So you think you can ‘toon contest nets 200+ entries
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A few weeks ago, I brought you news that while Mike Luckovich was away on vacation, his paper – the Atlanta Journal-Constitution – held a contest called “Think you can do better?” in which they invited their readers to send an editorial cartoon. The results have been posted (registration required) with the winner going to William Warren won with 541 votes (out of 3,158 cast online). Warren just happens to be this year’s John Locher award winnner from Forest Lake University.
The Editorial Page editor, Cythia Tucker wrote up a bit about the experience. Below are some of the interesting points.
Several professional and semiprofessional cartoonists from around the country (and one from Cape Town, South Africa) entered the contest, creating an issue for the editorial board because they hadn’t set limits on entrants’ geography or professional status, said Corson.
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Once they felt they had enough good entries, board members selected enough cartoons to run three a day. But in the final 24 hours before the contest deadline, “we were deluged with about 70 or more procrastinators, almost all of them local, and many of them talented,” said Corson.
That prompted a second, more difficult round of judging, and the publication of more cartoons than were initially planned. Most of the winners were local or had a local connection. A few didn’t make the cut because of concerns about good taste.
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“About half the cartoons showed some drawing talent,” Corson said. “I love the fact that so many people entered who couldn’t draw very well. Those folks really had something to get off their chests.”
That brings us back to Randy Chitwood, who didn’t actually pen a cartoon but still made Luckovich’s favorites list. Chitwood’s entry, created in Microsoft Word, showed Luckovich’s day planner. Monday through Friday it read: “Bash George Bush.” On the weekend, it read: “Hang out with Liberals who like to bash George Bush.”
“I have a lot of friends on both sides of the political aisle and we got a real kick out of it,” said Chitwood. “The content and messages [of Luckovich’s cartoons] seem to be stuck on George Bush, so that was the point of my cartoon.”
Luckovich loved the contest idea. “I looked at every single one of them,” he said. “It was great to see how many people took an interest in it and put a lot of work into it. There were some of good quality and some that were not. That’s what made it fun. Some of them were so bad they were funny. A lot of others made good points.”
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