A Letter from the Editor

From time to time, I devote these Graphical History Tours to reports of books I have recently bought.

Having taken my sister to the airport in Milwaukee this week, I was obliged to stop in at the Renaissance Book Store in the concourse. I frequently find old books of editorial cartoons there, and this visit was no exception.

Cover cartoons by Karl Hubenthal, Paul Conrad, Robert Graysmith, and Jeff MacNelly

The Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year — 1974 is one that was not already in my collection, so I had to bring it home. The cartoons are from 1973: the year the U.S. withdrew from the Vietnam War; the Watergate scandal burst wide open; Spiro Agnew resigned the vice presidency; Syria and Egypt attacked Israel; the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries imposed an oil embargo on Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, resulting in a severe energy crisis; and U.S. troops massacred Native American protesters at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

It was also the year the Supreme Court issued its decision in Roe v. Wade, but there is no mention of it in this particular book.

I was really struck, however, by the book's forward, written by Washington Star-News editor Newbold Noyes. In light of the state of newspaper editorial cartooning these days, I'd like to quote it in full; so aside from a few cartoons from the book and my credit lines, the rest of today's GHT is Mr. Noyes:

"The Boss Says Make It Funny" by Bill Crawford (for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Sept. 4, 1973) on back cover

So far as an editor is concerned, the cartoon on his editorial page is that white-hot point of light beneath the burning glass. Here the newspaper's editorial statement is reduced to its simplest and strongest terms. More readers are likely to register the cartoonist's message, on any given day, than any other commentary. For better or worse, this pictorial comment comes closer to embodying the spirit of the newspaper than any other element in its pages.

So far as the editor is concerned, this is not always for the better. We have to be candid about this: for an editor, the power focused in the cartoonist's penpoint is something of a problem. When editors meet, the things that really are on their minds do not appear on the formal agenda — they surface in talk around the bar.

When the board of the American Society of Newspaper Editors met the other day on the shores of Arizona's Lake Powell, its members did not devote their first cocktail session to the beauties of the second largest man-made body of water, or even to Watergate. They talked instead about the Los Angeles Times' decision to move its editorial cartoon to the the "op-ed" page, that kaleidoscope of other opinion appearing opposite the newspaper's own editorials.

"Alas, Poor Agnew..." by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1973

Was the switch being made on general principles, or because of some clash of opinion on a major issue developing between editor and cartoonist? Was it a good idea for the rest of us? How about moving the cartoon off the editorial page only on those days when it evidenced a major departure from the views of the editor? How would their cartoonist [Paul] Conrad react?

Evidently, the Times' just-announced move touched a sensitive and responsive nerve in editorial circles.

The problem, of course, was not a new one; it was just that here was somebody doing something about a situation that, subliminally, had perplexed us all. I hearkened back, as the talk rolled on, to the time when our morning competitor in Washington warmly supported Eisenhower in its editorial columns, while its editorial cartoonist [Herblock] persisted in presenting the General as the very personification of Simple Simon. The town took wry delight in the Post's embarrassment, but the newspaper somehow survived. It seems to me the cartoonist went on a vacation, or something.

I am going into all this not to suggest that editorial cartoons no longer belong on editorial pages (which seems to me a dubious proposition), but only to make one point: there is potency in this branch of journalistic commentary. A good argument could be advanced, I think, that the editorial cartoonists in this country have more immediate impact on public opinion than editors, or columnists, or TV anchormen, or any other group.

What makes a good cartoon? Everyone has his prejudices. I, for instance, happen to be partial to those that make a serious point with a humorous twist. In times such as these, however, when very little that happens is at all funny, it is fortunate indeed that a good cartoon can be sad, or bitter, or furious.

Some say that, because cartoons rely on over-statement or exaggeration — distortion, if you will — they must be basically mean. I don't agree; a number of my favorite cartoonists, including Gib Crockett of the Washington Star-News, are consistently good-natured in their approach. That quality should be no more unwelcome on an editorial page than it is in real life.

"Yankee Gone Home" by Gib Crockett in Washington Star-News, January, 1973

The essence of good cartooning, needless to say, is simplicity. This is true of almost any sort of artistic expression, graphic or otherwise, but in cartooning it is the name of the entire game. You cannot be subtle in a cartoon. You cannot be balanced. You cannot worry too much even about being fair.

The cartoonist produces his effect by over-simplifying — by stripping away all the qualifications, the "yes, buts" and "on the other hands," and reducing his message to one pure unequivocal statement.

That, obviously, makes editors uneasy. One such pure, unequivocal statement says far more to more readers than a thousand carefully considered, nicely balanced words. So in addition to being more influential with public opinion in general, the cartoonist may even have more effect than the editor on the public's perception of his newspaper's stance.

This is why the editorial nose is always out of joint in relation to cartoonists — more than usual these days, because of the unusually complex and critical nature of the issues we are trying to deal with. My own guess is that, despite their discomfiture, most editors will let cartoonists continue to dominate the editorial pages, just as they have all along.

The reason, in one pure and unequivocal statement, is that the editorial page would be so damn dull without its cartoon!

—NEWBOLD NOYES, November 5, 1973

"And That's the Truth" by Mike Peters in Dayton Daily News, August 16, 1973