For 40 years now Ariail’s been making people think.
By high school, Robert Ariail was the school paper cartoonist, inspired by his 10th grade English teacher who introduced him to Pat Oliphant and other notable artists. The principal canned his first cartoon. “My first taste of the editor/cartoonist relationship,” Ariail said . He landed his first job with The State the month he graduated from the University of South Carolina, just the second cartoonist in The State’s history.
Editorial cartooning, like jazz, is an American art form, and Robert Ariail is an artist.
Tom Poland for The Index-Journal profiles South Carolina editorial cartoonist Robert Ariail.
above: “Between a Rump and a Hard Place” Robert Ariail’s first(?) cartoon for The State from August 21, 1984 and a September 9, 1984 item introducing Robert to The State’s readers.
When Ariail worked for The State, his phone rang a lot. “I had to listen to angry readers. I got positive feedback as well, which is always very gratifying. I least enjoyed the withering, mean-spirited, downright vicious online criticism that’s most often anonymous.”
Unfortunately Robert’s career involves a familiar song and dance these days:
The Great Recession of 2009 brought change to newspapers nationwide. The convergence of the internet, social media and hard economic times turned print journalism upside down. Newspapers began mass layoffs. Most newspaper cartoonists lost their jobs within a few years.
“I was pushed out in 2009,” said Ariail.
After leaving The State he looked for a staff position at other newspapers. Nothing. “I landed a contract gig with the Spartanburg Herald-Journal and later the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Each gig lasted about three years until the same cost-cutting newspaper chain bought the papers.”
Fortunately Robert still survives:
The three-time finalist for The Pulitzer Prize kept on keeping on, and today the Andrews McMeel syndicate distributes [link added] his work to over 600 newspapers. “Having my work published in papers all over the country (except my home town), I don’t get much feedback, negative or positive, which is kind of liberating.”
He also gets to keep his hand in local politics with his weekly Low Country strip for the Charleston City Paper.
His one-man show at the Koger Center Art Gallery in Columbia opens Sept. 23 and runs until Nov. 17.
Thanks for profiling an outstanding cartoonist. The Polemics cartoon is very clever – I love it!