Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate Top 10

Kevin Siers 2020 Top Ten

Here are Kevin Siers’ Top Ten cartoons of the year that were most reprinted in newspapers.  Kevin is the Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist for The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina.

We keep statistics on how many editors, who subscribe to our syndicate service at CagleCartoons.com, download each cartoon. Over the next few days I’ll post Top Ten cartoons from some of our other CagleCartoonists!  See Kevin’s cartoon archive on Cagle.com

Merry Christmas!


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.

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes.

#1

 

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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!


Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate Top 10

Peter Kuper 2020 Top Ten

Here are Peter Kuper’s  Top Ten cartoons of the year that were most reprinted in newspapers. Peter Kuper is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, The Nation and MAD Magazine where he has written and illustrated SPY vs. SPY every issue since 1997. He is the co-founder and editor of World War 3 Illustrated a political graphics magazine that has given a forum to political artists for 40 years. He has produced over two dozen books including The System, Diario de Oaxaca, Ruins (winner of the 2016 Eisner Award) and adaptations of many of Franz Kafka’s works into comics including The Metamorphosis and Kafkaesque (winner of the 2018 Reuben Award) . His latest graphic novel is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. He has lectured around the world and has taught comics courses at The School of Visual Arts in NYC and Harvard University

We keep statistics on how many editors, who subscribe to our syndicate service at CagleCartoons.com, download each cartoon. Over the next few days I’ll post Top Ten cartoons from some of our other CagleCartoonists!  See Peter’s cartoon archive on Cagle.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.

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes.

#1

 

#2

 

#3

 

#4

 

#5

 

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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!


Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate Top 10

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week – November 7, 2020

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 Darkow and 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.

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes.  We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!

#1

Jeff Koterba shares a four-way tie for the most reprinted cartoon of the week.

 

#1

Rick McKee also shares the tie for first place.

 

#1

My own “call to vote” cartoon from last Saturday was intended to run on election day, last Tuesday.

 

#1

My cartoon from after Election Day also shares the four-way tie for #1.

 

#5

Our newest CagleCartoonist, Pat Byrnes makes his debut in the Top Ten with this popular cartoon.

 

#6

RJ Matson takes 6th place with this Election Day cartoon.

 

#7

Dave Granlund nabs 7th place with this post-Election Day cartoon.

 

#8

John Darkow takes 8th place.

 

#9

Pat Bagley nabs 9th place with this nice “call to vote” cartoon.

 

#10

Jeff Koterba wraps up the Top Ten with this cartoon.


Please forward this to your friends – tell them our Cagle.com email newsletters are FREE and FUN! They can join the newsletter list at Cagle.com/subscribe.


Don’t miss our most popular cartoons of the week collections:

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 21st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 14th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 7th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 31st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 24th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 17th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 10th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 3rd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 26th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 19th, 2020
T
op Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 12th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 5th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 29th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 22nd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 15th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 8th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 1st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 25th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 18th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 11th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 4th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 20th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 13th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 6th, 2020

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 30th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 23rd, 2020

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 16th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 8th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Pandemic (as of May 4th)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 2nd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through 4/26/20, (all coronavirus)

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through 4/18/20, (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, through 4/11/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 4/4/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 3/29/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 3/21/20 (all coronavirus)

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate Top 10

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week – October 31, 2020

Here are our most reprinted cartoons of last week (October 24th, through October 31st, 2020). Newspaper editors flocked to the same, few cartoons and most of the cartoons got little or no exposure. Cartoons mentioning Trump or Biden were unpopular with editors again this week.

Editors’ collective preference for a handful of cartoons was never clearer to see as the #1 and #2 cartoons this week were also the #1 and #2 cartoons of the year, since we started keeping comparative usage statistics last January. Congratulations to Dave Granlund for his runaway #1 cartoon and to Dave Whamond for his #2 of the week and year.

Special congratulations to John Darkow who has two cartoons in the Top Ten this week, and kudos to the other cartoonists with the most reprinted cartoons: Gary McCoy, Jeff Koterba, Chris Weyant, Pat Bagley, Bob Englehart and Dave Fitzsimmons.

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.

