AAEC 2007 Conference News Round-Up

Various news articles relating to the 50th annual conference organized by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, held this year in Washington, DC.

* in addition to the awards given out near the conference's conclusion, which are discussed below, the big news coming out of the group's meeting is probably the Thursday town hall meeting intended to foster various ideas that might help secure a better future for the troubled profession. Suggestions included surveys, sponsorship of public events and more services geared towards freelancers.

Personally all of these sound like good things, but I don't know if anything can solve the decline of the editorial cartoonist. Three factors: the overall newspaper business is in decline, over time fewer opportunities will mean fewer highly skilled practitioners getting into the field leading to greater decline, and I'm not sure there is any solution for the fact that at a certain point of decline, syndication becomes an avenue for substitution (not fully, of course) rather than augmentation of an existing service.

This wouldn't work, either, and would likely get me called a communist, but has anyone suggested a free cartoons syndicate made up of staffed cartoonists with clients limited to those papers employing a staff cartoonist?

* political animation a life-saver for a few cartoonists let go from their staff positions.

* editorial cartoonists hold a range of opinions regarding blogging as part of their professional duties.

* what can an editorial cartoonist do if they don't editorially cartoon?

* Flemming Rose, Nik Kowsar and Joe Szabo speak on international issues.

* Dennis Kucinich spoke.

* in awards, the Herb Block Foundation and the late Jay Kennedy received Ink Bottle Awards; student cartoonist Kory Merritt won the John Locher Memorial Award; and Nate Beeler won this year's Golden Spike for best killed cartoon.

* much praise was heaped upon outgoing president Rob Rogers.
 
posted 3:10 am PST | Permalink
 

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