Steve Benson – RIP
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Editorial cartoonist Steve Benson has passed away.
Stephen Reed (Steve) Benson
January 2, 1954 – July 8, 2025
The Arizona Mirror is reporting the death of Steve Benson:
Steve Benson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist known for his sharp wit and incisive commentary on American politics, has died at the age of 71.
After being laid off by The Arizona Republic in 2019, Benson joined the Arizona Mirror, shortly after the nonprofit digital news outlet launched. He continued to produce thought-provoking cartoons for the Mirror until his retirement in 2024, capping off a remarkable career that spanned nearly half a century.
In spring 2024, Benson suffered a stroke, from which he never recovered.
Throughout his career, Benson’s work appeared in publications such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Time magazine. He was a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in addition to his win, and received numerous other accolades, including multiple Best Editorial Cartoonist awards from the National Cartoonists Society.
Benson was known for his unflinching approach to political commentary, taking aim at figures across the political spectrum. His cartoons often sparked controversy, but he remained committed to his craft, once saying, “If I’m not provoking a reaction, I’m not doing my job.”
The Arizona Mirror obituary includes a fine selection of Steve’s commentary from his latter career.
Steve Benson began his 45 year professional cartooning career in 1980 at The Arizona Republic, and except for a year and a half at The Tacoma Morning News Tribune in 1990-91, Arizona would remain his home.
Steve Benson was never afraid to express his opinion and the thousands of letters to the editor over his controversial cartoons didn’t intimidate him (or the Arizona Republic).
Steve began at The Arizona Republic in September 1980 sharing the op-ed page with the aging Reg Manning and soon became the paper’s regular editorial cartoonist (Manning retired later that same month).
In 1990 Steve moved north to a completely different climate. His proclivity for controversy remained the same.
Steve returned to Arizona where he had been a two time Pulitzer Prize finalist (1984, 1989) to become a finalist again due to his cartoons for both The Republic and The Morning News Tribune in 1991. In 1993 Benson was finally awarded The Pulitzer Prize for his 1992 cartoons. (He would be a finalist again in 1994.)
In 2019 Steve Benson was laid off from The Arizona Republic amid jeers and cheers from readers.
Benson continued expressing his opinions with his cartoons distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate and soon Steve found an outlet for his local Arizona editorial cartoons.
In early 2024 Steve retired and tragically a little later he suffered a severe stroke.
Family and friends, following the family’s wishes, put up a brave and hopeful front but it was far more serious than the public knew. Yesterday Steve succumbed to the effects of that devastating stroke.
Sincere condolences to Steve’s family and friends.
Messages of sympathy can be sent to Claire Ferguson Benson’s Facebook page.
Addendum from Pat Bagley (by way of Alan Gardner):
This past week my friend and sometime rival died.
Steve Benson and I go way back. In 1978, when I brought a cartoon sketch to the BYU student newspaper, The Daily Universe, it was with the idea of Steve using it. Instead, faculty advisor Nelson Wadsworth had me do a finished copy and published it the next day. That cartoon ended up in Time magazine attached to a story about housing policy at BYU.
But I digress.
Wadsworth hired me for the summer and kept us both on when Steve returned that Fall. Thus began a rivalry. My stuff was loose and Steve’s was tight and polished. Twice a week we vied for the attention of 25,000 students. Mostly it was about campus-centered issues, but sometimes veered into national politics. We were both conservative, but there’s conservative and then there’s ital conservative ital
Steve was the grandson of the LDS prophet, Ezra Taft Benson, famously associated with John Bircher communist-in-every-closet politics. Steve drank deeply from that well.
There was a political science professor at BYU who brought people to expose students to different views. He would give the floor to a Bircher, then a communist. The idea was to immunize students to extreme ideas. Steve and I both majored in polisci and the practice was well known in the department.
Steve ratted out the professor to BYU administrators. Godless ideas had no place in the Lord’s university. The professor was reprimanded.
As the eldest grandson of Apostle Ezra Taft Benson, Steve was a Mormon crown prince, bound for a high place in the LDS hierarchy, had he chosen.
The family was not pleased when he chose cartooning.
Still, Steve hewed to the party line and remained a faithful member of the faith.
Still, Steve hewed to the party line and remained a faithful member of the faith.
Until.
In a semiannual Church General Conference (a meeting in which Church authorities broadcast directly worldwide to the 10 million faithful) Steve had a seat in the wings backstage. He witnessed his enfeebled grandfather being propped up by certain General Authorities who used him as a puppet and made him wave to the attendees. Steve saw it all in happen. It enraged him. It was all a show that forever destroyed his allegiance to the Utah-based Church. He told me the story personally a dozen times and at least a thousand times to captive audiences. This former Mormon missionary to Japan blared it from the rooftops for the rest of his life in every forum he found.
As the longtime editorial cartoonist for The Arizona Republic, Steve won a Pulitzer Prize for his national and international commentary. His stuff was unarguably excellent and deserving of the award. But he really should have won the year before when he took on Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, as corrupt and loathsome a politician you could ever hope to find lurking under a sanctimonious rock. After Steve published a cartoon with fellow Mormon Mecham holding scriptures labeled “The Book of Moron”, Mecham called him at home and warned him his eternal salvation was at stake. Steve had the appropriate response.
He laughed in his face.
Mecham was impeached in 1987, with both then-current Arizona Senator John McCain and former Senator Barry Goldwater calling for his resignation over his rancid racist and homophobic bigotry.
Steve could be difficult. He was opinionated to a fault, sometimes sharing criticism and giving offense when the stakes were minuscule. He was rarely wrong, but his repertoire often employed bunker busters when the situation called for a feather duster. He was entirely without guile. Looking back, I’m not sure he was aware how some of his punches landed.
He was also wildly entertaining and as mentally sharp as anyone I’ve ever known. He was every interviewer’s favorite. Quick and witty, he held them all in thrall. He was always learning and voracious in his interests. He would take on a new task or wide-ranging subject and wrestle it to the ground until it screamed “Uncle!”. Obviously liberal in his politics, he got deputized and went on ride-a-longs with Arizona law enforcement. He wore a fanny pack backwards (belly pack?) and told me he carried a service revolver in it.
His last years were scarred by tragedy. In 2018 his 40-year-old daughter, Rebecca Benson, was killed by a motorist as she was biking home from work. I’ll never forget Steve calling and detailing the incident in blunt, heartbreaking detail. We both wept. It was how he dealt with the world: always brutally honest, even with himself. Even in his grief.
A lasting grace was his marriage to Claire Ferguson in 2020. Years earlier Claire had been a missionary companion of Steve’s sister in England. Both had trod the same path out of their one-time faith. She was a devoted and loving care-giver after he suffered a stroke.
We knew each other almost half a century. Steve was a lot of things to stuff into a single lifetime. I’m glad to have called him my friend.
The above Pat Bagley memoriam replaces an earlier first draft
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