Go, Read: A Short Interview With Matt Pritchett

I'm a sucker for any article that has the phrase "pocket cartoonist" in it. I think I like that term because it makes me think of a newspaper cartoonist carried around in the editor's front shirt pocket, scrambling out and down his arm to create some sort of basic-response cartoon right on the page being assembled at the time. A pocket cartoonist is actually a one-column cartoonist that provides wry perspective on the day's news stories -- a lot like a traditional editorial cartoonist but usually of a slightly higher profile in terms of placement, slightly less portentous and broody by content, and indicative less of a newspaper's political point of view than of a publication's civilizing influence on culture by pulling humor out of some news of the day. Anyway, here's an interview with one of the better ones working, Matt Pritchett of the Telegraph. I like Pritchett in part because he seems really good at taking the kind of photo that generally accompanies an article like this one.

What's interesting to me about these kinds of cartoonists is that on the one hand giving a cartoonist a platform like this is totally a newspaper culture thing, something unique a newspaper can do. At the same time, having someone on staff to just do that; well, that seems like an amazing luxury in today's economy. It also works on an interesting principle that a newspaper is going to present troubling or difficult news upon which a cartoon like this can provide commentary or relief; I'm not sure that's always the goal anymore.
 
posted 5:20 am PST | Permalink
 

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