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AAEC-feed Editorial cartooning

Milt Priggee offends Florida police fraternity with cartoon

1 minute 34 comments

The Milt Priggee cartoon above has managed to offend the Jacksonville (FL.) chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police. The local news station reports the FOP believe it “is offensive and puts local police officers in danger.”

FOP president Steve Amos speaking to WJXT:

?They are outraged and embarrassed, because they don?t believe they should be categorized or stereotyped in that way obviously,? Amos said. ?And they know how hard they are working (in) these communities to fix these problems. It?s their sworn duty.?

The local Times-Union paper that published the cartoon has responded that the cartoonist’s views are his/her own and cartoons are meant to exaggerate to make a point.

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Comments 34

  1. Well, it’s their own damn fault!!

  2. A question for cartoonists. What is the purpose of the editorial cartoon in today’s modern world?
    Originally, the editorial cartoon supplied a POV visually where the paper’s editors supplied a POV verbally. It became a badge of honor for the editorial cartoonist to stir up debate and emotions.
    But in today’s world of 24/7 cable news networks and countless internet sites devoted to politics and social issues do we still need the editorial cartoon aimed to stir up emotions.
    I found the cartoon lacking in purpose. It overstated a point that has been all ready overstated in today’s media. It did it without humor. It did it without adding anything new to the discussion. Those who agreed with the POV enjoyed it, those who disagreed were “offended.” Those of us seeking answers, yawned and regretted a waste of newsprint.
    I am not challenging the editorial cartoonist freedom of speech, just wishing I see more productive cartoons than just more noise to the all ready pointless screaming.

  3. Michael:

    You need to speaking to the editors, not to the cartoonists. Very few of them have the guts to feature the work of REAL editorial cartoonists like Milt Priggee. Most editors want “cute”, “clever”, or “funny” cartoons that offend no one, but also generate no discussion or reaction either way. You don’t have to agree with the cartoonist’s viewpoint, but you’ll have to admit that Milt’s cartoon got you to write in here, which is a hell of a lot more reaction than most of what we see out there generates.

  4. Actually, I wrote here because editorial cartoons need to change. Milt’s cartoon like nearly all the current editorial cartoons are a waste of my time to read. Talk radio and the internet do it better.

    It is like having a troll in the comment section it increases discussion in quantity rather than quality. With fewer and fewer newspapers and fewer of them even having an editorial cartoonist isn’t it time to reconsider the goals of the editorial cartoonist?

    Paul, you make a great point about newspaper editors. But the comic strip is growing beyond its role to sell newspapers, isn’t it time for the editorial cartoonist to look beyond his/her limited role with newspapers?

  5. Michael:

    You make very valid points as to many political cartoons not adding to the discussion. However, just as Paul said much of this has to do with editors not wanting heavy hitting cartoons and instead preferring the cartoons that are light hearted and one liner gags.

    The dilemma is that while compared to print the internet allows an artist or writer to be as edgy or hard hitting as they want to be, there is so way to make a living as compared to print. Look at webcomics for example, the overwhelmingly vast majority of them make no money at all.

    Lastly, out of curiosity, you stated that “with fewer and fewer newspapers…” Do you have any recent statistics as to the closing of newspapers? Thanks!

  6. Brian, no new stats but anyone reading this site has read too many posts about the shrinking market for newspaper editorial cartoonists. But even if the bleeding has stopped I wonder where is the need for the editorial cartoonist.

    I am not one who believes print is doomed but there are financially viable markets opening up to add to cartoonists. Too many web cartoonists have survived just on their web cartoon to ignore. R. Stevens found he made more from his web version of DIESEL SWEETIES than he did with the syndicated newspaper version.

    I have been reading comic strips for over 55 years. I remember the number of brilliant cartoonists who left newspaper syndication because they could not make a living at it (Mark Tonra I miss you).

