Daryl Cagleis the daily editorial cartoonist for MSNBC.com. Daryl's editorial cartoon site with MSNBC.com (www.cagle.com) is the most popular cartoon website of any kind on the Internet. It is also the most widely used education site in social studies classrooms around the world. For the past 30 years, Daryl has been one of America’s most prolific cartoonists. Raised in California, Daryl went to college at UC Santa Barbara and then moved to New York City, where he worked for 10 years with Jim Henson’s Muppets, illustrating scores of books, magazines, calendars, and all manner of products. In 2001, Daryl started a new syndicate, Cagle Cartoons, Inc. (www.caglecartoons.com), which distributes the cartoons of sixty editorial cartoonists and columnists to more than 800 newspapers in the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Daryl is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and current president of the National Cartoonists Society Foundation. He is a frequent guest on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. Daryl is a popular and entertaining public speaker. Interested in having Daryl speak to your group? Contact us through www.caglecartoons.com for more information.
Brian Fairrington, a graduate of Arizona State University, earned abachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in communications. Brian is one of the most accomplished young cartoonists in the country. Brian was the recipient of the Locher Award, the Charles M. Schulz Award, and several Society of Professional Journalists awards and Gold Circle Awards. He is a regular on the Phoenix-based television talk show Horizon, for which one of his appearances garnered an Emmy award. Brian has also been a guest on Imus in the Morning and was recently featured on CBS News Sunday Morning. Brian's cartoons are nationally syndicated to more than 800 newspapers and publications in America with Caglecartoons.com. His cartoons have appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, and Time, as well as on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. Additionally, his cartoons regularly appear on www.cagle.msnbc.com. Brian is a native of Arizona and is married to the wonderful Stacey Heywood; they have four children.
Grim Days for Editorial CartooningGrim Days for Editorial Cartooning
2008 was another terrible year for the business of editorial cartooning. The decline of newspapers continued to take a toll on the profession as more cartoonists than ever lost their jobs. Newspapers who lost cartoonists didn’t refill the positions and cartoonists seemed to be at the top of the cost-cutting list as declines in readership and advertising revenue pummeled the newspaper industry.
Here is a partial list of cartoonists who lost full time jobs or who retired during the last year.
Jim Borgman, The Cincinatti Enquirer (OH). Buy out.
Eric Devericks, The Seattle Times. Laid off.
Lee Judge, The Kansas City Star. Laid off.
Don Wright, The Palm Beach Post (FL). Buy out.
Steve Greenberg, The Venture County Star (CA). Laid off.
Stuart Carlson, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (WI). Buy out.
Dwane Powell, The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC). Voluntarily left instead of taking part-time status.
Jim Lange, The Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, OK). "Early" retirement.
Chip Bok, The Akron Beacon-Journal (OH). Buy Out.
Peter Dunlap-Shohl, The Anchorage Daily News (AK). Buy out.
Sandy Huffaker, retired from syndication.
M.e. Cohen, freelance, Retired from editorial cartooning, still illustrating.
Jake Fuller, Gainesville Sun (FL). Laid off.
Dave Granlund, MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, MA). Laid Off.
Paul Combs, left syndication after leaving the Tampa Tribune (FL).
Mike Shelton, The Orange County Register (CA). Laid off.
Gordon Campbell, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, CA). Laid off.
Richard Crowson, Wichita Eagle (KS). Laid off.
Mike Peters, Dayton Daily News (OH), Cut back on the number of editorial cartoons he draws.
Dick Adair, The Honolulu Advertiser (HI). Laid Off.
Ann Telnaes, quit print syndication to focus on animation.
David Catrow, Springfield News-Sun (OH). Left to work on other projects.
Newsrooms across the country have suffered massive cutbacks and it may be that editorial cartoonists are losing their jobs in proportion with other journalists; but since the ranks of employed cartoonists are so small (generally estimated at less than 100 jobs) the cuts seem more dramatic.
The decline in the editorial cartooning business happens at the same time that editorial cartoons are more popular than ever. Cartoonists enjoy a huge audience on the Internet, and the audience for our Cartoonist Index web site (www.cagle.com) continues to grow. Kids who spend all day surfing the web don’t read newspapers; the shrinking readership of newspapers is becoming more elderly. Social Studies teachers around the world use editorial cartons in their classrooms, and are required to teach editorial cartoons for state mandated testing, but the teachers and students use sites like www.cagle.com where they can see hundreds of political cartoons, rather then the local newspaper, where they will probably find only one on any given day.
With only a handful of exceptions, cartoonists don’t get jobs working for web sites in the same way as they did working for newspapers. Web sites don’t subscribe to syndicated cartoonists like newspapers do, so the income of cartoonists is quickly being choked off. Ironically, this is all happening at the same time that cartoonists are doing their best work ever, for a huge audience of fans, and at a time when a troubled world needs political cartoonists more than ever.
Newspapers are putting more resources into their web sites as they see their readership turn to the web, but advertising on the web doesn’t bring in the income that supported newspapers in the past. Also, newspaper web sites don’t have a presence that demands a large audience. The top news sites, like Yahoo! News, MSNBC.com, CNN.com, and Google News all have huge partner sites that drive traffic to them. A typical newspaper site has no reason to exist on the web, and is usually dwarfed by the audience of the local television stations’ news sites.
Some cartoonists are following newspapers down the same web hole, thinking that the future of editorial cartoons is web animation. Although animated editorial cartoons on the Web can be popular and creatively successful, there is an attitude on the web that content should be free and it is rare that a cartoonist can find a paying client for animation on the web. Some cartoonists are working crazy hours, doing blogs and animations for their newspapers’ failing web sites, in an effort to keep their jobs in print.
Even as the business declines, we’re not seeing fewer cartoons. As editorial cartoonists lose their jobs, many of them continue drawing cartoons on a freelance basis, for less money, as a hobby in retirement or a second job. We continue to get flooded with queries from new cartoonists who want to get into the “business” of editorial cartooning. It appears that there will be no shortage of political cartoons, even if all the cartoonists lose their newspaper jobs.
My grim prediction for our cartooning profession is the same as for journalists in general: As we all lose our jobs, we all become freelance bloggers, writing and drawing for a huge audience, on our own, in the evening – after we get home from our real jobs. – Daryl Cagle
© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
