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

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.

Try to Get Over the Toons of October

"And Now for the Latest Stunning Development" by Tom Darcy in Newsday, Long Island NY, October 1973

I've been seeing a lot of cartoons this week echoing the sentiment of this one by Tom Darcy half a century ago.

October of 1973 was a momentous month, and not in a particularly good way. Last Saturday's deadly surprise attack by Hamas targeting Israeli civilians as they celebrated Sukkot called to mind the Yom Kippur War almost exactly 50 years ago, when the Israeli military was caught similarly unprepared.

"Hello? Mr. Nixon? Mr. Brezhnev?" by Pat Oliphant in Denver News, October, 1973

After the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel had pre-emptively anticipated attacks from its neighbors on all sides and ended up seizing the Golan Heights from Syria, the Western Bank from Jordan, and the entire Sinai peninsula from Egypt, the Israeli military was seemingly invincible. But the Yom Kippur War would be, in the words of a Newsweek headline, "a war that broke the myths."

The UAR in Pat Oliphant's cartoon refers to the United Arab Republic, at the time a proposed union of Syria and Egypt that never actually came about. The two nations attacked Israel simultaneously, taking many Israeli soldiers captive. Egypt recaptured much of the Sinai; Syria, despite backing from Iraq, was soon driven back out of the Golan.

"An Eye for an Eye" by Corky Trinidad in Honolulu Star-Bulletin, October (?) 1973

There was an Arab-language cartoon at the time that mocked Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who had lost an eye during World War II, wondering whether the outlook for Israel would be worse with two eyes, but I've been unable to find what book or scrapbook I have it in. Suffice it to say that Corky Trinidad's cartoon here riffs on an oft-cited biblical saying in discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by referencing both Dayan's eyepatch and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat's signature sunglasses.

Trinidad's cartoon expresses a view that both sides in the conflict are to blame for the cycle of violence that seems as never-ending now as it did half a century ago.

"You Guys Are Breaking My Back" by Ralph Yoes in San Diego Tribune, Oct. 1973

Ralph Yoes was not alone in suggesting, however, that there was plenty of blame to go around beyond the immediate belligerents. The United States was selling weapons and fighter planes to Israel, and the Soviet Union was arming the Arabs.

"Latter-Day Israelites Wandering 40 Years in the Wilderness" by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, Oct. 21, 1973

Wherever one has chosen to allot the blame, there has been one party who has consistently been, and remains, the victim. For way, way over that 40 years now. 

"Hell No, I Won't Go" by Wayne Stayskal in Chicago Today, October, 1973

Meanwhile, a U.S. District Attorney's investigation of corruption of Baltimore, Maryland officials discovered evidence linking Vice President Spiro Agnew to kickbacks from state contractors while he had been governor, and continuing after he was elected Richard Nixon's Vice President. Citing as precedent an 1826 House of Representatives investigation of Andrew Jackson's Vice President John C. Calhoun, Agnew argued that a vice president was immune from indictment by the criminal court system.

Deferring to the charges filed by the D.A., Speaker of the House Carl Albert (D-OK and third in line for the presidency) declined to open congressional investigation of the charges. As you may already know, both the House Judiciary Committee and the Nixon administration were quite occupied with other important matters in October of 1973.

"Yes, Thank You for Your Support, Mr. President" by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, October, 1973

Agnew pleaded no contest to felony charges of tax evasion and resigned on October 10. Mike Peters's cartoon the next morning referenced a novelty watch and Agnew's dashed presidential hopes.

No caption, by Mike Peters in Dayton Daily News, Oct. 11, 1973

The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, passed after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, authorized the president to nominate a new Vice President, in this case Congressman Gerald R. Ford, subject to confirmation by the Senate.

"I Hate to Criticize the Framers of the Constitution" by Phil Interlandi in Los Angeles Times, Oct. 23, 1973

Thus the nation turned its eyes back to Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal, and just in time for the "Saturday Night Massacre."

"Sure I Did It" by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, October 22, 1973

Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, working for the Department of Justice, convinced Federal Judge John Sirica to subpoena nine White House tape recordings, the existence of which had been made public in Senate testimony that summer. In a bold attempt to quash Cox's investigation, Nixon demanded that Attorney General Elliot Richardson fire him.

