As an editorial writer for a dozen years, I have to admit I often envied editorial cartoonists.
No matter how good a job you do researching, constructing and writing an editorial, it never hits home as quickly as an editorial cartoon. After all, you don’t read an editorial cartoon, you look at it and it speaks for itself, especially when it’s clever and well drawn.
Like those drawn by Stuart Carlson, the editorial cartoonist for the Milwaukee Sentinel and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from 1983 to 2008.
My good friend was a master of the craft, clearly one of best editorial cartoonists to ever put a pen to paper. His cartoons were creative, humorous when the occasion called for it and exceptionally well illustrated.
Jerry Resler pays tribute to his good friend Stuart Carlson at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
(at Yahoo for those without a JS subscription, though the picture gallery is available at the JS).
When Carlson and I were on the Editorial Board, a highlight of my day is when he would stop by my office each morning with the cartoon he had just finished. This was before he had run it past the editorial page editor. He didn’t do it to get my blessing. He did it because we were like minded and shared a strong sense of humor.
Carlson could not only poke fun at others but himself. He had a huge pencil hanging from the ceiling in his office. It was so big you couldn’t ignore it.
I don’t know for sure but I like to think that in a way my dear friend and colleague figured that despite the power his cartoons wielded, that pencil hanging over his head each day helped keep him pointed true north.
