cartoons that hit readers over the head with our point of view. We draw out of passion. We’re certainly not in the business for the money, so the choices editors make are very frustrating for us. Some strong metaphors can almost guarantee that a cartoon won’t be reprinted, no matter what the point the metaphor is used to make. Cartoonists, especially foreign cartoonists, like to draw blood in cartoons to represent terrible violence, they like images of the Ku Klux Klan to represent racism, and drawings of Hitler to depict a murdering, fascist tyrant; these cartoons rarely get reprinted.
American editors don’t like cartoons from foreign countries at all; conversely, foreign editors don’t like reprinting American cartoonists. The idea that cartoons are a “universal language” is a canard; editorial cartoons stop at national borders. Unless there is a huge foreign story involving America overseas, American editors don’t choose to reprint cartoons about foreign events even by American cartoonists.
New events find their way onto the Top Ten. We’ve had some cartoons on the Black Lives Matter protests and racist monuments show up on our Top Ten recently, but not as many as I’d like to see. There were many more images of Trump in cartoons that got ink in the early days of the administration.
What do editors like? Lately they like cartoons about the pandemic, with cartoons about families coping with shortages, masks, back to school, social distancing and sports topping the list. In normal times, editors prefer cartoons that comment on popular culture, celebrity schadenfreude, modern family dynamics, struggles with technology, the workplace and new trends.
The timid choices that newspaper editors make are disturbing enough to bring a tear to the eye of the Statue of Liberty.
This “back to school” cartoon I drew made #1 on our Top Ten list one week. This is typical of the type of cartoons editors prefer now.
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Here are the ten most widely published cartoons of the week (July 11 through July 18, 2020). As usual, no drawings of President Trump are among the most reprinted cartoons. This week has the usual steep curve between the most popular cartoons and all the rest. Only five cartoons were related to the pandemic this week, four cartoons featured sports in some way, and there were two Back to School cartoons.
Gary McCoy takes the top spot by a wide margin, with an unusual Joe Biden bashing cartoon that doesn’t show Biden or Trump –something that seems to be a requirement among editors. Dave Whamond dominated again this week with three cartoons in the Top Ten, all part of a crazy four-way tie for second place. Pat Bagley impresses with two cartoons on the list this week.
Our Top Ten is a measure of how many editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the 62 cartoonists in our syndication package. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers (around 700 papers) subscribe to CagleCartoons.com.
Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.
Congratulations to Gary McCoy who drew the #1 most reprinted cartoon this week.
#2
We have a crazy, four-way tie for second place, with three of the four 2nd place cartoons by Dave Whamond! Here’s Dave’s first #2. Editors love Back to School cartoons now.
#2
Dave Whamond follows with his 2nd #2, another Back to School cartoon.
#2
Here’s Dave Whamond dominating the Top Ten again this week, with his 3rd #2.
#2
Sharing the four-way tie for 2nd place is Pat Bagley with his first of two cartoons on the list this week.
#6
John Cole takes 6th place again, as he did last week.
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My brilliant cartoonist/journalist daughter, Susie Cagle writes today about her work and one of her most popular stories for The Guardian newspaper. Please visit Susie’s page on Patreon to support her and cartoon journalism. From Susie …
For the last year, I was the West Coast climate and environment reporter at the Guardian. It was an unusual mix for a staff position at a news outlet, allowing me to do both traditional written journalism as well as cartoons. My first piece for them was a huge comic exploring the massive amount of plastic waste humans have created.
This comic was exceptionally successful — shared around the world, translated into at least five languages and used in education programs in at least three countries (as far as I know). The Guardian chose it as one of their top stories from 2019.
But it’s the kind of story that’s rarely able to exist, because of the journalism industry’s constraints and expectations. Comics journalism is super popular, but also super labor intensive and super time-consuming. Even the editors most enthusiastic about this still emerging medium often don’t totally understand just how much effort it takes to do two jobs, as both reporter and illustrator. Outlets are reluctant to spend much on cartoons — and even less on comics journalism.
Now that I’m working as a freelancer again, support from readers through Patreon bolsters my ability to keep doing these kinds of projects. Thanks for learning more about my work, and I hope you’ll consider becoming a patron! Susie Cagle
Here are the ten most popular cartoons of the week (May 9 -May 16).
The big winner this week is Jeff Koterba of The Omaha World Herald, who has the most popular cartoon of the week and dominates with four cartoons in the top ten – an impressive performance that has never been matched. With the #2 cartoon, and two cartoons in the top ten, is Dave Granlund. Special congratulations to Bill Day who is making his first appearance in the Top Ten this week.
Our top ten is a measure of how many of our subscribing newspaper editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the approximately 60 cartoonists in our syndication package. 20% of the cartoonists get 80% of the sales and reprints, and most of the cartoonists never make it into the Top Ten. If you don’t like the top ten, take it up with your local newspaper editor. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers subscribe to CagleCartoons.com.
Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you! Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.
The 6th most popular cartoon of the week is this one by Jeff Koterba, who has a whopping FOUR cartoons in the top ten this week.
#7
The seventh most popular cartoon is the unprecedented fourth cartoon from Jeff Koterba.
#8
The eighth most popular cartoon this week is the second cartoon in the Top Ten from Dave Granlund. This is also the only Top Ten cartoon that is not about the pandemic.
#9
This cartoon marks Bill Day‘s first appearance in the Top Ten.
#10
This cartoon is from Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News.
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#4
