San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Nothing lampoons like an editorial cartoon
These are precarious times for editorial cartoonists. A Canadian publishing company just terminated its contract with a cartoonist who had portrayed a golfing President Trump standing over the bodies of two migrants and asking, “Do you mind if I play through?” This as the shrinking legion of cartoonists was up in arms over the New York Times’ recent decision to stop running cartoons in its international edition. And last year Pittsburgh PostGazette cartoonist Rob Rogers revealed that he was fired after 25 years for being too mean to Trump.
This disrespect for the art form is no laughing matter.
Great editorial cartoons sometimes are amusing, but they are just as likely to jolt the conscience. The best of the bunch are irreverent, unflinching and crystal clear in their commentary.
I reached out to four fearless cartoonists who regularly appear in The Chronicle — Tom Meyer, Signe Wilkinson, Jack Ohman, Joel Pett — to get their take on the Michael de Adder’s “play through” cartoon that went viral on social media, along with their broader thoughts on the state of their profession.
The de Adder cartoon was “everything a political cartoon is supposed to be: pithy and hard hitting, with a dash of nasty,” Meyer said. “The only thing that provoked the publisher to fire Michael de Adder was the target of the cartoon. One of the things people like most about political cartoons is how blunt and rude they can be — ironically, just the sort of attitude most MAGAhatwearing fans love in their president.”
But, I asked each, did the cartoon cross a line by portraying the now famous and thoroughly sickening photo of Óscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 23monthold daughter, Valeria? You can probably anticipate the answer from all four cartoonists: no.
“What line, anyway?” asked Wilkinson, based in the Philadelphia newspapers. “People dying not quite over the border line is over the line to me.”
Ultimately, it’s the editor’s job to set the line on taste or sensitivity. Cartoonists should feel liberated to push the boundaries — and they do. As many cartoonists like to say, “I decide what to
draw; you decide what to publish.”
Rogers certainly felt the editor’s pinch in Pittsburgh. After his firing, he wrote in a New York Times piece that 19 of his cartoons or proposals were rejected in a threemonth period. “Six were spiked in a single week,” he wrote.
The New York Times’ decision to pull editorial cartoons out of its international edition had a particular sting, according to Ohman, based at the Sacramento Bee. “It was particularly galling given that the NYT had won the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning in 2018. Both he and Pett drew biting cartoons about the Times decision, which many observers suspected was in reaction to blowback from a cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a guide dog for a blind President Trump.
“Did the editor who picked it get fired? No,” Ohman observed.
The Times denied any direct connection with that drawing — condemned as antiSemitic and reminiscent of Nazi propaganda — and its decision to end cartoons. Ditto the Brunswick News in insisting that de Adder’s cartoon was not the cause of his terminated contract. The conservative editorial director of the PostGazette explained at the time that he had unsuccessfully tried to persuade the leftleaning Rogers, a onetime Pulitzer finalist, to be more collaborative and for his work to have more humor.
Four months later, the paper hired conservative cartoonist Steve Kelley.
One factor that may work against editorial cartooning is a diminished appreciation for pointed satire in this polarized era. Americans may be less quick to recognize — let alone accept — the absurdity of their preconceptions or political positions. Perhaps its no coincidence that Mad magazine, the ultimate purveyor of wickedly funny satire, just announced that it will be ceasing publication after 67 years.
There’s a distinct touch of Mad’s sensibility in editorial cartooning.
“It’s not subtle,” Meyer said of the commentary form. “It’s not an eloquently crafted opinion hiding in long gray columns of Times New Roman. It’s an oar in the face. Or as Boss Tweed famously put it, ‘I don’t care so much what the papers write — my constituents can’t read ... It’s them damn pictures.’ ”
Meyer was referring to the work of Thomas Nast, known as Father of the American Cartoon, whose scathing caricature of William Marcy “Boss” Tweed’s Tammany Hall political machine in New York City was widely credited with bringing down the corrupt politician.
Anyone following the news these days would know that editorial cartoons are as needed as ever.
“People still love the art form,” said Pett, based at the Lexington (Ky.) HeraldLeader. “Corporate weenies ... not so much.”
John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnDiazChron