This Week's Sneak Peek

Since I didn't quite get my #StandWithAnn cartoon posted here before midnight Sunday night, I've delayed posting This Week's Sneak Peek until Tuesday.

When I read the AAEC’s call for cartoonists to post “finished” versions of Ann Telaes’s rough sketch, I took it to mean a call to put forth basically the same cartoon. I see, however, that many of my fellow ink- and pixel-slingers have taken the core concept of her cartoon and taken it in novel and creative ways.

My own was pretty rough — I didn’t spend as much time as I normally would tweaking caricatures and varying the weight of line. And the only substantive variation I made on Telnaes’s concept was replacing the plutocrats’ money bags with their heads. (Which Dave Whamond also did.) 

Oh, and I added Elon Musk.

A few cartoonists mimicked Telnaes’s style, and good for them. I didn’t try that approach, and I’m not confident that I could pull it off. Her work has such a wonderful fluidity and animation to it — even in still images.

More on mimicry later.

Anyway, back to the cartoons in support of Ann Telnaes: At some point, once this #StandWithAnn thing has played out, someone is going to post a collection of the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all. I’m sure I’ll post a link to it when it happens.

Post Waste

Editorial cartoonists have been buzzing this weekend over a cartoon by Pulitzer Prize winning Ann Telnaes that was spiked by her employer, The Washington Post, causing her to quit the job. The cartoon would have portrayed Post owner Jeff Bezos, Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, Facebook-Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, AI CEO Sam Altman, and Disney's Mickey Mouse prostrate before a colossus Donald Trump, offering him/it bags of cash.

Telnaes explained on her Substack, where you can also find her rough sketch of the cartoon:

“As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable,” Telnaes wrote. “For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’”

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) came to Telnaes's defense with a strongly worded statement:

"… The AAEC condemns the Post and their ethical weakness. Editorial cartooning is the tip of the spear in opinion, and the Post’s cowering further soils their once-stellar reputation for standing up and speaking truth to power. We weep for the loss of this once great newspaper…

We request that all editorial cartoonists do a finished version of her rough and post it in solidarity with Ann’s brave and sadly necessary decision. Please use the hash tag #StandWithAnn…"

I therefore add my two cents to the conversation:

The bruhaha has been reported all over the internets. I suppose, in fairness, one should let the head honcho at WaPo have his say, too.

The Post’s communications director, Liza Pluto, provided The Associated Press on Saturday with a statement from David Shipley, the newspaper’s editorial page editor. Shipley said in the statement that he disagrees with Telnaes’ “interpretation of events.”

He said he decided to nix the cartoon because the paper had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and was set to publish another.

“Not every editorial judgement is a reflection of a malign force. ... The only bias was against repetition,” Shipley said.

As any editorial cartoonist will tell you — and several already have — editors have never shied away from printing an editorial cartoon that buttresses an editorial column in the same newspaper. Good God, man, that was my entire job description with the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee.

I had not been among the thousands canceling subscriptions to the Post last fall when its management spiked an editorial endorsement of Kamala Harris for President. That was in large part because I appreciate and enjoy Ann Telnaes's cartoons.

I'm now subscribing to her Substack. Soon, the newspaper publishing model for our profession will be dead and we editorial cartoonists will all be trying to live off each other's subscription to our own Substacks.

Meanwhile, if you want to subscribe to the Post, it continues to publish the cluttered, right-wing editorial cartoons of Pulitzer Prize winning Michael Ramirez, and editorial cartoons about mulled wine, neither of which risk getting Mr. Bezos on Donald Trump's Enemies List.

Jimmy, We Harshly Drew Ye

Today's Graphical History Tour leafs through some editorial cartoons from the scrapbook I kept back during Jimmy Carter's presidency. 

Back then, almost every major newspaper in the world had its own editorial cartoonist or two, and very often supplemented them with syndicated editorial cartoons from elsewhere. (And every major city had more than one daily newspaper.) Any given issue of Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report and National Review would have several editorial cartoons illustrating their reportage, even occasionally commissioned for their covers.

So I got to see many cartoonists' work in print. I'm afraid this can't be a comprehensive account of every cartoonist's caricature of the 39th President of the United States. There were hundreds of editorial cartoonists plying the trade in those days, and most of them were quite good at it.

