Editorial Cartoon Award Madness



You know, in most fields a big award like the Pulitzer creates an empty space for several days on either side where no awards are given out or they'll likely be underreported. This is apparently not a fear held by editorial cartoonists, who if the listings at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists web site are to be believed, have enjoyed a full week before you even talk Pulitzer Prize. Here's your editorial cartoonist award news, in bulleted fashion.

* College student William C. Warren from Wake Forest (work above) has won this year's AAEC/John Locher Award. He beat out several runners-up, in order: Nate Robinson of the University of Washington, Sam Ayres of Yale University and Dan Abramson of Northwestern.

* Pulitzer Prize winner Mike Luckovich has also won this year's editorial cartooning Sigma Delta Chi award given out by the Society of Professional Journalists.

* The United Nations Correspondents Association Ranan Lurie Political Cartoon Award went to a cartoon by Gerald Mayerhofer of Austria's Die Presse.

* The 2006 Comics Reporter Award for Really Long Award Name went to The United Nations Correspondents Association Ranan Lurie Political Cartoon Award, although it doesn't have much room to talk.

* Editor and Publisher profiles Luckovich's Pulitzer win, pointing out he was informed early, which in some cases might ruin that spontaneous newsroom celebration imagery, although it sounds like the cartoonist sat around and worried instead of partying pre-formal announcement.

* The Detroit Free Press acknowledges its finalist, Mike Thompson.

* In the most-emailed-to-this-site article of the day, Tom Tomorrow writes an open letter to the Pulitzer board bemoaning the lack of penetration by alternative cartoonists into the awards mix. Tomorrow has a point, but oddly, I think the most telling sign of the category's conservatism isn't the lack of a Ted Rall win but the fact that Garry Trudeau missed out on a second Pulitzer a couple of years back. Like most awards, to an outside observer the Pulitzer for cartooning seems to have a political component (acknowledging certain well-regarded cartoonists when a career feels like it has blossomed) and a public component (acknowledging a cartoonist that made a dramatic impression over the year). I don't know any alt-comics people that have had a year where what they've done would strongly fulfill either criterion. On the other hand, past winner Trudeau made a tremendous public impact a couple of years back for his Iraq cartoons, and I'm not sure he even made the finalists. So I wouldn't be surprised if what we're seeing is a sense of pride in traditional cartooning that may have taken hold of the voting, maybe starting with Stephen Breen in 1998. Luckily, as Tomorrow points out, no one's been undeserving.
 
posted 1:25 am PST | Permalink
 

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