Instead, Richardson resigned, followed by his Deputy, William Ruckelshaus. The next in line, Solicitor General Robert Bork did Nixon's bidding.

"Simple" by Tom Darcy in Newsday, Long Island NY, October, 1973

Blowback was swift. Time magazine and newspapers across the country called for Nixon to resign. At last, Nixon relented, promising to allow Judge Sirica to listen to the tapes...

"Well, First Let Me Emphasize My Complete Faith in Judge Sirica" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, Oct., 1973

... then announced that two of the subpoenaed tapes were missing. And it only got worse from there.

✍

I had originally intended to post today a report of last week's joint convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and our Canadian counterpart, but others have said just about anything I had in mind, and said it better than I would have.

I will say that it was a pleasure to meet with others in my beleaguered profession. That includes some, such as Al Goodwyn, whom I met for the first time at this convention. I know his work mainly because GoComics places him alphabetically first on its page (until Aaron Abelard comes along), and his views there are invariably opposed to mine. 

The AAEC had seen an exodus of conservative editorial cartoonists in recent years — perhaps because liberals like me keep getting elected to the governing board. But the purpose of the AAEC is not now, nor has it ever been, to push an ideological agenda. It exists first and foremost to promote editorial cartooning — right, center, or left — and to stand for professionalism and honest debate.

Nowadays, vulture capitalists are bleeding newspapers dry, reducing them to withered husks of what they used to be. The bean-counters at McClatchy summarily dismissed three Pulitzer-prize-winning editorial cartoonists in the months leading up to our convention; another was fired from a prominent position less than a week before our gathering. 

So discussion always turns to: if not newspapers, what? Patreon? Books? Television? Movies? Bar coasters? (Seriously. Bar coasters.)

In our element at the Cartoon Art Museum

One final note: I was excited to find a book of Vaughn Shoemaker's editorial cartoons in this room of the Cartoon Art Museum during our opening reception. I hoped that it would include the cartoon featuring my father when he was 5 years old. Unfortunately, the cartoons in the book dated from the 1950's, two decades too late. Aw, shucks.

The Pulitzers Draw a Blank

We editorial cartoonists have had our collective nose out of joint all week over a snub by the Pulitzer Prize Board, which announced that it would not award a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning this year. They named a three-way tie for Honorable Mention among Ken "Tom the Dancing Bug" Fisher, Lalo Alcaraz, and Marty Two Bulls Sr., but no winner.

The first Pulitzer for editorial cartooning was given to Rollin Kirby in 1922. That might have been a one-time thing, if they hadn't revived the editorial cartooning award in 1924. The Pulitzer board skipped us over four more times before this year, most recently in 1973.

Like 2020, 1972 was a very eventful year, with plenty of excellent cartoons the Pulitzer board might have considered. I was only just beginning to appreciate editorial cartoons myself in 1972, but I offer here a sampling of what the judges might have had before them when considering the Best Editorial cartoon award for that year.

These cartoons don't include all of the best cartoons, or certainly best cartoonists, of the day; I've tried to approach this with the mindset of a theoretical Pulitzer judge, so the emphasis is on Most Important Issues rather than Funniest Gags. I therefore offer apologies up front to the cartoonists I have included and to those I have not.

"We Must Not Falter..." by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, April 28, 1972

The war in Vietnam was perhaps the biggest news story in American media throughout 1972, so there were plenty of very good cartoons about it. Take for example this Bill Sanders cartoon, quoting Richard Nixon announcing U.S. escalation of bombing North Vietnam.

Pat Oliphant won a Pulitzer in 1967 for a cartoon drawn specifically with the Pulitzer committee in mind, and which he considered then and now one of the worst cartoons he has ever drawn. From that point forward, he has boycotted the Pulitzer Award Game; but if he hadn't, the committee might have considered this excellent cartoon:

"Greetings, French Liberators" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, April 17, 1972

In Oliphant's absence, the committee might have considered this cartoon in a similar vein by Jules Feiffer:

"The South Vietnamese Have Made Great Progress..." by Jules Feiffer in Village Voice, New York, 1972

The war wasn't the only major event of the year, of course. President Nixon's state visit to the People's Republic of China was a game changer in geopolitics.

