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Editorial Cartooning

Events Surrounding the AAEC Convention

Published: August 26, 2026 1 minute 13 comments

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) convention is just three weeks away and events there and around it are taking shape. Members-only and the public schedules are available at the AAEC website.

Drawing Democracy events

Sacramento organizer Maryellen Burns is involved in coordinating a number of events some lasting a month beyond the convention weekend.

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists is bringing its national convention to Sacramento September 18–19, and we decided that seemed like too good an opportunity to keep all those cartoonists to ourselves. So, we’re stretching the festivities through October 16 and inviting the rest of Sacramento to join us.

And what a group we have coming. Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonists Jack Ohman, Joel Pett, Matt Wuerker and Ann Telnaes will be here, along with the wonderful New Yorker political illustrator Steve Brodner and other nationally recognized cartoonists, historians, scholars and assorted people who spend an alarming amount of time thinking about what can be accomplished with a pen, a point of view and a willingness to annoy people in high places.

The programs will be scattered around town at the Sacramento History Museum, Sacramento Public Library, Celebration Arts, Sacramento State, Amatoria Fine Art Books and the Crocker Art Museum.

Among the events are talks by Jack Ohman and Matt Wuerker at Crocker-Con on September 20; Drawing the Other: Race, Immigration, and the American Cartoon at Celebration Arts on September 21; tentatively — Drawing Democracy at Sacramento State’s Democracy Symposium on September 30; Drawing the Line: A History of Editorial Cartooning at Amatoria Fine Art Books on October 1; and Drawing Sacramento: Cartooning the Capital City at McClatchy Library on October 8.

We’re still putting the finishing touches on the schedule, and I’ll post information in the next few days about how to attend the various programs. Most of the events will be free, because we really do want as many people as possible to come, listen, argue, laugh, and maybe look at political cartoons a little differently.

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists 2026 convention logo

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Comments 13

    2. She did apologize for using AI in the making of the poster:
      “P.S. My apologies to Jack Ohman for using his caricature of himself without warning him—and to Steve Brodner for using AI to create this image. The irony is not lost on me: one of our panels will, of course, be about the perils of AI.”

      1. Can you (or anyone else) explain what “instantaneously” reveals the use of A.I. in the poster? The face looks like the same picture Ohman uses on his GoComics page, and he has the right number of fingers on each hand.

      2. > Can you (or anyone else) explain what “instantaneously” reveals the use of A.I. in the poster?

        The typography gives it away immediately as AI, but the caricature of Jack looks like his caricature as reinterpreted by AI. You can see it in the texture of the linework.

      3. We can now rename that session “Question Artificiality,” I suppose

  3. I’m a little shocked the AAEC used an AI poster.

    1. The poster is about the convention and the events surrounding it, but the AAEC wasn’t involved in creating the poster or all the later events. Maryellen, who is involved in organizing extraneous events around the convention happening in Sacramento, created the poster.

  4. Look at “September 18-October 16” on the AI poster.
    “October 16” is squished to make room to get it on the poster. Sometimes that’s the practice of a poor designer, but it can also be the tell of AI.
    And all the other reasons Rick McKee gave.

    Like Rick, I’m surprised the AAEC allowed anyone to use AI to promote anything involving the convention. I wouldn’t allow my convention name on anything generated using AI. It seems contrary to what artists should be supporting right now.

    1. Agreed. Let’s chalk it up to expediency but it sure makes a bad statement. Many political cartoonists are having their cartoons pirated then redrawn & republished by AI with completely different perspectives…

  5. The poster was not designed or published by AAEC. The designer for educational panels for ancillary exhibits at the Sacramento History Museum needed some direction. Maryellen used AI to quickly put together a mockup to use an example; unfortunately it also got put on FB and the rest is history. Rest assured, the final product is being designed by a real human, will be reviewed by real humans, displayed by real humans. FWIW, the official AAEC program will also feature a panel on A.I. that will include information on how artists can help protect themselves from A.I. abuses

    BTW, I am posting this individually not as a representative of AAEC.

  6. I share everyone else’s shock that someone would use AI to promote a convention of editorial cartoonists.

    Maybe the reaction will serve as an object lesson to whomever created the initial image; but using AI to promote an event by cartoonists is very much like honoring a group of chickens by using a picture of Colonel Sanders. And it gives me the same queasy feeling in my stomach as too much KFC.

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