Go, Read: Cartoonists Pay Tribute To Lee Salem

If last year's big comics story that somehow didn't get reported as a big story was United Media shutting its doors, this year's might be Lee Salem moving away from editorial at Universal and into a role that is more concerned with the business side of things. Salem has been more influential in comic strips than any pair of editors at any comic book endeavor over the last quarter-century. I imagine this move isn't as set in stone as people yelling about things on the Internet like to have things set in stone, even though I bet it's close. When Garry Trudeau says he's not accepting Salem's move, it seems logical to suggest that he'll still be called upon by the cartoonists with whom he's worked when they need to call on someone. Still, it could well be the clean break that very few people get, and any less Lee Salem in editorial is a big deal to a business where he's been a major difference-maker for decades now.

I suppose if you favor a celebrity-type focus on this kind of thing there's something to be said about Bill Watterson simply taking part in Michael Cavna's gathering of cartooning talent that's paying tribute to Salem here. It's the content of what Watterson writes that intrigues, though, particularly when he notes that a lot of Salem's strips depended on strong, idiosyncratic writing and that this made them stand out a bit from the gag/greeting card generation of strips that came before it. I think that's as succinct as summation of Lee Salem's career as might be possible. It's a fine legacy to move one of comics' great expressions in a different direction for an era, even if you're not the one that's making the work. Maybe that's even more impressive, really. Salem's had one heck of an editorial career.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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