→2019→06→28→AAEC-feed→Editorial cartooning→Newspaper industry→Disappearing Editorial Cartoonists, and More By Those Cartoonists on the New York Times Action
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Disappearing Editorial Cartoonists, and More By Those Cartoonists on the New York Times Action

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This month, The New York Times fired its two cartoonists, Patrick Chappatte and Heng Kim Song, who drew for the international edition.

This wasn’t a cost-cutting measure. I believe it was a response to the outrage The Times received in April after the international editions printed an anti-Semitic cartoon of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog leading a blind Donald Trump. The Times apologized, then terminated all syndicated cartoons and its own cartoonists.

Editorial cartoonist Gary Varvel discusses the future of his profession.

Newspapers have always been the cartoonist’s bread and butter, since the days of Thomas Nast. But print journalism has become the VHS of distribution systems in a world of online streaming…

Necessity is the mother of invention. There is a need for editorial cartoons. If newspapers can’t afford it, someone else will.

 

 

I started doing illustrations for The New York Times around 1963 and continued on until 2016. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, I had to quit my part time teaching at Parsons because the Times would go so far as to call me there and ask me to come by before going home. It got so crazy I had to just stay home and freelance instead of trying to teach at the same time.

While never big on editorial cartoons, especially of the in-house sort,
Randall Enos remembers a time when illustration and caricature were valued.

As of late, the art in the Times (on Sundays especially), often consists of big, splashy nonsense. Even Ralph Nader wrote a letter to them condemning the waste of space on frivolous and meaningless art that cheats the reader of valuable news items that could occupy the wasted space.

And now, most recently we see that the Gray Lady has dispensed with all editorial cartoons in her foreign editions. The once glorious art-laden Lady is no more.

The Gray Lady has gotten a lot grayer now.

 

 

Now, from the past week, more responses to the unreal Times action.

Starting with the cartoon that accompanied the Randall Enos column above:

 

 


Steve Sack

 

 


Christo Komarnitski

 

 


Robert Rousso

 

 


Gary McCoy

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Comments 6

  1. Gary McCoy. Finally, one conservative cartoon posted. A Martian wouldn’t know there was any other side than liberal to America’s debates.

    (in fairness the demise of a profession isn’t really a controversial topic but points for trying)

  2. I regard Varvel as a conservative, but I haven’t looked in on him lately. Did that change?

  3. Mike, I probably missed some ( https://www.gocomics.com/mike-lester/2019/06/12 ) but it wasn’t intentional. In the “Not Letting a Sleeping N. Y. Times Lie” I got in John Rose and Tim Campbell (leans right). I just quickly checked and didn’t find anything on this from Summers, L. Benson, Stantis, Branco, Ramirez, Shelton, Kelley, Gamble, or Deering. Even Varvel didn’t have a cartoon as far as I know.
    My purpose here is to do what I can to keep legs on this story as long as I can, and I will take help from left, right, and center.

  4. I come here everyday. This is the second cartoon from a conservative I’ve seen in months. No criticism just an observation. Run your site as you see fit just pointing out a fact.

  5. Mike, since I’m the one who runs the most political cartoons, I’ll respond to a criticism on one of DD’s postings.

    The quick answer is that, in the past month, I’ve featured cartoons by Mike Ramirez, Dana Summer, Chip Bok, Bruce Plante and Steve Breen. And I’m a little surprised that Gary Varvel didn’t make that list because I use his work fairly often, if not regularly.

    The more complex issue is that I don’t use right-wing cartoonists very often, and that may be your definition of “conservative.” It’s not mine.

    But I also don’t use left-wing cartoonists very often.

    I don’t use the work of people who (A) haven’t done any research beyond absurdly partisan sites, (B) don’t understand how the system works or (C) consider personal insults a political statement. And I see that from both sides. It makes my teeth ache.

    I look at some of the stuff — right or left — that appears on the AAEC site each morning and wonder “Is anybody actually printing this one-sided, nonsensical idiocy?” but I promise you, it’s not a one-sided reaction.

  6. You don’t run “left wing cartoons”?
    None of the cartoonists you listed has EVER drawn anything as controversial (and incorrect but I defend is right to say it) as DeAdder’s Trump and drowned father/daughter. That’s a beauty.

    So I this is baloney. You post unresearched, unsubstantiated left wing dogma everyday.

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