    But I leave career choices to the cartoonist. My question is more about content and the future of editorial cartoons. Should the editorial cartoonist have the same goals as he/she did in the 1900s when it was people’s only source of news and social issues or does it need to change to find a place to grow in a world all ready overrun by places that thrive to offend?

  7. Oh, one more thing. About the editors role. I understand the reality the cartoonists faces in the market. I am curious about the creative side of the editorial cartoonist. Can the art form grow beyond the goals of the past? How limited is the cartoonist in dealing with issues? Can it be a place to suggest answers or is it trapped between offering humor or offense? Will tomorrow’s editorial cartoon exist and if so what will it look like?

  8. At a time when cops are being executed by black racists this cartoon is especially stupid and cowardly. Priggee has been around a long time. Though he’s a hard-core liberal, I’m still amazed that such a pro would put out such a thoughtless, adolescent cartoon. Michael Shonk is correct in stating that this cartoon is simply reiterating the hogwash put out by the race-hustling leaders of the Black Lives Matter mob.
    Yes, editorial cartoonists exaggerate. That’s their job. But shouldn’t that exaggeration be put in the service of the truth?

    The truth is, the narrative of BIack Lives Matter is false. Yes, some cops have made stupid decisions that cost black lives. But the idea that white cops are out-of-control racists bent on murdering innocent blacks is ridiculous.

    In this instance, when a race war is being openly discussed, maybe courage would require that a liberal cartoonist go against the liberal herd and question the facts and authenticity of the black racist demagogues so prevalent on TV. Unfortunately, liberals have great difficulty questioning the facts put out by black race hustlers simply because they’re black. (White guilt, anyone?) An editorial cartoonist who doesn’t question the facts while echoing the Black Lives Matter narrative is not – as Michael Shonk observes – saying anything new. But he is saying something that is false.

  9. Actually, Carl I can say the same thing about your reply. All mindless screaming from the far side of the debate. How about editorial cartoons that worry less about getting the two extreme sides screaming and more about the issue itself. How about editorial cartoons that are not predictable based on the cartoonist’s chosen team – left or right?
    Why is this happening? How can we fix it?
    I am not a cartoonist nor do I even play one on the web but I wonder if any one saw something to this effect:
    Background: urban city playground. A small black female child lies dead under the swings – the victim of a gun battle between two young black gang members.
    Foreground: Rich fat cat politician points to the gun battle and tells the young white Barney Fife policeman standing next to him, “Serve and protect but just don’t shoot anybody!”

    I know, Mr. Priggee knows his job is safe from me. But I tried to show why and how of the problem rather than just make people upset or a joke. Today’s world doesn’t need any help getting people upset, it needs help getting people to talk. It would in the very least give people a better reason to read the editorial cartoon.

  10. There are a few problems out there in Cop Land…

    thegrio.com/2015/05/12/fbi-white-supremacists-law-enforcement/

    “Remarkably, one of the most compelling but unexplored explanations may rest with a FBI warning of October 2006, which reported that ?White supremacist infiltration of law enforcement? represented a significant national threat. Several key events preceded the report. A federal court found that members of a Los Angeles sheriffs department formed a Neo Nazi gang and habitually terrorized the black community. Later, the Chicago police department fired Jon Burge, a detective with reputed ties to the Ku Klux Klan, after discovering he tortured over 100 black male suspects. Thereafter, the Mayor of Cleveland discovered that many of the city police locker rooms were infested with ?White Power? graffiti. Years later, a Texas sheriff department discovered that two of its deputies were recruiters for the Klan.In near prophetic fashion, after the FBI?s warning, white supremacy extremism in the U.S. increased, exponentially. From 2008 to 2014, the number of white supremacist groups, reportedly, grew from 149 to nearly a thousand, with no apparent abatement in their infiltration of law enforcement.This year, alone, at least seven San Francisco law enforcement officers were suspended after an investigation revealed they exchanged numerous ?White Power? communications laden with remarks about ?lynching African-Americans and burning crosses.? Three reputed Klan members that served as correction officers were arrested for conspiring to murder a black inmate. At least four Fort Lauderdale police officers were fired after an investigation found that the officers fantasized about killing black suspects.”

