SlowpokeBlog

The winner of the Herblock Prize in editorial cartooning was announced recently, and it turned out to be -- surprise! -- a well-established, middle-aged daily cartoonist who already won a Pulitzer. Just like the guy who won last year's Pulitzer. Fine cartoonists both, but the Herblock Prize (which just started being awarded a few years ago after Herblock's death) has yet to recognize anyone outside the daily genre, and only one alternative cartoonist -- Jules Feiffer in 1986 -- has ever been awarded the Pulitzer. My colleague Tom Tomorrow wrote an open letter to the Pulitzer committee last year, which received coverage in Editor & Publisher, and he tells me he never got a response. I find that outrageous. It would be awfully nice if the judges of these contests woke up and realized there's a little newspaper industry out there with readership in the tens of millions, practicing some of the finest, most essential journalism in this day and age of media consolidation. These newspapers are called altweeklies, and that is where you'll find political cartoons that feature more complex ideas than a giant hippo labeled "debt." No offense to my friends in the daily business; I actually think Tom Toles is the most brilliant political cartoonist currently working. But damn! Wake up and smell the other media! And maybe help out a younger cartoonist for once who could actually use the exposure. I don't mean to sound self-serving here. It's just that these cartoon contests are, if you'll forgive my bluntness, starting to look like antiquarian circle jerks.