These are the cartoons I liked best for one reason or another: some for the artwork, and others that I thought were most effective at the time, even if I disagreed with them. None of my own cartoons are in that old scrapbook, so none of them follow. (Besides, I've done that post before.)

"Don't You Fret About These Little Rascals," in Chicago Tribune, March 27, 1977

I'll start with the only one of the cartoons in my scrapbook whose cartoonist I don't know for sure. There's no signature on this cartoon, and the Chicago Tribune didn't run a credit line under it. It was not someone who regularly appeared in the Trib. 

I was impressed by the stylish line technique, as well as the caricature; coming early in the Carter administration, cartoonists were just then having to develop a Carter characterization that did not involve him smiling broadly. Quite a few came to exaggerate the distance between nose and mouth.

Next up come two of the giants of editorial cartooning from that era, both here tackling the challenge of drawing President Carter without the smile. Even taking into consideration that both of them inspired imitators in the biz, I wouldn't need to see signatures to identify the work as theirs.

"Performer and Critic" by Pat Oliphant in Washington [DC] Star, April, 1977

The simplicity and spareness of Pat Oliphant's drawing apart from that tuba sells the cartoon. Jeff MacNelly's idea below is carried by the detail and heightened perspective.

"I Sure Picked a Rough Neighborhood to Run Out of Gas In" by Jeff MacNelly in Richmond News Leader, Oct., 1977

Jack Ohman wrote in his Substack this week that both Oliphant and MacNelly hated Carter — well, Oliphant hated everybody, Ohman says. He knew them both, and I don't. Anyway, Oliphant quickly began to draw Carter as a much smaller man than he actually was, and MacNelly gradually followed. By the eve of the 1980 election, both drew cartoons in which Carter didn't even come up to Reagan's knees — their way of saying that instead of growing into the job, Carter had done the opposite. 

"Not a Bad Man" by Dick Locher in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 1979

Such was also the point of this devastating cartoon by the Trib's Dick Locher. He must have really liked this idea, rehashing it decades later with President Barack Obama in the title role.

"For Human Rights" by Don Wright in Miami News, ca. Feb. 1977

I doubt that was the message behind the relative sizes of Carter and the Russian bear in Don Wright's cartoon, drawn only a month or so into the Carter administration. It does illustrate, however, a significant foreign policy change instituted by Carter to emphasize human rights. 

U.S. foreign policy after World War II had been focused on containing communism, even at the cost of allying ourselves with repressive right-wing regimes. That the Soviet Union was both communist and repressive meant that U.S.A.-U.S.S.R. relations were not likely to change all that much.

"Is It True You're Not Leaving Washington" by Mike Peters in Dayton Daily News, ca. Nov. 1977

In matters of style, Carter was given to performative gestures: walking from his inauguration carrying his coat bag, addressing the nation in a cardigan sweater, and cancelling a foreign trip because Congress hadn't passed his energy policy bill.

Mike Peterson posted a selection of cartoons from the Carter presidency on Monday, and Steve Greenberg observed that he was the only cartoonist in that bunch who is still producing editorial cartoons for publication. I believe that Mike Peters is the only such cartoonist in this here post. 

"Of Course I'm in Charge Here" by Clyde Peterson in Houston Chronicle, ca. Nov., 1977

Clyde Peterson drew under the pen name CP Houston with a fetching style all his own. I do suspect that had he drawn a Black politician with lips this large, he would have been labeled, even in pre-P.C. 1977, racist. Plenty of other cartoonists on this blog post would have run the same risk.

"Born Again" by Ivan Licho in Militant, New York, Feb. 3, 1978

This cartoon by Ivan Licho for the newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party (one of my college roommates had a subscription) unfairly likens Carter to the two presidents who preceded him, but I found the drawing itself compelling. 

Its caption's reference to President Carter's religious faith sets up this next cartoon, when Carter's sagging poll numbers were lifted by achievement of a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt:

"Borne Again" by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, March, 1979

I'm not sure that there is anything special about Paul Conrad's drawing, aside from my hometown newspaper's decision to crop it rather severely. I just like the pun.

As I said above, this was not intended to be a comprehensive collection of U.S. cartoonists by any means; others have already tackled that task. What I haven't seen is any sampling of foreign editorial cartoonists; so here's a random bunch from my scrapbook.