  11. Sigh, Dave you are oversimplifying the problem to fit your view of the world. My late sister’s nephew best friend was a police officer who was gunned done and killed by a young black man he had come to arrest.
    That young white man was not a racist, just a good man doing a thankless job.
    Racism is a problem. Gun violence is a problem. But what is happening now is beyond sound bite answers. We need more thought and less emotion. The New York Times recently did an article on the rising murder rates that no one can explain. The urban cities after years of declining violence rates is getting deadly again.
    But this is a site about cartoons not politics. The question I am asking here is when will editorial cartoonists stop adding to the mindless noise and use their work to explore answers. Should the editorial cartoonist maintain the out of date goals of upsetting people (too many places do it better) and turn to more productive goals?

  12. The FBI said it was a PROBLEM.

    I did not say every cop was racist at all. But from what I have seen and heard DIRECTLY from cops, racism is indeed a problem. Racism can be a terrible problem AND most cops are not racist at all – these two things can both be true…

  13. Michael:

    One of the side effects of the internet is that everything is now a niche product that competes with billions of other types of content to a very fractured audience. The days of the majority of eyeballs on one thing are long gone. As a result, editorial cartoons, as well as everything else, no longer hold their place as a primary source for which people get their daily information and opinion. People still enjoy cartoons very much, but have millions of other options now, memes being a good example.

    The art form will survive but I am not sure if it will evolve into using a more serious tone overall. In the age of internet memes people seems to be drawn to quick pointless but humorous images that make a point that validates their own perspective. When was the last time someone posted a meme that they didn’t think was funny or did not support their own viewpoint or agenda?

    The internet is the hornets nest of opposing opinions and the overall discourse seems to have disintegrated into 8th grade level banter filled with trolls who offer no constructive contributions other than to incite and derail the discussion.

    How can a strong editorial cartoon that makes a firm statement on one side of a particular issue exist in the internet age of trolls and over reactionary political correctness? By comparison, you can see how mindless gag cartoons have a much better chance of survival under this scenario.

    …not something I’m advocating or would like to see BTW.

  14. Brian, thank you for trying to answer my question. It is a question that may have no answer.

    I am not here to discuss the social issue but the role of the editorial cartoon in today’s changing society.

    Is the role of the editorial cartoonist to be just another annoying troll or is there another choice? Like Brian mentioned some are turning to jokes as if they are some late-night talk show host. The comic strip is adapting to the future, keeping its syndicated roots and expanding to the more personal webcomic world. Why not editorial cartoons?

    My favorite editorial cartoonists – if anyone cares – are Clay Bennett and Michael Ramirez.

    I am a liberal but always found both thought provoking. Sadly, Ramirez has grown less and less thought provoking and more troll like rant. I miss when he made me think.

  15. Two issues with political/editorial cartoons, and the first is that the terms “editorial cartoon” and “political cartoon” ought not to be interchangeable.

    Nast was an editorial cartoonist in an era of two-newspaper towns (though, of course, NYC had more than two). Each paper had a distinctive voice and the cartoonist was part of that voice. Many of Nast’s cartoons — perhaps most — were wrapped around by articles in support of the same topic, and, certainly, cartoonists were expected to reflect the paper’s views.

    Yes, it was preaching to the converted, but it was a point of view rather than simply riffing on politics in a “gee, lookit that” kind of way. When papers began to merge in the WWII era, the first promise was to be “fair,” which meant to soften stances, which for several decades didn’t mean not taking one, but eventually got so squishy that “what about those kids with their sagging pants” became indistinguishable from “what should we do about Saddam Hussein?”

    More recently, traditional syndicates were undercut by adhoc comic syndicators who seriously underpriced the market, which raised the question “Why pay $20 for a cartoon when you can get one for $5?” (And, of course, why hire a staff cartoonist when you can get cartoons as that price? I’m not saying it’s an intelligent question, but it’s there.)

