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| President Marc Murphy addresses a sheaf of cartoonists; your humble scribbler, appropriately, at far left. Photo by Angelo Lopez |
I mentioned yesterday last weekend's convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, where we voted to reconstitute the organization as the Association of Political Artists.
From outgoing AAEC President Marc Murphy's letter to the membership:
Of course, the Big News is that the Membership (including those attending in person and via Zoom link) voted to approve the two proposals I described in my last message to you. I won’t speak for them but it’s fair to say, at the least, that the members voted not just to save our organization and take steps to inject it with new life, but also to reposition it to respond more directly to the threats our work and Free Speech itself face. So, as soon as appropriate and necessary bylaw, website, and other changes can be made the AAEC will become the Association of Political Artists (APA) and will become an affiliate member of the vaunted Society of Illustrators.
The move has been a long time coming. Vulture capitalists have been picking the bones of the nation's newspapers since before the turn of the millennium, and no profession dependent upon printed newspapers is going to be around long.
The median age of the AAEC membership is probably around 65; the youngest member at the convention was about 40. Two members who made it to the convention are recovering from strokes. KAL Kallaugher spoke to conventioneers from his hospital bed, where he's waiting for a new heart.
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| Kevin "KAL" Kallaugher and David Horsey |
Not that you should read anything into that regarding the fate of political cartooning today.
There is no lack of graphic political commentary out there, much of it created by persons in their 20's and 30's. They're just not creating it for newspaper editorial pages. Their work ranges from memes to long-form webcomics, in the cloud or on the walls, static or animated.
The AAEC-cum-APA is going to spend the next year trying to define what a political artist is, hopefully in such a way that we don't have to spend another year defining what it isn't.
But we're not about to welcome the Baltimore Sun editorial board.
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| Jack Ohman moderates a panel of Joel Pett, Ann Telnaes, and Steve Brodner on "Anger Management." |
There were a lot of other presentations and panel discussions over the three days of the convention. Topics included protecting our work from being "scraped" for ai; recovering from being let go or suffering a stroke; and cartooning for a community under siege.
The AAEC's Ink Bottle Award went to a pair of longtime volunteers at our convention. The Rex Babin Award for local-issue cartooning went to one of those cartoonists recovering from a stroke, Clay Jones. (By the way, I reported to Facebook some troll who posted a nasty comment about Clay on a photo I had posted there, and I will not approve any such comments here, either.)
I didn't buy any new books at this convention, so I have no new book reviews to offer. I did, however, get Jack Ohman to sign my copy of his latest book, Weird. Had I known that Steve Sack would make it to Sacramento, I'd have loved to get him to autograph my copy of BOOK. I wouldn't expect him to fill a whole page, though.
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| Your humble scribbler next to a display panel that included one of his cartoons. |
Speaking of making it to the convention, stormy weather in Chicago disrupted the travel arrangements of myself and several others. I had originally bought a plane trip on American Airlines involving a layover in the City of Broad Shoulders, starting from Milwaukee around 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning, I got American's message that the first flight would be delayed; but I was already packed and ready to leave the house at 6:00, so I left.
The agent at the check-in counter offered me the option of switching to a flight set to take off at 7:30, so I took it — only to see that flight get cancelled. The best I could get when I got to the front of the boarding counter was a noon-ish flight to Dallas connecting to a mid-afternoon plane to Sacramento that would arrive too late for me to make the first day's convention activities.
Not only did I get to watch my original plane take off without me; I had also wasted $80 checking my suitcase and upgrading my boarding group from 6 to 4. I ended up in boarding group 8 of all four planes to Sacramento and back; all four planes were completely full, and due to unavailable overhead bin space, they were begging group 8 passengers to check their bags for free.
Ah, well. Some other conventioneers from the East Coast didn't make it to Sacramento until midnight.
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| President Marc Murphy opens the Saturday night awards presentations at the Sacramento History Museum |
Our next The APA's first convention will be in New York City at the home of the Society of Illustrators.