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes.  We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!

#1

Dave Granlund’s #1 cartoon was a runaway hit with newspaper editors and our most reprinted cartoon of the year.

 

#2

Dave Whamond drew the #2 most popular cartoon of both the week and the year.

 

#3

Gary McCoy takes 3rd place with the first of four Halloween cartoons in the Top Ten.

 

#4

Jeff Koterba claims 4th place.

 

#5

John Darkow takes the five spot with the first of two cartoons in the Top Ten.

 

#6

John Darkow also takes 6th place with his second of two cartoons in the Top Ten.

 

#7

Chris Weyant nabs 7th place.

 

#8

Pat Bagley is tied for 8th place.

 

#8

Bob Englehart shares 8th place.

 

#10

Dave Fitzsimmons caps off the Top Ten with this cartoon.


Please forward this to your friends – tell them our Cagle.com email newsletters are FREE and FUN! They can join the newsletter list at Cagle.com/subscribe.


Don’t miss our most popular cartoons of the week collections:

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 21st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 14th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 7th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 31st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 24th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 17th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 10th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 3rd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 26th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 19th, 2020
T
op Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 12th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 5th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 29th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 22nd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 15th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 8th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 1st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 25th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 18th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 11th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 4th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 20th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 13th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 6th, 2020

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 30th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 23rd, 2020

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 16th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 8th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Pandemic (as of May 4th)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 2nd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through 4/26/20, (all coronavirus)

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through 4/18/20, (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, through 4/11/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 4/4/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 3/29/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 3/21/20 (all coronavirus)

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate

Statistics: The Cartoons that Newspaper Editors Like … and Don’t Like

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.


The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes.  We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!


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.

Please forward this to your friends – tell them our Cagle.com email newsletters are FREE and FUN! They can join the newsletter list at Cagle.com/subscribe.


Don’t miss our most popular cartoons of the week collections:
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through August 1st, 2020
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through July 25th, 2020
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through July 18th, 2020
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through July 11th, 2020
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through July 4th, 2020
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through June 20th, 2020
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through June 13th, 2020
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through June 6th, 2020

The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through May 30th, 2020
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through May 23rd, 2020

The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through May 16th, 2020
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through May 8th, 2020
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Pandemic (as of May 4th)
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week through May 2nd, 2020
The Most popular Cartoons of the Week through 4/26/20, (all coronavirus)

The Most popular Cartoons of the Week through 4/18/20, (all coronavirus)
The Most popular Cartoons of the Week, through 4/11/20 (all coronavirus)
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week, 4/4/20 (all coronavirus)
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week, 3/29/20 (all coronavirus)
The Most Popular Cartoons of the Week, 3/21/20 (all coronavirus)

 

 

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate Top 10

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week – June 6, 2020

Here are the ten most popular cartoons of the week (May 30 -June 6, 2020). Our Top Ten is a measure of how many of our subscribing newspaper editors choose to reprint each of our cartoons, from the 63 cartoonists in our syndication package. Just about half of America’s daily, paid circulation newspapers subscribe to CagleCartoons.com.

There is a disconnect between what cartoonists want to draw, what editors want to print, and what readers want to see; this week that divide was plain to see again as there were no cartoons about President Trump in the Top Ten.  Cartoonists focused on Trump’s violent crowd clearing and Bible thumping, church photo op, drawing many great and passionate cartoons criticizing the president this week, but that is not what newspaper editors wanted.

Getting cartoons in front of readers is one of the goals of every cartoonist. Regrettably, many of our cartoonists get few or no reprints, especially the foreign cartoonists. 20% of the cartoonists get 80% of the sales and reprints, and most of the cartoonists never make it into the Top Ten.

Congratulations to Jeff Koterba of The Omaha World-Herald for the #1 most reprinted cartoon this week. Dave Granlund was a close second. Congrats also go to Dave Fitzsimmons of The Arizona Daily Star, and Bruce Plante of The Tulsa World, who each have two cartoons in the Top Ten. I was happy to see Milt Priggee make his first appearance in the Top Ten this week. Kudos also go to the rest of the artists with the most reprinted cartoons: Rick McKee, John Cole, and Dave Whamond.


