Michael Ramirez Hopes His Pulitzer Win Is A Boon For Substantive Cartooning
The Michael Ramirez Pulitzer Prize win announced yesterday is a great story in a lot of ways. For one, Ramirez is one of the prominent staffers that was forced from the Los Angeles Times a couple of years ago during that paper's mid-decade heaves and shifts; his second prize is thus linked to his current gig at Investor's Business Daily. The most encouraging might have been this interview and profile and Editor & Publisher where Ramirez -- who has been killing in the awards this year -- makes a call for more substantive editorial cartooning. This stands in contrast to last year's much more wonky and frankly depressing talk that everyone needed to do successful animations in order to be seriously considered for the Prize.
Alan Gardner jumped from the gate like a classic speed horse with a bunch of posts yesterday, pointing out some of the other memorable element of this year's awards, namely Tom Batiuk's finalist status -- a rarity for a strip cartoonist and coming off his impressive year with a well-received cancer-driven storyline -- and Clay Bennett's remarkable consistency.
