By contrast, the animated editorial cartoons I’ve seen have been about 30 seconds long and have essentially been a two-panel cartoon with the transition animated. There’s not enough substance to be engaging on the level of a Warner Brothers cartoon, but the animation is enough to take the mental exercise out it.

That’s a bad thing — You need the reader to make that jump from Panel One to Panel Two in his mind — the resulting “expectation-versus-outcome” tension is essential to the humor. To show the transition is to dull the experience.

In my mind, “reading” an animated editorial cartoon is like hearing someone with no sense of set-up or timing tell a joke. And it’s galling to me when it comes from someone whose unanimated cartoons have been sharp and enjoyable.

The reason for the demise of editorial cartooning is quite simple.

That reason is, the number of publishers who understand and believe in freedom of speech and the ‘market place of ideas’ is rapidly shrinking…..and as they go so does the profession of EDITORIAL cartooning.

WM “Exactly. Good analogy. But that just makes it an animated cartoon, not an animated editorial cartoon.”

I think that line is still murky. I just did one on the $700 billion bailout that throws the financial class at the working class. It’s the same concept of the big fatcat picking the poor guy’s pockets, a static editorial cartoon we’ve seen a thousand times. I just stood it up and dramatized it.

Uh, yeah… anyone know of any newsletter, small web site, or “obscure” free weekly that actually has (or will ever have) a budget for such things? How exactly does the demise of big newspapers lead to more money for small publications to pay for our stuff?

Where else can you see Ann Telnaes’ animated editorial cartoons other than on WashingtonPost.com?
See? WashingtonPost.com PAYS Ann to make animated cartoons and you have to go to their web site to view them.

There are cartoonists out there showing everyone how to make money online, most people are just blind to it.

Exactly. Good analogy. But that just makes it an animated cartoon, not an animated editorial cartoon.

“The future’s not set. There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.”
-John Conner

To me the animated editorial cartoons have a lot more in common with a Warner bros short than a print editorial cartoon.

The internet has provided a terrific outlet for animation of all kinds because it can support art that happens in time not just in space. However, there will always be a market for print satire. It’s just hard to see where that market will be in the future if print fails. I think Daryl is making the case that, just because some editorial cartoonists choose to change to animation as a new art form to explore does not mean all editorial cartoonists will do so or that the traditional static cartoon will die.