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 world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes.  We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!


#1

Congratulations to Jeff Koterba of The Omaha World-Herald who drew the #1 most reprinted cartoon this week.

 

#2

Dave Granlund was a close second with this cartoon.

 

#3

Dave Fitzsimmons of The Arizona Daily Star, is tied for third place and has two cartoons in the Top Ten this week.

#3

Also tied for third is Bruce Plante of The Tulsa World, who has two cartoons in the Top Ten too.

#5

Rick McKee is in 5th place.

#6

John Cole of The Scranton Times-Tribune claims the 6th place spot.

#7

Bruce Plante is in 7th place with his second cartoon in the Top Ten. Editors love that weeping Liberty.

#8

Dave Whamond takes 8th place.

#9

Milt Priggee has the 9th most popular cartoon.

 

#10

Dave Fitzsimmons takes the #10 spot with his second of two cartoons in the Top Ten this week.


Please forward this to your friends – tell them our Cagle.com email newsletters are FREE and FUN! They can join the newsletter list at Cagle.com/subscribe.


Don’t miss our most popular cartoons of the week collections:

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 21st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 14th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 7th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 31st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 24th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 17th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 10th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 3rd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 26th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 19th, 2020
T
op Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 12th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 5th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 29th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 22nd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 15th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 8th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 1st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 25th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 18th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 11th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 4th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 20th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 13th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 6th, 2020

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 30th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 23rd, 2020

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 16th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 8th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Pandemic (as of May 4th)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 2nd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through 4/26/20, (all coronavirus)

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through 4/18/20, (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, through 4/11/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 4/4/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 3/29/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 3/21/20 (all coronavirus)

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week – May 16, 2020

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 world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes.  We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!


#1

The most popular cartoon of the week is this one by Jeff Koterba, who has a whopping FOUR cartoons in the Top Ten this week.

#2

The second most popular cartoon of the week is by Dave Granlund.

#3

The third most popular is by RJ Matson.
#4

#4

Coming in at number four is another cartoon one from Jeff Koterba.

#5

At number five is Bob Englehart.

#6

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 GranlundThis 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.


Please forward this to your friends – tell them our Cagle.com email newsletters are FREE and FUN! They can join the newsletter list at Cagle.com/subscribe.


Don’t miss our most popular cartoons of the week collections:

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 21st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 14th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through November 7th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 31st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 24th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 17th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 10th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through October 3rd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 26th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 19th, 2020
T
op Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 12th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through September 5th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 29th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 22nd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 15th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 8th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through August 1st, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 25th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 18th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 11th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through July 4th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 20th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 13th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through June 6th, 2020

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 30th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 23rd, 2020

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 16th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 8th, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Pandemic (as of May 4th)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through May 2nd, 2020
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through 4/26/20, (all coronavirus)

Top Ten Cartoons of the Week through 4/18/20, (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, through 4/11/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 4/4/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 3/29/20 (all coronavirus)
Top Ten Cartoons of the Week, 3/21/20 (all coronavirus)

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate

Most POPULAR Cartoons of the Week

Here are the 15 most popular and most reprinted CagleCartoons for the week of March 1st through 7th. We’ve started posting the cartoons that are most popular with editors in a special section on our newspaper subscribers download site. These are the cartoons that editors download the most, in high resolution, to be published in their newspapers. Since we started drawing more attention to the most popular cartoons, we’ve found that editors’ downloads on our site have doubled.

20% of our cartoons get 80% of the reprints. Editors tend to like the same cartoons –and these are the cartoon the editors liked most and published most this week. Enjoy!


We need your support for Cagle.com (and DarylCagle.com)! Notice that we run no advertising! We depend entirely upon the generosity of our readers to sustain the site. Please visit Cagle.com/heroes and make a contribution. You are much appreciated!



by Dave Granlund


By Steve Sack

Most popular cartoons of the week March 1 through 7, 2020
by John Cole

By Ed Wexler


by Bruce Plante


By David Fitzsimmons


by John Darkow


By RJ Matson


By Rick McKee


By RJ Matson


By Chris Weyant


By Adam Zyglis

By Bruce Plante

by John Cole

By Dave Granlund

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate

CagleCartoons.com Changes

We’ve made some changes to the front page of our syndicate site, CagleCartoons.com that will affect our contributing artists. Here is my latest Bloomberg cartoon that I will use an an example below.