No caption, by Mike Peters in Dayton Daily News, February, 1972

And, of course, there was a presidential election, and a third-degree burglary at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. 49 years ago this week that ended up making a bit of news.

"The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, August 28, 1972

It's almost unfair to include Herblock for consideration. By 1972 the Dean of American Editorial Cartoonists, Herblock had already won two Pulitzers, in 1942 and 1954. Likewise, it's probably unfair to include John Fischetti, the 1969 honoree.

"...Halt the Erosion of Moral Fiber..." by John Fischetti in Chicago Daily News, October, 1972

The Pulitzer committee has lately shied away from cartoons about individual U.S. politicians (which disqualifies all the above cartoons), but there were more general observations about the election which might have caught their attention.

"My Fellow Americans..." by Bill Canfield in Newark Daily News, May, 1972

Democratic candidate George Wallace of Alabama was shot while campaigning for the presidency. While his injuries would not prove fatal, the attempted assassination was less than a decade after the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., seeming to augur political murder as becoming the norm. Thankfully, it has remained the exception, not the rule.

"Remember the Good Ol' Chicago Days..." by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, July, 1972

On a lighter note, perhaps Hugh Haynie's observation of a generational shift in political involvement would have swayed more optimistic judges.

"Second and Third Will Not Be Awarded" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, October, 1972

But when one turns to global issues, any rose-colored glasses again turn blood red. Terrorism on behalf of the Palestinian cause spilled out from the Middle East, as eleven Israeli athletes were murdered by Black Septembrists at the Munich Olympics. Earlier in the year, thirteen unarmed civil rights demonstrators were shot dead by British Army paratroopers on "Bloody Sunday" in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

Other, more generalized issues of the day which might have interested the Pulitzer folks included pollution, drug use, the cost of living, or, for the same reason that the Oscars love films about movie making, freedom of the press.

No caption, by Bill Mauldin in Chicago Sun-Times, 1972

I'm obliged to point out that the Pulitzer committee stopped giving awards for specific cartoons in 1976, having begun in 1964 awarding a cartoonist for his or her entire output for the year. (Tony Auth's 1975 cartoon is somewhat of an outlier; otherwise the last award given to a specific cartoon was that given in 1967 to Pat Oliphant. In 1990, the award to Tom Toles did cite a specific cartoon, but only as "exemplifying" his body of work.)

I must also note that just because the Pulitzer committee doesn't give out an award in a particular year does not necessarily mean that the judges didn't find any work worthy of their consideration. It can also mean that there was a hung jury — that none of the pieces under consideration could garner support of over half of the Pulitzer board.

And, as Poynter points out, it doesn't just happen to us cartoonists.

It is fairly unusual — but not unprecedented — for the Pulitzer Board to decide not to name a winner in one of its journalism categories. Since 2000, the board has chosen not to give an award five times. No awards were given in Feature Writing in 2014, Editorial Writing in 2012, Breaking News Reporting in 2011, Editorial Writing in 2008 and Feature Writing in 2004.

I'm not an insider, so I don't really know how the Pulitzer committee works when there isn't a majority vote winner. With so many categories, they obviously don't fight it out for hours like Twelve Angry Men; and I hope they don't operate like the U.S. Senate, allowing one person to thwart a vote by merely threatening to filibuster everybody else.

Yet somehow, the committee managed last year to ignore the three editorial cartoonists nominated by a jury of their peers, coming up with New Yorker cartoonist Barry Blitt instead. The committee similarly passed over finalists to award non-finalists in 1979, 1987, 1990, 1996, and 1998. Apparently there must be some degree of back and forth negotiating behind those Pulitzer doors. 

In view of all this, I guess this year's Pulitzer decision isn't as insulting to our profession as many of us initially took it to be. At least, that is, compared to those occasions when the Pulitzer folks passed over the finalists to give Best Editorial Cartoonist to a non-editorial-cartoonist.

Do you think Barry Blitt or Berkeley Breathed even paid that $75.00 entrance fee?

Department of Corrections

In Saturday's blog post, I wrote that Mike Peters "didn't send us material for the parody issue." I guess mebbe I should have checked the archives before I wrote that.

Okay, technically, he didn't send us material expressly for the parody issue, but he sent us his "20th Century Mother Goose" cartoon, and we used it in the parody issue.

