Baltimore Sun contributing editorial cartoonist, Kevin Kallaugher (KAL) recently learned one of his cartoons from 1992 had changed a politician’s mind on a city issue of how to handle an adult store in the downtown area that was attracting drug dealing and prostitution. The four panel cartoon depicted then mayor Kurt Schmoke blowing up a building called The Block only to find the remnants blown outward into smaller pieces where they’d take root and spread. The mayor decided to withdraw his legislation to rezone the area and pursue other enforcement options to deal with the area.

KAL learned about the affect of his cartoon after the former mayor penned an essay describing the influence of a newspaper on local politicians.

The video below is Senator Howard Baker’s tribute to Charlie for his contributions to the country and the political discourse.

Circumstances aside, however, Beeler says he’s glad to return to Central Ohio, where his 4-year-old son, Max, can get to know his grandparents. In fact, Beeler and his wife, Eve, are temporarily renting the house right next door to his parents’ Bexley home.

Beeler also had another reason to return to Central Ohio: It brought him closer to the Blue Jackets, a team he’s followed since their 2000 debut.

“I started playing hockey in college,” he says. “I used some money that I got from winning the college cartooning awards and bought equipment and paid for a ‘learn how to skate and play hockey’ program in D.C.” He says he used to listen to Blue Jackets games online in his dorm room.

Via: Mike Rhode

Glenn Fleishman writes about the uptick in recognition for Matt Bors who was honored this year as a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Herblock Award winner and the SPJ Sigma Delta Chi Award.

He’s scruffy, doesn’t own a suit, and lives in Portland. He expresses withering contempt at politicians, mainstream media, and what he views as hypocrisy. He’s never made more than $15,000 a year from his cartoons, and supplements that income with illustration, freelance editorial jobs, and, possibly, blood plasma—at least he did in college; he has the scar to prove it.

The 28-year-old Bors was thus a bit surprised this year, and occasionally nonplussed, when he won the Herblock Prize for “excellence in editorial cartooning,” was a finalist (with Oregonian newspaper staffer Jack Ohman) for the Pulitzer Prize, and received a Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award.

[expletive], Matt, when did you [expletive] sell out?

He didn’t. The establishment came to him after a stellar run of cartoons in 2011, in which he sent up the pope, climate deniers, Ariana Huffington, the death of newspapers, Mitt Romney, marriage inequality, and our Kenyan-born, American-citizen killing, war-loving, extrajudicial president (who we love dearly and are praying, to all our gods and Richard Dawkins, gets re-elected).

Guardian reporter Saeed Kamali Dehghan, who has provided the most details on the Iranian cartoonist sentenced to 25 lashes for depicting a local Prime Minister in a soccer jersey, is now reporting that the sentence against cartoonist Mahmoud Shokraye will most likely be quashed after the MP withdrew his complaint after international outcry.

From the Guardian:

In a statement, Ashtiani attempted to exonerate himself by blaming the court for the sentence of lashing, saying he merely sued the publication for defamation but the court, instead, condemned the cartoonist.

“Following my complaint against [Nameye] Amir for a series of unjust allegations, the court sentenced the paper’s cartoonist to 25 lashes,” he said in quotes carried by Fars. “I did so in protest at using unethical ways to make unjust allegations, therefore I hereby withdraw my complaint against this artist.”

The resulting story was story boarded and presented to 18 major publishers though Matt’s new agent. Interest was high and the book went into an auction process where it was finally snatched up by a MacMillan publishing company, Roaring Brook Press.

Here are three sneak peaks at the original watercolor art Matt created for the book. He tells me that while he’s comfortable coloring on the computer, he wanted to do the original art in watercolor. There’s more spontaneity and what Matt called “fabulous accidents” that makes the art more interesting and visually appealing than something created in a pixel perfect controlled environment of Photoshop.

It took eight weeks to do the final illustrations – about 42 of them.

Here’s a look at the final cover:

Matt is working on his second book – due to his publisher this fall. Picture books are not replacing editorial cartooning for him. As he tells me, he’s just expanding the meaning of “cartoonist” for him to include

I’ll post news when the book comes available.

Last week I posted news that an editorial cartoon by Lexington Herald-Leader cartoonist Joel Pett enraged University of Kentucky for criticizing coach John Calipari for ending UK’s annual series with Indiana.

Joel describes returning from Washington DC where he helped the Cartoonists Rights Network committee to select a worthy Courage in Cartooning Award for a cartoonist who has shown bravery against threats to his or her cartooning.

I got off the plane Tuesday afternoon and have spent nearly every waking hour since dealing with angry hoop fans, displeased, to put it mildly, at the way I lampooned UK Coach John Calipari after he refused to play Indiana in Bloomington again.

A dozen or so have canceled their papers. Many dozens have sent me e-mails, most of them unprintable, some containing veiled threats. A handful called my home, one at 2 a.m., claiming to be outside. A UK fan posted my home address on the Internet and suggested it as a target for vandalism. A couple of correspondents lectured me that IU students treated Calipari and the Cats rudely in Bloomington during last season’s thriller. Imagine that.

The award will be give during the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention in September in Washington DC.