I’ll use my recent Bloomberg cartoon as an example of the changes on CagleCartoons.com
This is the revised front page of CagleCartoons.com, our syndicate download site for editors, as it appear today.

The CagleCartoons.com site is the core of our little business. This is where our subscription customers get their cartoons and columns; these are mostly daily, paid-circulation newspapers in the USA who put our content on their editorial pages. (If you only read our blog and Cagle.com you may want to read no further, as this doesn’t affect you. This may be a bit wonky for most readers.)

–The Issues and the Changes

We’re the only syndicate that has their client download site (CagleCartoons.com) available for everyone to see. We’ve been addressing some nagging issues with how we deliver the cartoons on the site. Most editors only look for what is new on the front page of the site and don’t consider older cartoons in our vast database. Often (such as every Thursday) we had too many new cartoons for the front page and cartoons that were loaded early in the day were gone later in the day, pushed out by the newest contributions. Unless an editor visited twice a day, she wouldn’t see all of the new cartoons –and most editors don’t visit every day.

In general, 20% of the cartoons get 80% of the reprints. In other words, editors don’t like 80% of the cartoons, and with all of the cartoons rushing to leave the front page, too many editors complained that they were not seeing enough cartoons they liked.

We encourage our cartoonists to submit black and white versions of their cartoons, because cartoons designed for black and white look better than color cartoons converted to grayscale where some colors come out too dark and cartoons often flatten to a dull gray. The many black and white duplicate versions of the cartoons were taking up front page space that now goes to displaying more color versions of cartoons. The black and white images are now available on the “preview” download pages of the color “parent” cartoon.

We encourage cartoonists to upload their cartoons in a higher resolution than the cartoonists prefer, and we encourage cartoonists to save their work in tiff format, which is not “lossy” like jpg and png formats.  (Editors prefer jpg).

Cartoons should be archived in tiff format, so there is no loss to the original. We see our archive as a library and we want to treat the original cartoon files like historical documents that deserve to be preserved without loss –as high resolution tiff files.

We also encourage artists to save their work in CMYK format so their black lines are crispy and the cartoons don’t suffer from bad printing with poor registration. Editors prefer RGB. Until now editors have had to suffer from cartoons in different formats as the unruly herd of cartoonist/cats saved their work in different formats, now editors can download the tiff files as jpg files.

Trump-Friendly, Popular, and the World …

Some time ago, in response to complaints from Trump-supporting editors, we added a section near the top of the page called TRUMP FRIENDLY CARTOONS. This went a long way to dealing with the complaints from red state editors. We recently added a new section called POPULAR CARTOONS that pushed the WORLD CARTOONS section down the page below the fold; the purpose of the new section is to keep the most popular cartoons on the front page longer so editors don’t miss what they want most. The TRUMP FRIENDLY CARTOONS are often among the most popular cartoons with editors. We won’t put the same cartoons in both sections so they won’t be shown twice (or three times) on the front page, so if a TRUMP FRIENDLY cartoon is also a POPULAR CARTOON, it will appear only in the TRUMP FRIENDLY section.

The POPULAR CARTOONS aren’t really “trending” in the internet sense, because readers tend to like different cartoons than editors. In general, editors prefer funny cartoons that don’t express a strong point of view, while readers on the Web respond most to cartoons that pull no punches and reinforce their existing points of view. We still have all kinds of cartoons, strong and soft, left and right, but we’re making it easier for editors to see cartoons they prefer on our site. After all, this site is designed for ease of use by editors. (Cagle.com is designed for readers.)

We love the world cartoonists, but American editors don’t, and these are the least downloaded cartoons by our newspaper subscribers –so we’ve pushed the WORLD CARTOONS down the page they are still there, and there are just as many of them displayed.

The black and white versions of cartoons are no longer taking up spots on the front page, they are displayed on the preview pages of their accompanying “parent” color versions that editors see when they choose to download cartoons after logging in. Cartoons that exist only as black and white will still appear on the front page.

