Mike Luckovich on Memorial Cartoons

Doug Turnbull, For the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

As the years pass — now there have been six — since 95.5 WSB traffic-reporting legend Captain Herb Emory’s tragic death, the remembrances of his life are as poignant as the memories during his philanthropic, larger-than-most-of-ours life.

Certain phone calls and messages received still materialize in the brain with the permanence of a marble epitaph, but also with the warmth of Emory’s handshake and belly laugh.

But one image of the memory of Captain Herb registers in my mind more than the rest: Mike Luckovich’s perfect editorial cartoon in the Tuesday, April 15, 2014 Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Luckovich’s work often isn’t so warm. Editorial cartoons by their nature are satirical jabs at and caricatures of those in power and those at the top of the news cycle. And in Luckovich’s nearly 30 years with the AJC, he has seen his opinion on drawing about the deaths of people change.

“I found over the years I used to not like doing cartoons when someone passes away,” Luckovich shared on the most recent WSB Traffic Podcast. “But, as the years have gone by, I have found that these are some of my most effective cartoons. People really appreciate those images as a way to sort of say ‘goodbye’ and to remember the person.”

Full AJC article here.

WSB Audio Podcast with Mike expands on the subject.

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