    Which means that cartoonists, in order to make a living, have to come up with cartoons a lot of editors will choose, so you get the “Gosh we’re all sad that Beloved Celebrity died” and “We should honor our heroes!” and “Wow, those kids still have saggy pants!” cartoons.

    There’s more to it, but those are major contributors.

  16. “…in order to make a living, have to come up with cartoons a lot of editors will choose, so you get the ?Gosh we?re all sad that Beloved Celebrity died? and ?We should honor our heroes!? and ?Wow, those kids still have saggy pants!? cartoons.”

    I agree with Mike regarding the marketing of editorial/political cartoons. A cartoon has the potential to piss of half the readership at any given time and this tends to be a challenge when you are trying to market the product to as many outlets as possible.

    Therefore the soft “Beloved Celebrity died? type cartoons seem to sell much better than hard hitting ones. This a sad reality and the ongoing dilemma of the market.

    Kardashian type garbage sells EVERYWHERE..gawd help us.

  17. Mike, I had hoped you join in. I had lost my link to your great website and I knew you were not an Agent of SHIELD.

    So guys, can editorial cartoons survive? Can editorial cartoonist make a living on the internet in the same ways many comic strip cartoonists do (certainly T-shirt sales could be a source of revenue)?

    Will editorial cartoons become nothing more than a political panel comic strip? A PRICKLY CITY/ DOONESBURY meet FAR SIDE? Actually I’d like to see that.

  18. An editorial cartoon is a visually, biased, exaggeration of the facts as the artist wants to express them. It is an art form that visually challenges the status quo?.of politics or whatever is going on in the world we all live in.

    In the beginning cartoonists were allowed the freedom to draw whatever they wanted, however they wanted because of one thing?.competition. Publishers knew the other newspapers would be allowing their cartoonists the freedom to express themselves. So- they better not handicap the cartoonists they’re paying. These publishers knew the ONLY way to get the best attention visuals was to allow their creators- freedom of speech. There was no down-side because with so many different newspapers- cartoonists were pretty much preaching to the choir.

    As competition eliminates?. the competition- cartoonists increasingly find themselves employed by publishers who have no knowledge of the business of journalism. As the decades go by these newspapers and schools refuse to educate what an editorial cartoon is.

    As the industry continues to consolidate, publishers pressure editors to pressure their cartoonists to do more of what is called?..’drawing for the market’. In other words?. stay under the radar. Do the impossible?.editorialize without saying anything?.or make everybody happy with humor that doesn’t offend anybody?..simply address the issue or news.

    Every so often, a cartoon will provoke debate. Unfortunately, most of the time it’s because certain readers have no idea what an editorial cartoon is. They judge it by the criteria of everything else in the world?but strangely not the criteria of an editorial cartoon.

    Readers think it’s a comic strip, a photograph, an endorsement of the publisher’s opinion, an arm of the local chamber of commerce, or a non-obejective news article. This is the cause the offense from editorial cartoons. Readers also believe they have some sort of right not to be offended. Well- they don’t ?welcome to America.

    So some publishers don’t even bother with pressuring their editors anymore. They just flat out eliminate their staff editorial cartoonist and the position for all future time.

    As newspapers find themselves the only game in town they also quit running syndicated cartoons. Now newspapers realize it’s not only editorial cartoons, it’s the editorial page itself that is causing the publisher’s headaches. SO- you guessed right- newspapers are starting to simply eliminate the entire editorial page a few days a week. Less headaches and more money- A TWOfer!?who says we can’t cut our way out this nose dive(?)

    So now cartoonists find themselves living and working in an Idiocracy. ?.a populace and media world that has absolutely no idea what-so-ever what an editorial cartoon is.

    The ‘profession’ of editorial cartooning has been dead for decades because the environment no longer exists. The profession is dead not extinct?. yet. The art will live forever. ?it was here hundreds of years before the print newspaper and will always be here?.. wherever cartoonists can share their opinions.