Okay, it was College Press Service or whatever distribution service that sent the cartoon, not Mike Peters.

Okay? Now get the Snopes people off my case!

No Fool Like an Old Fool

It's Spoofback Saturday and April Fool's Eve to boot, so let's take a break from wallowing in the centennial of World War I just a bit.

This is not a Mike Peters cartoon. It's a parody I drew for my college newspaper's mock issue in 1979. In addition to scribblings by resident St. Olaf cartoonists, the Manitou Messenger ran Mike Peters's cartoons distributed by College Press Service. They were more dependable than my editorial cartoons were; but as irrepressible as Mr. Peters was and is, he didn't send us material for the parody issue in which we student journalists blew off steam.

So I mimicked his style as best I could in a cartoon buttressing up one of the conceits of that year's parody issue: that there had been some sort of nuclear accident involving Ytterboe Hall, a 79-year-old red brick dormitory that, in reality, the school administration wanted to tear down (over the objection of its residents and our "Keep Ytt Up" slogan. Ytt would be demolished a few years after I graduated, but St. Olaf eventually put the Ytterboe name on a new building more in keeping with the campus's limestone motif.)

One of my other Mike Peters parodies didn't involve campus issues at all. Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of State Al Haig was the John Bolton of the day, famously declaring after the president's attempted assassination by John Hinckley, "I am in charge!" I think, however, that the caption beneath this cartoon must have been copied from a real Mike Peters cartoon, because I don't remember inking it. I don't have the original of this cartoon, and it was a long time ago, so I could be wrong. On the other hand, I wasted a lot of time mimicking halftone with a Bic pen and a ruler on these things; the forgery of Peters's print style in the caption, if that's what it is, is considerably more true to Peters's handwriting than that of the word "France" on the map.

But how does one parody one's own work?

For one thing, I answered any reader who had told me "I don't get it" by drawing cartoons so impossibly dense, inside, and disjointed that nobody could possibly "get it." Except for Idi Amin (referencing an earlier cartoon that had him hiding out in the utility tunnels beneath the campus), most of the characters in the above cartoon were campus personages. And just to be as obscure as possible, Gwenellda's time-traveling friend was a character from The Uglies, a Manitou Messenger cartoon by L.K. Hanson, dating from a decade before any of us students had come to campus.

Having a time-traveling character in my cartoon would have been more impressive if I had somehow known to include the work of 2018 Herb Block Award winner Ward Sutton, who drew for the Messenger eight years later than I had.

But if I had had that power to see into the future, I wouldn't have been so cocksure that I'd never need to know Thing One about computers. And I might have made it to the Messenger's staff photo on time senior year.

For the UW-Parkside Ranger (renamed the Stranger) in 1984, I depicted the swearing in of the unnamed police detective in the "Funny Paper Caper" I was drawing that year as the 37th president of the United States (with a character from fellow Ranger cartoonist John Kovalic's "Wild Life" as Veep).

Various political figures and a few Ranger staffers populate most of the rest of the cartoon.

But there's more to a parody newspaper than cartoons. Photo editors liked to get in on the laughs, too. Holland Hall at my alma mater is blessed with the most massive urinals you have ever seen in your life, so some enterprising Messenger staffer depicted the school track team posing inside one.

Other memorable photos I remember involved an enormous abstract iron art piece called "The Spirit Also Helpeth Us" by Dorothy Berge (no relation as far as I've ever been able to tell), depicted in various situations such as addressing a convocation in Boe Memorial Chapel. Or gigantic mutant squirrels menacing the campus due to that nuclear leak in Ytterboe.

And in those days, they did it all without PhotoShop.

So did I, taking a file photo from 1955 that appeared to show Ronald Reagan talking to an empty space, and using it to illustrate a bogus story about Basil Wraithbone, a washed-up actor who used to be one of the Ghostly Trio on "Casper, the Friendly Ghost."

If PhotoShop had been around in those days, and if I had had the foresight not to be so snooty about eschewing computers, I could have made it so that you could still see the empty space behind Mr. Wraithbone.

That story is too long to include here in full; so here's another bit of Fake News I wrote.

It's too long, too, but short enough for today's post, and I got to use a couple names I picked up in Medieval History class.

Because being able to namecheck Frankish kings seemed so much more useful back then than getting into the vanguard of the computer revolution.