This is an example of an image preview or download page on CagleCartoons.com today, this is our syndicate download site for editors, as it appear today. This is what editors see after they log in, giving them options to download the high resolution version of the cartoon in different formats.

Preview Page Changes

Clicking on any thumbnail image on the site brings up a “preview page” that looks different for editors who have logged in. An example of what editors see is at the right.

Editors have many options for downloading cartoons, they can download the high resolution images to their device, or email the cartoon to themselves, or to another email address. They can also choose to receive different versions of the cartoons. I upload my cartoons in CMYK tiff format, which is “non-lossy” and best for some kinds of printing. Editors prefer RGB jpg format which is what they are used to getting from photo services like AP. Now editors can download in tiff, jpg and png formats, as CMYK or as RGB if the cartoonist saved her cartoon in CMYK format, as we recommend and as few cartoonists do.

When cartoonists prepare a separate black and white version of a color cartoon, it now appears as a “related variation” only on the preview page for editors to download, rather than with the thumbnails on the front page and in searches. In general, when a black and white version of a cartoon is available, one third of the downloads for the cartoon are for the black and white version.

In the future we may make other variations available to editors on the preview pages, such as foreign language versions or different dimensions that cartoonists may want to do, or such as a taller version or wider version.

Newspaper editors hate when cartoonists use dirty words, but many cartoonists love dirty words which are commonplace on the Web. We’re considering allowing cartoonists to do “dirty word versions” of their cartoons that would be available as variations since there is so much demand for that among the cartoonists. We haven’t quite convinced ourselves do that yet, since most of our subscribers are traditional newspapers. Maybe we will.

We’re also considering adding a feature that will allow editors to select the resolution of the cartoon they download. For now, the resolution of the cartoon is displayed on the preview page. Sometimes we get complaints about cartoons that artists uploaded in low resolution (this is more often a problem with the world cartoonists who have a harder time accepting higher resolution). Unfortunately, it does no good to try to increase the resolution of a low resolution original; this option is only good for resizing cartoons to lower resolutions or dimensions, which would be helpful for Web clients.

Editors can see the resolution on the preview page so they won’t be surprised after downloading the cartoon. There is more demand for higher resolution cartoons now as new devices have higher resolution displays and as better printing processes demand more from cartoon files that are blown up as illustrations.

That’s it for now. More changes will be coming soon!


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Categories
Columns

Veterans Day Cartoons to Warm an Editor’s Cold Heart

Veterans Day Cartoons to Warm an Editor’s Cold Heart

I run a syndicate, Caglecartoons.com, that distributes political cartoons to newspapers, and every year at this time we hear from editors complaining that there are few or no Veterans Day cartoons.

Some editors think of editorial cartoons as nothing more than little, topical jokes — this is troubling to political cartoonists who want to draw cartoons about solemn topics and bring a tear to the reader’s eye.

Unfortunately, editors for some of the biggest, most influential publications treat editorial cartoons as trivial jokes; a good example is Newsweek magazine, which likes to reprint cartoons that are like Jay Leno jokes, about a topic in the news but conveying no opinion that anyone would disagree with. Jay Leno jokes about the news all the time, and I have no idea what his personal opinions are.

Another wretched publication that diminishes editorial cartoons is The New York Times, which prints a weekly round-up of insipid cartoons under the title “Laugh Lines.” Don’t expect to see any thoughtful Veterans Day cartoons under the title “Laugh Lines.”

So, if a cartoonist wants to get his cartoons reprinted in The New York Times, Newsweek or some other big, national publication that likes funny, trivial jokes, he won’t be drawing any Veterans Day cartoons.

I have gathered a batch of some of my favorite Veterans Day cartoons from cartoonists who don’t care what New York Times and Newsweek editors think. These cartoons will bring a patriotic glow to even the dimmest editor as the cartoonists express their appreciation to our veterans.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 850 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. Daryl’s books “The BIG Book of Campaign 2008 Political Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2010 Edition” are available in bookstores now.

