Journal political cartoonist Sanders took on politicians from mayors to presidents
Milwaukee Journal political cartoonist William (Bill) Sanders was remembered Sunday as a dynamic artist who wasn’t afraid to challenge those in power. Sanders died Saturday at the age of 90.
Sanders was a thorn in the side of politicians locally, especially Milwaukee Mayor Henry Maier, but presidents from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump also felt the heat from his pen.
“He was a very passionate, hard-hitting cartoonist,” said Sig Gissler, who worked with Sanders as editorial page editor from 1976 until Gissler became editor of the Journal in 1985.
“He was a larger-than-life figure in the history of political cartooning in Milwaukee,” said Stuart Carlson, who was a cartoonist at The Milwaukee Sentinel beginning in 1983.
Despite working at the rival paper, Carlson said Sanders would act as a mentor.
“He could have been a lot rougher on me than he was,” Carlson said. “I think he loved the ungentlemanly art of political cartoon more than he valued his own position at the paper. He was very generous to me and to other aspiring cartoonists as well.”
Sanders began his cartooning career at Pacific Stars and Stripes while he served in the Army in Korea from 1955 to 1957; he freelanced in Japan until 1958.
He returned to the United States in 1959 and began working at the Greensboro Daily News in North Carolina.
He moved to the Kansas City Star in 1963, where he created so much controversy that the paper received more letters to the editor in one month than the paper had received in five years over cartoons, according to an Editor & Publisher article in 1964.
From there, Sanders moved to The Milwaukee Journal, where he was a cartoonist from 1967 to 1991. Sanders’ habit of attracting letters to the editor followed him to Milwaukee.
“The editorial page was never void of letters to the editor,” said Gary Markstein, who became The Milwaukee Journal’s political cartoonist after Sanders retired. “Those are the qualities of an excellent cartoonist. If you could stir them up, that means people are listening to you.”
Sanders was at the center of a fairly contentious relationship between The Journal and Mayor Maier.
“There was nothing subtle about a Bill Sanders political cartoon,” said Pat Graham, who was a metro reporter at The Journal at that time. “His approach was to hit his target right across the nose. And if that didn’t do anything he would hit him again right across the nose.”
Markstein said that one time Maier called Sanders a “Colonel,” so the