Filed under: Editorial cartooning

The AAEC convention concluded this weekend and a few stories are still trickling in. From the prolific Editor and Publisher editor Dave Astor we have several stories: Editorial Cartoonists Group Seeks Funds Beyond Herb Block Grant:DENVER The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists has used a lot of the $150,000 Herb Block Foundation grant it received in 2004 to improve its EditorialCartoonists.com site….  The first three are Pulitzer Prize winners from 2005, 2002, and 2004, respectively, while Sack has been a Pulitzer finalist.Cartoonists’ Award Sparks Protest:The Cartoonists Rights Network (CRN) has given its Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award to the 11 Danish artists who drew the Prophet Muhammad.Cartoonists from Cuba and Algeria at U.S. Confab:The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) has two interesting guests at its convention here — a cartoonist from Algeria and another who recently defected from Cuba.Cartoonists from Cuba and Algeria at U.S. Confab:National Public Radio host Scott Simon discussed Judith Miller, Ann Coulter, Stephen Colbert, and the Danish cartoon controversy during keynote remarks at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) convention here Saturday night.And from the Denver Post comes this report: ‘toon townJust what state are editorial cartoonists in?Editorial cartoonists see the world through a much different lens than the rest of us (read: bent).

Several stories are pouring in about this year’s annual Association of American Editorial Cartoonist who are holding their convention in Denver this year.From a Rocky Mountain News comes an editorial contrasting the difference between the way the America deal with cartoons that offend a religious group versus how Europe is shrinking free speech.Dave Astor, from Editor and Publisher, has filed a related story in E&P about the heated debate regarding the roll of cartooning in free speech when it comes to topics of religions.Dave has also filed a story about former U.S. Senator Gary Hart a speaker at the convention who spoke mostly of the Iraq war and how the media isn’t telling more of the impact of the war on the individuals who served in it.

Steve was in San Diego when Katrina hit and continue to lives there sending in his cartoons via Kinkos.The video segment of the interview is now available on Google Video.  The whole segment is 25 minutes long – Steve gets the last 10 minutes (skip ahead to 16:50 to avoid the discussion of the problems of urbanites moving to the rural areas and then complaining about the odor of the farms and ranches).

If you were to judge Ed Hall solely by the cartoons in his latest book “Diversions,” you’d quickly group him into the hate-mongering-anti-Bush crowd. What perhaps does not come through in the book is that Ed is a registered Republican and was a “W” voting resident of Florida – the state that put President George […]

For those who subscribe to the Daily Cartoonist’s RSS feeds and perhaps don’t visit the actual site, I’d like to direct your attention to the latest In Focus article….� This latest installment features editorial cartoonist Ed Hall, who I had the privilege of getting to know recently.His book is called “Diversions” and was self published back in March, and I hope you’ll take the time to read about it here on the Daily Cartoonist.

The Cincinnati Enquirer is celebrating 30 with Jim Borgman as their editorial cartoonist.  To commemorate, they’ve posted a Q&A with Jim, several congratulatory cartoons from fellow cartoonists (includng Dave Coverly, Jim Davis, Mike Luckovich, Marshall Ramsey, Jerry Scott, Jeff Stahler, Lynn & Rod Johnston), a video of Jim at work re-drawing the winning cartoon from the contest, a slideshow of 9 of his most favorite cartoons, caricatures of the local politicians he’s skewered over the years, and finally some of the cartoon contest runner ups.

Today he has signed Shannon Associates to represent him.While sitting at my desk at The Times, I wished I had time to do something more creative and fun like illustrate children’s books, and possibly write and illustrate my own children’s books.Even though, I’ve heard time and time again how hard it is to get an illustration representative, I decided to go for it. I worked really hard to build a strong portfolio and approached a handful of reps, and just for kicks, I sent my work to a couple of the DREAM reps that I had no chance in hell landing.Today, I signed with Shannon Associates, one of those dream reps.Shannon Associates is one of the top illustration reps in the world, who will represent my work in many illustration markets, starting with the children’s market.Shannon Associates represents or has worked on projects such as “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events,” “Harry Potter,” “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “Shrek,” “Star Wars” and most recently, Pixar’s “Cars,” according to Stacy.You can check out Stacy’s illustration portfolio that he maintains on his web site.

Rosemary Goudreau, the editorial page editor for the Tampa Tribune writes a farewell message to Paul Combs who left the Tribune to return to his native Ohio.Dear Readers,I’m sorry to say that Paul Combs, our editorial cartoonist, has decided to leave the Tribune.Paul and his family moved to Tampa a year and a half ago from a small town in Ohio, and like some number of people who move to Florida, they found it difficult to plant roots in our sandy soil.Now the draw of family and friends is pulling them home. Paul plans to syndicate his cartoons, so you will still see his work from time to time on our pages.And we hope to have another cartoonist on board by the end of the summer.Daryl Cagle has the last Combs/Tribune cartoon on his blog.

According to E&P, the Cincinnati Enquirer will publish a special section of the paper next Tuesday on the anniversary of Jim Borgman’s arrival at their newspaper.The section will include cartoons by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Borgman, comments by people who have been the subject of his commentary, a Q&A, the results of the “Borgman Challenge” cartoon contest, and other content.Borgman told E&P that the section (which will coincidentally be published the day of his wedding anniversary) is a real honor. He added that the newspaper may be doing the special section partly to make up for the cancellation of a 25th-anniversary public event that had been scheduled for October 2001.

Search and Destroy:AMERICA GONE WILD: CARTOONS BY TED RALLNot only is my new Central Asian travelogue/graphic novel/current affairs analysis SILK ROAD TO RUIN coming out this summer, there’s another treat for fans of my cartoons.AMERICA GONE WILD will come out this fall….  Here for the ages is the hate mail and death threats I received, my personal interactions with personalities like Bill O’Reilly, etc.–all the dish you’ve always wondered about.

Congratulations are in order for Canadian editorial Cartoonist Brian Gable of the Globe and Mail who was awarded his fourth National Newspaper Award.  The awards were handed out last Friday in Halifax.

Mike Luckovich, who has previously won this years Pulitzer Prize, SPJ’s Sigma Delta Chi Award, Overseas Press Club Award, and the National Headliners Award, can add the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.More details over at E&P.

Early in the Daily Cartoonist’s days, I posted a story about Jim being listed on the Annoyatorium – a gripe message board about people who annoy….  One of the reason he wasn’t annoying was “Every city election year, there is a write-in campaign for him for Cincinnati City Council.”All of this is a way of saying Cincinnati loves Jim.

Today at 1 p.m. (EST) the five nominees for the Reuben Award will be guests on the Washington Post’s chat forum.  The five guests and nominees are: Bill Amend (Foxtrot), Dave Coverly (Speed Bump), Brian Crane (Pickles), Mike Luckovich and Dan Piraro (Bizarro).You can submit questions ahead of time on the wp site.

Now Photoshop lets us appleC-appleV elements and move them around, making complicated cartoons like this one do-able under tight deadlines.That said, I always feel an irrational twinge of guilt when I cut-and-paste within a cartoon, as if readers have paid me by the line and insist on their money’s worth.  For reasons I can’t explain, I usually go back in and tweak the characters and backgrounds here and there to give the eagle-eyed wannabes something to examine and form conspiracy theories about.