    Will editorial cartooning survive on the Internet?? Maybe?but not until ALL the old print newspaper people who don’t know what an editorial cartoon is?. are nothing but dust. So for us reading this- it’s a moot point. The art will survive on the Internet but not because of newspapers but in spite of newspapers.

    Personally- I don’t draw to offend or to safely entertain?.I draw the truth as I see it. Take it or leave it. Some may agree or disagree with my message or just feel I’ve wasted their time.

    Freedom is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear. George Orwell

  19. Thank you, Mr. Priggee for joining in. I hope you have not minded too much that I used one of your cartoons and the reaction as a chance to examine the state and possible future of the form best known as editorial cartoon.

    I have asked a lot of questions about the future of your profession. Nearly all the answers are depressing.

    The editorial cartoon has existed before the newspaper and I see no reason it can’t continue on the internet.

    The biggest difference between a web cartoon and a newspaper cartoon is the audience. The newspaper cartoon is like a movie. The audience pays its money and is passively entertained. The web cartoon is the local play put on by passionate artists who interact with their audience.

    Why can’t a cartoonist who wants to express his own views, as the newspaper editorial cartoonist once did, exist on a website? It would mean interacting with your readers – sharing more than one panel but more of where that one panel came from within the artist, what events inspired it, and it needs to be about things that mean something to the artist and the reader not just the issue of the week.

    For the last two months I set up a page with GoComics entire list of editorial comics. I was bored out of my mind from the sameness and predictability. Editorial cartoonists need to stop accepting the realities of the newspaper business as their own fate. Editorial cartoonists need to find additional alternatives along with the newspaper’s paycheck before the business ruin the art form.

    Maybe I ask for too much…but we readers always have.

  20. Oh, I should have added this question for Mr. Priggee in my last longwinded comment. Just found your website, do you find your readers different there from the newspaper?

    For everyone, is there a successful web editorial cartoonist? Not Cagle.com but a single cartoonist who does editorial/political cartoons for the web. I can’t think of one and wonder why.

  21. @ Michael Shonk,
    If your looking for editorial web toons, My stuff applies most times.

  22. I will check it out, Keith.

  23. Milt Priggee, that was EPIC… Thanks for weighing in with nothing but cold, hard and depressing TRUTH.

  25. Michael and (yer welcome Dave)

    Excuse me but here’s more truth?.posting a BW editorial cartoon on a WEB site is like looking at a BW photo in a darkened movie theater. OK, OK I’m impressed you’re now producing them in full-color. WOW- OK, now you’re looking at color photos in a darkened movie theater.

    For the last half century our media has conditioned consumers of news to see moving images with sound on the little electric monitor TV screen. So what do newspaper managers do?? They post a BW static cartoon image?.and then they wonder why they fell flat on their face when they stepped onto a speeding Internet treadmill?..and continue to lose money.

    The Internet platform offers sound, animation AND interactivity. About 99% of editorial cartoonists ignore those tools?.mainly because newspapers do NOT want to invest anything into their own future survival. Newspapers have been in a suicide mode for a long time where they keep shooting holes in the bottom of their sinking boat to let the water out.

    Getting tired of me bitching?? You wanna know who’s doing it right? There is ?believe it or not?there is only ONE newspaper in the entire country that is doing what they should be doing. That paper is the Washington Post?. that employs not one but two editorial cartoonists. One for their print platform, Tom Toles and one for the digital WEB site, Ann Telnaes. Both are first class and tops in the profession. (I’m talking about two?.TWO?as if two is really something?..whereas I grew up in Chicago that had a total of SIX, that’s right I said SIX cartoonists at the two papers?damn- I was spoiled by Burck, Fischetti, Mauldin, Stayskal, Locher and MacNelly?.these SIX had a grand total of 8 Pulitzers)

    While most newspapers have been jettisoning their staff editorial cartoonists AND daily editorial page?.the WA Post goes out and hires Ann Telnaes. That’s right the one and only newspaper that decided not to shoot holes in their life boat.

