So even the briefest summary of how he goes about doing his work must take both into account.
First, I think I'm one of the lucky ones. I work for a paper that has a journalistic attitude toward
the cartoon and an editorial philosophy compatible with my own.
Very few newspapers use editorial cartoons correctly. Most think of them as editorial illustrations. Others impose restrictions on topics, enforce slants, deny editorial judgements or require styles on their cartoonists deemed popular at the time .
You might have an Honoré Daumier or a Paul Conrad on the staff.But if such talented people are made to draw only cartoons based on corresponding editorials, those artists would be in limbo.
I agree with Bill Mauldin who disdains the title " editorial cartoonist." The craft cries out to be treated for what it should be: a cartoon coimmentary. I'm glad my paper agrees-- sometimes wholeheartedly, sometimes grudgingly, with Bill,too.
Aside from following the basic journalistic aims of informing, instructing and entertaining, the editorial cartoon, first and always, must take a stand.It must make a statement. It must be a statement.
I have never see a great cartoon that sat on a fence. I have never seen a great cartoonist who tried to be loved by everybody on all sides of an issue. The cartoon, to be really good and true to its purpose, must go beyond the specific subject matter for its content. The ultimate purpose is to take a very particular, topical subject and react to it in a way that sets down a universal principle.
News events come and go. Specifics change as fast as papers print them. So when you deal only with the surface of those topics, the cartoon is no better than the funnies. Or a doodle. Loved but forgotten within seconds. But drawing from a particular event a more universal statement or tuth makes the cartoon timeless, not just timely.
Conrad's cartoons are like this. The universal lessons drawn outlive the specific events they deal with. This is the professional motivation and personal belief that I go by. I don't know if I succeed day after day, event by event, six days a week within deadlines. Most probably not. But the purpose every day is to try.
I also agree with Pat Oliphant who hates to be labeled. I think that cartoonists shouldn't be politically tagged. It's always a surprise to me when some of the newer ones adveryise themselves or proclaim themselves as conservative or whatever. It's bad enough that newspapers sometimes seek cartoonists the same way now: deciding in advance that they want a ( Jeff) McNelly type or an Ohman type or a lighter-side-of-the-news Stayskal type.
We can't approach topics that way, knowing before analyses what the treatment or slant should be. The great cartoonists are not voluntarily predictable. Do you ever know how Ralph Steadman would treat a newsbreak? Or how Gerald Scarfe would look at a subject? To analyze, to arrive an an editorial judgement and then to make a statement is one function of the cartoonist and he has to be intellectually and politically free to do that. Otherwise, one is just doing cartoons supporting one's leanings, which is not journalism but propaganda.
The cartoonist is reponsible for every phase of his work. He has to have the editorial judgement to decide the topic of the day, the responsibility to know and learn relevant data to analyze the issues involved and the flexibility to execute the slant or theme suggested by that analysis.
A few drawing skills help.
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