Tuesday, June 17, 2003

By Tony Norman, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Few readers of newspapers think of editorial cartoonists as citizens wracked by the same insecurities that plague the public officials they skewer. Editorial cartoonists court controversy, but few of us can imagine that they also covet our love and respect.

Because editorial cartoonists have mastered the art of caricature and routinely reduce complex issues to amusing scribbles and devastating put downs, the assumption has been that those who would mock the leader of the Free World with impunity, by portraying him as an intellectual lightweight with big ears, must be many steps beyond lowly citizens perusing their seditious cartoons over morning coffee.

Sure, editorial cartoonists would prefer you continue believing in their swaggering infallibility, but t'ain't necessarily so. When the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists holds its annual convention in Pittsburgh tomorrow through Saturday at the Omni William Penn, the precarious state of newspapers in general and editorial cartooning in particular will be on the minds of every ink-stained wretch in attendance.

"We've seen a lot of attrition in the last decade of newspapers and, consequently, cartoon jobs," said Post-Gazette editorial cartoonist Rob Rogers, the local organizer of the convention that will host nearly 150 cartoonists and guests. Some of the cartoonists in attendance are freelancers, echoing the point.

"With media conglomerates and takeovers, it's even more likely that the first thing to go when the budget cuts come down is a fringe job like staff cartoonist. What we're saying is that the cartoonist slot is not a fringe job. We're integral to the identity of a newspaper."

Cartoonist Kirk Anderson, formerly of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, is intimately familiar with such budget cuts: He was laid off by his paper last month.

"Editorial cartoonists spend a lot of our time wringing our hands and gnashing our teeth over the dwindling visibility of the profession," Anderson said, "but nobody seems to know what to do about it."

The Pioneer Press has begun filling Anderson's spot with syndicated cartoons, but those cartoons lack the local dimension that newspaper surveys indicate readers appreciate.

"At a time when newspapers are looking for local [angles], for visuals, for quick reads, for graphics, for young readers, cartoons do all of these things," Anderson said. "It doesn't make any sense to be cutting them when you look at newspapers and publishers' specific priorities. It makes sense to be hiring more."

Anderson will expand on these thoughts on a convention panel.

Rogers said one of the themes of this year's convention, which is not open to the public, will be how editorial cartoonists can go about being better stewards of their image.

"As an organization," he said, "is there anything we can do to get better PR for ourselves in the community and in the offices of the publishers and editors throughout the country so that they will realize the importance of having their own political cartoonist on staff?"

"These things are cyclical," added Bruce Plante, president of the AAEC. "This organization was started in '57 to stem the tide of job loss. After we built it up to a high of 200 members, it's been whittled down to [half that]."

Plante believes the syndication of many of its members has, ironically, hurt the group as a whole. "One of the things we'll be talking about at this convention is the importance of local cartoons and cartoonists," he said. "There should be more editorial cartoonists than there are professional basketball players."

But it won't all be navel-gazing this week. There will be panels about corporate and self-censorship in post-9/11 America, including a tie-in to the current Warhol Museum exhibit "Too Hot to Handle: Creating Controversy through Political Cartoons," curated by Rogers and Sylvia Rohr.

Comedian Al Franken will deliver the keynote address to the convention.

One can almost hear Franken's Stuart Smiley character asking the obvious: "If you prick them, do they not bleed? If you tickle them, do they not laugh? If you wrong them, will they not seek revenge?"