    The Post realized the obvious?.that they couldn’t afford to jettison their staff cartoonist AND they couldn’t afford to not employ one for their WEB site. They knew it didn’t make much sense to just post a BW Toles toon in the dark movie theater. They understand to make money you have to spend money. They understand to survive you have to compete and or evolve.

    Newspapers have a monopoly on daily local graphic commentary and…
    The Post understands the whole reason you work so hard to achieve a monopoly is to MAXIMIZE your monopoly?..whereas most of the other papers in America have been ABDICATING their monopoly. And that’s after spending thousands of dollars and decades investing and building a relationship with their readers that they are the only ones who will supply them with content they can’t get from any other source. Talk about the ultimate bait ‘n’ switch.

    I’m sure a lot if not most other papers would call the Post ‘insane’ for hiring a second editorial cartoonist. I would say?.. only the sane seem insane in an insane society.

    Besides the Post..there is a cartoonist named Mark Fiore who is doing more than surviving on the Internet by producing beautifully animated editorial cartoons that secured him his Pulitzer in 2010.

    I KNOW what you are looking for Michael, I saw the future back in the 90’s. The cartoonist was Bill Mitchell who was drawing animated ed toons for CNN. What he was doing just blew me away?it inspired me so much that I secured a journalism fellowship and used it to learn how to animate. I could see the future was an electronic and animated future. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the dot.com bubble literally bursting as I left academia and reentered the business world of media.

    Anyways- the cartoons that Bill Mitchell was producing for CNN were not only animated?they were INTERACTIVE. With his interactivity (I’ll never forget this one) he was able to have two different punchline panels were revealed?depending on the button you decided to click. This cartoon could literally NOT exist in the print world.
    Specifically- the front panel showed beautiful caricatures of Bill Clinton and Paula Jones (or Monica?the details are starting to fade- since I haven’t seen it in about 20 years)?.with the question- Who do you believe? with a button that underneath each that said click here which each revealed a different answer to whichever you clicked. If you clicked Bill it revealed a smiling Bill and a smeared caricature of Paula with a giant odometer with a lot of zeros and you see it slowly click over from one to two and underneath that the caption said?.You and Hillary make it two?.AND there was another button that took you back to the front page in case you changed your mind (snicker, wink). After you were back on the front page you then could click that you believed Paula?which revealed a different page that also had a giant odometer except all the numbers were spinning and Bill Clinton had a paper bag over his head.

    It was PURE genius ?.it was so impressive, fun, funny, pointed and interactive! Sadly for CNN they got a bad case of the stupids and dumped him?.figuring, hey- if newspapers can dump their toonists why can’t we?? Mitchell read the writing on the wall and left the business altogether.

    Besides Telnaes and Fiore there was also another beautifully animated, drawn and written gag oriented cartoon called Mike Du Jour by Mike Lester (one of the most underrated toonists around) I understand like Mitchell his funding evaporated for his animation efforts. These media platforms believe we’re going to subsidize their operations.

    They don’t seem to realize that if you don’t put in any gas you ain’t gonna too far.

  26. Mark Fiore was the name I should have remembered. I love his work. Back in my comic critic days as Yupyop (I was also a submission editor for Dawn Douglas attempt at a web comic syndication called Full Tilt) I used to follow more cartoonists such as Fiore.

    Newspapers have blown their chance to be a primary source of the news in today’s world. When they created their websites they forgot what sold the paper – good reporting and entertaining features such as comics. About all that is left for them now is the local news and there they are a poor second choice to local TV.

    Sadly, newspapers have lacked the wisdom of magazines such as the “New Yorker” and “Playboy” went it comes to cartoons.

    Milt, I agree with you. The editorial/political cartoon needs to change and adapt.

