I wonder if editors who cancel cartoons know the effect they have on the profession. Hardly a month passes when a colleague doesn’t call to tell me that he or she just got that one cancellation that pushed them over the edge into making their strip or editorial cartoon unviable.
It’s death by a thousand cuts. Or maybe a dozen. Editors have to balance their budgets. Hard to believe, but for some that $15 a week just has to be cut. So cut they do.
If they think about the cartoonist they probably think, it’s just one paper. He’s in 140 papers. He’ll be fine. And other editors think the same thing. The next thing you know, you’re down to 90. And 80. And 50. That’s what Tony Ortega, editor of the Village Voice, tweeted about me recently. You’re doing fine. Why are you complaining? He canceled me a few years ago. After cutting my pay from $100 to $50. I still get emails from Voice readers asking why I’m not in there. I wish they’d write him, not me.
So cartoonists are quitting. They have bills to pay, and families to feed, and they have to do their best to make ends meet. The ranks are thinning. Among some of the good cartoonists whose work we have lost recently are Lloyd Dangle and Tim Krieder. Funny Times runs an old comic strip by Nina Paley. It’s so fucking good. But it never got off the ground because editors didn’t want to buy it. Have to keep Apartment 3-G.
That’s the killer part. If the economic shakeout were hitting crappy cartoonists hard, while elevating good ones, it would be fine with me. In fact, the exact opposite is happening.
The cartooning award season just ended. It was depressing. Almost all the major awards went to old-fashioned cartoons whose humor is out of Bob Hope or the Three Stooges. “Alternative” cartoonists—i.e., those who do decent work—were locked out.
That’s the way it has been in the big newspaper round-ups. New York Times Week in Review, Newsweek, Washington Post, USA Today on Friday—all are dominated 99.99% by hackwork. If anything, they’re becoming more small-c conservative. The editors actively discriminate against good work. It’s crazy, because it drives away readers. They still do it.
Same thing with hiring. Good cartoonists like Jen Sorensen and Matt Bors aren’t able to get staff jobs. Good cartoonists like Stephanie McMillan don’t get picked up for syndication. All the high-paying gigs, and many of the little ones, are going to unadulterated hacks.
The only wonder is, in such a Bizarro World of Aesthetics, in which the better you are the worse you do, why anyone still sticks around.
3 Comments.
our local weekly runs these terrible cartoons tacomatrashcan . com because the cartoonist will work for free. I’ve had interest from our daily paper in my own cartoons but are unwilling to pay ANYTHING! not even a trade for ad space… in fact our local paper ran a front page story when another terrible cartoonist paid $190 dollars to run a cartoon in the comics section proposing to his girlfriend. At least David Horsey is still getting paid to draw cartoons for a virtual Seattle P.I.
These practices should be exposed and shamed.
I wish someone would start a website. RatOutAnAsshole.com, anyone?
Ted – I’m a renaissance redneck that’s been all over the world and parts of Algeria. I really like your work, but have to admit, I’ve never sent you a dime (seems I tried one time, but the website didn’t work or my Internet connection was too slow, honestly, I don’t remember). I do contribute to Common Dreams, but have no idea if they pay you or not. Anyway, currently living in an out of the way place in southern China. Life ain’t bad here, it’s cheap, the young, cute chicks love Westerners, most people are working too hard to worry about politics (and I might add that most are very content to be working hard, maybe it’s a “having purpose” thang, I don’t know). The China Daily (English version) newspaper runs some decent editorial cartoons and a few crap American strips.
Hang in there, dude. I’ve been admiring your writing and point-of-view for about 10 years. And, I promise, when I return to America, I will buy a book or four from an independent book seller.
Don’t do the PayPal or Amazon thing – it’s just who I be.
Thanks for convincing me I am not the only person who views the world in a similar way as you. If you ever need a place to live, I’ve got a pretty decent place on a dirt road in the Deep South that is vacant. It’s close to a beautiful, clean river and a bunch of decent folks, though most would disagree with your “politics” as they do mine. C’est la fuckin’ vie – there’s probably no place in the world I could live where most people agree with my politics and religion – c’est la fuckin’ vie.