TDC @ 20: Who Was the Bad Cartoonist?
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In early 2008 there was a flash in the pan blog called “The Bad Cartoonist” written by an anonymous cartoonist. The posts contained personally attacks on the art and craft of fellow cartoonists. Most cartoonists were aggrieved more by the author’s anonymity than his criticism. As Matt Davies wrote, “didn’t see anything I haven’t heard before over a beer at AAEC meetings.” The effort to figure out who was behind “Bad Cartoonist” turned out to be my best detective work, but also one of my biggest regrets in reporting for The Daily Cartoonist.
My first attempt to uncover the Bad Cartoonist’s identity was asking him for an interview. I was hoping that the email exchange would yield clues or his emails’ IP address might give me a direction. The resulting article became the central place for cartoonists to discuss his attacks and anonymity. Unfortunately, the interview or emails were unhelpful.
My next attempt was to create a “honeypot” – a web page that looked normal but also logged the IP addresses of visitors in the background. I was hoping to find a match between the IP addresses collected in the honeypot against IP addresses that WordPress saves with each comment. If there was a match, then I’d have the identity of the Bad Cartoonist—provided he had previously left a comment on TDC with his real name/email. This only led to a lot of work without any results.
The third attempt came while I was working late one night. I received a chat request from the Bad Cartoonist. I accepted the chat. As we exchanged messages, I began creating yet another honeypot. I gave the title of the honeypot page “Bad Cartoonist turns out to be…” and added a kitten gif and uploaded it to the server. After a bit of cat and mouse banter, I messaged him and announced I figured out who he was and sent him the link. He took the bait and clicked the link. I now had an IP address that wasn’t obfuscated by a VPN connection.
The IP address traced back to a newspaper in Rochester, New York. I messaged Bad Cartoonist that I had tracked him to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. He tried to explain it away as if he was outside the office building piggybacking off their Wi-Fi. It wasn’t a believable story as most businesses outside of coffee shops do not allow the public on their networks, and it was around 2 a.m. Rochester time. Bad Cartoonist was likely an employee of the paper.
The staffing page on the Democrat and Chronicle’s website did not list a cartoonist, nor did they publish any editorial cartoonist—staff or freelance on their website. In hindsight, this is where I should have ended the chat leaving him to stew in uncertainty, and me with a very solid clue to chase down. But he was panicking and I was high on adrenaline. Bad Cartoonist messaged me and offered to divulge his identity in exchange for a promise not to disclose it. I can only blame journalism inexperience and the adrenaline for agreeing to the bargain. We had a brief phone call to confirm his identity. That was the last communication I’ve had with him. I was elated that I had figured out who he was, but waking up the next morning I regretted making the promise.
I played “hot and cold” with Nick Anderson for a while, feeding him vague clues. Eventually, all interest in “The Bad Cartoonist” stopped, and so did Bad Cartoonist’s blog posts.
To those who were attacked on “The Bad Cartoonist” blog: while you have (or had) careers that brought both laughter and anger to your readers, provided value to your employers and communities, and supported yourself or families with your art, the Bad Cartoonist washed out. The critic is now in marketing and, based on social media posts, only dabbles in cartooning occasionally — none of it for publication. His lack of success may have been a matter of bad timing, trying to enter the field just as newspaper staff jobs were retracting; or, despite receiving an earlier award for clear opinions and strong artistry on political and social topics, perhaps his quality of work simply wasn’t sustainable.
Two final notes on “The Bad Cartoonist”. The domain has since been taken over by another anonymous cartoonist who goes by the moniker “Bad Cartoonist,” but I do not believe it is the same individual based on theme and drawing style. Secondly, I will honor my word to not divulge the name of Bad Cartoonist, but those who are still curious you may find this article peppered with several clues that haven’t been disclosed before.
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