At the end of Black Ink Monday – “a non-violent protest by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists,” one must ask how successful was the organization’s stand?
My guess? It wasn’t. Yes, scores of cartoonists “participated,” but a quick look at cagle.com or comics.com and I didn’t see that any of the protest ‘toons were published anywhere other than the AAEC site. It appears that many cartoonists – at least the syndicated ones – created a separate cartoon for the protest and didn’t run it in their local paper or through their syndicate. It’s like the cartoonists drew their cartoons and put them on their own refrigerator instead of posting them where people might actually see them. How does that help their cause?
I was a bit frustrated that the media wasn’t covering this, but after looking at the end product, this was a non-event and why should any form of media cover something that didn’t really mean anything?
I will continue to search for any news regarding Black Ink Monday. Perhaps I might find something to persuade me that this wasn’t all for naught.