    I visited your site. The thing I noticed missing was a place to comment to your blogs. The comment section (and road trips to comic conventions like they are a band on tour) is where many web cartoonist interact with their readers. But I guess a political cartoonist would get more trolls than real readers. Even this site has had to close down a thread or two.

    How can an editorial cartoonist establish an individual identity?

    How can an editorial cartoonist connect to his reader on a personal level without the need of bodyguards? I notice you offer to talk to interested groups within your traveling distance. How does an editorial cartoonist establish his or her connection with readers and avoid fading into a group of artist with the same POVs?

    And as for me being tired of hearing you bitchin, well, how can you avoid it when discussing the current state of the editorial cartoon? I bet you will get tired of my questions before anyone here gets tired of my answers.

  27. For the very very very few that read all the way through my last post to be rewarded with that typo…yes, I mean Milt’s answers not “my.”

    Sometimes after I post I wish I had a copy editor.

  28. Animating editorial cartoons is great but hasn’t it been proven to be kind of a dud? It’s my understanding that Mark really doesn’t make any money doing his political animations but does make some doing animations for corporate clients.

    To create a good animation requires the cartoonist to be investing many more hours in the drawing and engineering to pull it off. This can equate to being expensive. As a result it becomes a question of cost-benefit. Papers or websites may ask Is it worth it to do when it does not generate anymore traffic or readers?

    There have been cartoonists that have created animations but they come off looking a bit amateur compared to other animated cartoons on the web created by studios. It’s really hard to compete with a large budget, something animated editorial cartoons tend to lack.

    The other downside is that in the past the editorial animations tend to run too long and most readers find themselves looking at their watch asking “don’t I have a root canal appointment or something?” In the age where the internet generation has a non-existent attention span is anyone really going to watch a one minute (or looooonger) cartoon?

    I think well done animations would be GREAT FUN to see…but I am trying to be realistic within the context of the market.

  29. Brian makes a good point, I think. In the age where you see some actual quality animation being done for streaming, it’s hard for a small-time editorial cartoonist with limited (or none) animation experience pulling off. Heck, I forgot that Fiore was around, despite his Pulitzer win years ago.

    It should be noted that Ann Telnaes is a former Disney animator. Her past experience helped her tremendously with her animated editorial cartoons, which I think are terrific.

  30. With regard to Ann, her animation skills are a big plus. Additionally her animations are very short and have a minimalist style, which serves the medium well.

    By comparison I think that most cartoonists that create animations and try and say or make too many points with multiple voice overs and complicated soundtracks etc fail. The success of a single panel cartoon lies in the fact that it can convey something in 3-5 second vs a minute or more in animated form.

    Ann keeps it very simple and entertaining. More is not always better.

  31. On a personal note, I wanted to go into animation, and attempted to animate, but I found the process to be draining, emotionally and creatively, and went back to doing comics instead, which I’ve been getting freelance gigs on anyway.

    I still want to give animation a shot again, but only if I can team up with someone who’ll do the grunt work (actual animation) for me.

  32. Not a fan of animated cartoons. Reminds me of someone putting the paper down in front of me, saying “Check this out!” and then pointing to each panel and reading the dialogue aloud.

    Maybe I just need some Anacin, but, “Please, I’d rather do it myself!”

  33. I enjoy both forms but they have their differences much like books and video do. Animation does offer an opportunity for the editorial cartoon to grow beyond the limits of one panel.

    One of the weaknesses of the current one panel political cartoon is it is limited to the world of sound-bites. It is not uncommon to see editorial cartoonists trying to shove multi-panels into a one panel comic to better express their point.

    The multi-panel comic strip is an animated story without the in-betweeners filling in movement and actors supplying voices. It is why “Peanuts” works so well animated.

    Reading versus watching is a different experience for the reader/audience, but both offer the cartoonist a chance to make his or her point or tell their story/gag.

  34. I’m glad you let us know he offended them with a cartoon. You can never be too sure what that Milt Priggee is up to.

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