Categories
Columns

Cartoonists and Cockroaches

A column in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times starts off like this:

“POPE JOHN XXIII, or ‘Good Pope John,’ remains one of the most beloved figures in recent Catholic history. Among treasured memories of this kindly, roly-poly pope, perhaps none looms larger than the evening of Oct. 11, 1962, when he told a vast crowd on a moonlit night in St. Peter’s Square, ‘Go home tonight and give your children a kiss, and tell them that this kiss comes from the pope.’ When German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican’s stern doctrinal enforcer, was elected as Benedict XVI in April, an editorial cartoon in an Italian paper showed him looking at a similar crowd and saying, ‘Go home tonight and give your children a spanking, and tell them that this spanking comes from the pope.’

“In a nutshell, the cartoon captured many people’s expectations of Benedict XVI: a hard-line taskmaster who would bring liberals and dissenters in Roman Catholicism to heel.”

Speakers and columnists, like this one, often quote cartoons but seldom mention the name of the cartoonist. With this writer, one fourth of his column came from an uncredited cartoonist. (I think it is fitting that one fourth of my own column starts off with a quote from a writer whom I have chosen not to name.) Writers are almost always named when they are quoted, but cartoons seem to be mere anecdotes that deserve no attribution beyond, “I saw this cartoon …”

An unnamed op-ed page editor at the Los Angeles Times told me that he doesn’t like political cartoons because they tend to “overpower the words that surround them.” He went on to tell me that his two favorite cartoonists are Tom Toles and Ted Rall, two cartoonists with rudimentary drawing styles who put lots of words into their cartoons; this editor liked these cartoonists because they were “more like writers than artists.”

There seems to be a natural friction between the “picture people” and the “word people” who are troubled by those powerful pictures. A famously unnamed editor at The New York Times is quoted as saying, “We would never hire an editorial cartoonist at the Times, because we would never give so much power to one man.” Another unnamed New York Times editor is quoted as saying, “We don’t like editorial cartoons at the Times because you can’t edit a cartoon like you can edit words.”

Editors see cartoonists as “bomb throwers,” because cartoonists enjoy a different set of journalist ethics than writers. Cartoonists can put any words into the mouth of a public figure, whether those words were actual quotes or not. Cartoons make readers angry. A strong political cartoon generates much more mail from readers than the strongest words. Most editors are timid and want to avoid controversy; they choose to run syndicated cartoons that are unobjectionable gags about current topics. Cartoonists call this “Newsweekification” after the inoffensive, bland and opinionless – but funny – political cartoons that Newsweek magazine chooses to reprint each week, further trivializing political cartoons.

The power and effectiveness of political cartoons cause more and more newspapers to avoid cartoons. There are half as many editorial cartoonist jobs as there were 75 years ago. Of the biggest newspapers in America – The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune – none have political cartoonists on staff.

The newspaper industry often complains about a dwindling and aging readership as younger readers prefer to get their news through other media. The old-line “word people” lament that youngsters nowadays get their news from Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.” In fact, most young people get their news from political cartoons. Every state in the United States has middle and high school students interpret an editorial cartoon as part of state-mandated testing. Teachers who must “teach to the test” include political cartoons in their classes. Students learn their current events through political cartoons and, ironically, most of the students see newspaper political cartoons on the Internet rather than on paper (visit www.cagle.com). The “word people” who run newspapers have “Newspapers In Education” programs to try to develop a younger readership, but when a stack of newspapers is dropped on a teacher’s doorstep once a week, there is usually only one political cartoon on the editorial page – not very useful to a teacher who only needs the newspaper to teach about editorial cartoons.

Perhaps in the future we’ll see this turn around, and see more columns like this one, where cartoonists’ names are mentioned and writers’ names are not; when that happens, I expect traditional newspapers will have long gone extinct. Just as the cockroach will continue to roam the Earth long after mankind has disappeared, political cartoonists will still be crawling out from dark corners long after the “word people” have killed off newspapers.

Daryl Cagle is a political cartoonist and blogger for MSNBC.com. He is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and his cartoons are syndicated to more than 800 newspapers, including the paper you are reading. His books “The BIG Book of Bush Cartoons” and “The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2005 Edition,” are available in bookstores now.