Check out Signe Wilkinson’s front page cartoon

Comments ¹³

1. Clay Jones

   Corky Trinidad drew a daily editorial cartoon in color everyday for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and they were all on local issues. I did the same when I filled in for a year.
   Brian Duffy also drew a daily cartoon for the Des Moines Register before his layoff.

   None of us ever did a cartoon that WAS the front page. Congrats to Signe. It’s a great cartoon and a great use of it. Great display and design. More papers need to recognize the great opportunities that are available to them with a cartoonist. OK, sorry for so many uses of the word “great.”

2. Mike Lester

   Hold on. I know Signe and respect her work but this is not her work. It’s Matt Groening’s work.

3. Mike Peterson

   Read the sig, Mike.

4. b.j. dewey

   Good to see the work of a great cartoonist used so prominently.

5. Mike Lester

   If you’ve never worked in a newsroom you’re blissfully unaware the level of creativity possessed by the modern editor. Think: wheel rut. They are also obsessive about 1-A. My hunch is this was brought to her and like all of us at one point or another -she did her job.

   While I understand the post and the honor of having a cartoon on 1-A I’d bet she’d rather have drawn her own work. She doesn’t have a Pulitzer Prize for nothing.

   fwiw: I believe Clay Bennett’s work is either 1-A or front of editorial page Sundays.

6. Mike Peterson

   I’ve worked in a newsroom for a substantial portion of my career. Most editors are cloth-eared dolts with absolutely no idea of how cartoons work.

   On the other hand, the chance to do a cartoon using a familiar figure to make your point is a good idea, and to pull it off so well that a professional cartoonist thinks it was done by the original artist puts you in the “Wow” category.

   Having an idea so good that a professional cartoonist assumes somebody else thought of it for you? Well … um … okay, I don’t know what that is.

7. Mike Lester

   Who’s the professional cartoonist that thought it was Matt Gorening’s drawing? I missed that. It’s attributed so I’m not sure
   what “professional cartoonist thinks it was done by the original artist puts you in the ?Wow? category.”

8. Donald A. Rex Jr.

   Attention you newsroom maven Mike Lester. Your #7- I refer you to your #2 where you state baldly that it is MG’s work. (Sarcasm is lost without clarity.)

   Also #6, last bit “Having an idea so good that a professional cartoonist assumes somebody else thought of it for you? Well ? um ? okay, I don?t know what that is.” Clearly refers to the first pat of your rambling post #5.

9. Mike Lester

   #8 I could write “water is wet” and you’d stalk me. I get it: you love me and would give a nut to be a syndicated cartoonist. Get over it.

10. Donald A. Rex Jr.

    Stalking, reading posts; ???? You asked a question and I answered it. More fool me.

11. Jim Lavery

    but is water really wet, Mike? Really?

12. Clay Jones

    I think it’s a bit bizarre to assume and state publicly that Signe probably didn’t write the cartoon. I’ve known Signe well enough that she’s one of the best cartoonists in this country and she doesn’t need ideas written for her.
    I’ll go so far that the A-1 concept wasn’t hers, but was offered and she jumped at it. Who wouldn’t?

    I do agree with Mike that most editors are the most uncreative people you can ever meet. The death of newspapers, while coming from the internet, craigslist, free stuff, is also helped by newspapers being the least innovative forum where very creative people reside and are stifled.

13. Joe Corrao

    Mike Lester is correct