"Either This Man Is Dead or My Watch Has Stopped" by Leslie Gibbard in Manchester Guardian, Sept. 1977

Under President Carter, the U.S. officially recognized the government of "Red China," 28 years after Maoist forces overthrew Chiang Kai-Shek. It was an opening made possible by Richard Nixon's historic trip to China in 1972, although our continuing "Two China" policy doesn't quite mean we've surrendered Taiwan to Beijing. Yet.

Even more impressive than transforming Carter into Groucho Marx is Leslie Gibbard's transformation of Chinese President Hua Guofeng into Margaret Dumont.

"You're Not Going to Let a Little Teng Like That Spoil Your Appetite" by Ed Uluschak in Edmonton Journal, ca. Feb., 1979

While I was in college, my parents gifted me a subscription to the monthly Atlas World Press Review, later just World Press Review, which published articles, columns, and editorial cartoons from around the world. (I continued subscribing to it after I graduated until I noticed that my income was falling far short of my expenses, forcing me to cut it along with Cinemax and pre-packaged frozen dinners.)

Ya'acov "Ze'ev" Farkash in Ha'aretz, Tel Aviv, ca. Jan., 1980

Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev sent Russian troops into Afghanistan to bolster a client government there in the winter of 1979-1980, while the Carter administration was hobbled by preoccupation with the hostage crisis in Iran.

by Keith Waite in Sun, London, Feb., 1980

Carter's response of pulling the U.S. out of Moscow's 1980 Olympic Games is beautifully skewered by Britain's Keith Waite. Russia retaliated by pulling out of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

"Scoops" by Doug Sneyd, self-syndicated, Oct., 1980

In a way, what doomed the Carter administration from the start was that there was no outside voice coming to its defense or lauding its achievements. Its triumphs quickly faded, while the mistakes, misfortunes, and malaise lingered on.

I've read some historical fiction recently imagining Carter reelected to a second term. He would then have been in office as OPEC's grip on world economic power was broken, the Soviet Union became unable to hide losses in Afghanistan and two of its sclerotic leaders died in quick succession. The Equal Rights Amendment might have passed. He'd have gotten to name a Justice to the Supreme Court. 

He'd also have been in office as HIV/AIDS spread like wildfire, terrorists killed 143 Marines in Beirut, and the U.S. went through a recession.

Assuming he didn't get shot to impress Jodie Foster.

Instead, he went on to be one of the most exemplary ex-presidents in history, and his family got to celebrate his 100th birthday with him.

Q Toon: Jimmy Carter, 1924-2024

In case any of my publications were coming out this week, here’s my memorial tribute to President Jimmy Carter. 

There have actually been a few good ones from my colleagues whose work appears in daily newspapers — thoughtful pieces and, in some cases, apologies for misjudging him way back when it mattered.

You can count on one hand the editorial cartoonists publishing now who were getting paid to draw during Carter’s presidency. I was drawing for my college newspaper ( for exposure, before we called it that); my cartoons about Carter for the Manitou Messenger were few and far between, but generally critical.

But at least I was harsher on Teddy Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

Those of us old enough to remember Carter’s presidency from start to finish also remember how the constant drumbeat of criticism directed at Carter resulted in eight years of Ronald Reagan. It enabled Reagan to cruise to reelection simply by making “Carter” into Walter Mondale’s first name.

This may be why some of us were too hesitant to criticize Joe Biden, who, like Carter, will probably be ranked by history in the middle of U.S. presidents (assuming he escapes the fate of James Buchanan). We saw Donald Trump, a mean-spirited liar, cheat, grifter, fascist, and overgrown brat— not in the Gen Alpha sense — plotting his comeback aided and abetted by his lickspittles in Congress, the courts, and right-wing media. (You too, Wall Street Journal.)

We did not want any responsibility for clearing the path for Trump, next to whom Ronald Reagan looks like FDR.

Well, maybe not FDR. LBJ, perhaps.

Carter had to cope with suddenly rising energy prices, inflation, and the Iran hostage crisis— that last one worsened by a rescue helicopter crash and Reagan’s lackeys colluding with Iran to keep the crisis going through the 1980 election. 

On the positive side of the ledger, he negotiated a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt that still stands, strove to run an administration that looked like America, and set policies which lessened our reliance on petrocracies that resented us then and despise us still. And even his harshest critics concede that his post-presidency was nothing short of exemplary.

May angels sing him to his well-deserved rest.