AAEC News

Press Release from AAEC Board

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists applauds the Urban Tulsa
Weekly for removing David Simpson as it's Editorial Cartoonist following
overwhelming evidence of plagiarism.

David Simpson was not a member of the AAEC.  Still, we believe that his
long history of stealing material from our members, including the late Jeff
MacNelly, and his previous firing for plagiarism provides cause for us to
challenge his being given another chance to occupy space that might
otherwise be filled by one of the many talented and original editorial
cartoonists available today.

Cartoonists must respect copyright laws and the individual creativity that
makes the work of each cartoonist unique.  This incident highlights the
importance of outstanding, original, political cartoons and reaffirms their
essential position in journalism and Democracy.

Petition in support of freedom of expression

The following is reprinted from the website of the CNRI (Cartoonists Rights Network International) Link: http://cartoonistrights.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=133&Itemid=1 Petition

by Robert Russell, Director Cartoonists Rights Network International Burke, VA USA

Jan 18, 2011 at 08:28 PM

Pulitzer winning cartoonists' petition passes 1,500 signatures.  Why not sign on now?   The petition that is seen here: http://cartoonistrights.com/petition/ has just passed the 1,500 signatures mark.  Started by Pulitzer winning cartoonists Ann Telnaes and Signe Wilkinson, this remarkable effort has been successful beyond our expectations.   It was recently featured on the back cover of Notebook, the official journal of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.   We have sent a copy of this petition to the Home Ministry in Malaysia in support of cartoonist Zunar who is at risk of being charged with sedition because of his cartoons about the head of state and his wife.    We invite all free speech loving people to sign on and make your voice heard.

McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage

Help the University of Georgia select the next winner of the McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage.

 

This year's medal was awarded to four journalists at the center of the Chauncey Bailey Project. The year before, to Jerry Mitchell, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reporter who endured death threats as he helped bring civil rights-era killers to justice.

 

Here's how you can help: Nominate one or more journalists for the 2011 medal. The criteria is simple:  The medal honors a working U.S. journalist whose career has exemplified journalistic courage.

 

Please send your nominations to Professor John F. Greenman at jgreenma@uga.edu. Tell him the journalist's name, where the journalist works, how to contact the journalist, and why you think the journalist is worthy of this honor.  A few sentences are all we need for now.

 

For more information, go to www.grady.uga.edu/mcgill.  Click on Medal.

 

Nomination deadline is December 15.

 

Letter from the President: AAEC as Torn Rotator Cuff

by Rex Babin, AAEC President

 

Everyone says that you have the most fun at the AAEC convention immediately following the one you put on. Having been heavily involved with two, I can tell you that I am already looking forward to next year in St. Petersburg and I’m reminded of how after hosting Sacramento back in 2005, I was harassed by nominating committees until I finally relented and agreed to be Prez for 2010. Jack, are you paying attention? My editor at the time, David Holwerk signaled his approval by advising, “you might as well just bend over.”

As I noted in Portland, about the time I was assuming the position of AAEC president, I had a pretty major shoulder injury and earlier this year went in for rotator cuff surgery. Through much of my term I was saddled in a sling, firing off nasty emails and letters with one hand – all the while nursing a persistent nagging pain in the shoulder.

Although it was tempting to view this as an apt metaphor for the AAEC presidency, I preferred to look at my subsequent rehab, with its slow, sometimes torturous, but ultimately positive forward progress as the best illustration of not only how I felt my year as president went, but also the AAEC as an organization, and perhaps the profession itself, methodically plodded along.

As a result, this year as your president has been a surprisingly rewarding one for me. Possibly due to my fear of the amount of work involved, I just figured it would be a thankless task, but slowly began to realize that it was indeed a labor of love. It has truly been a privilege and an honor to serve in this organization that has given me so much.

I wish to thank my wife and son, of course; The Sacramento Bee; a very solid and professional AAEC board, with a special mention to Secretary/Treasurer (supposedly for life) Cullum Rogers, who is stepping down (he knew better than to step down a year earlier, because I would have killed him); Minister of Information, JP Trostle; Melinda and Teresa at PNA; The Herb Block Foundation; and Jack Ohman, who was a pleasure to work with on the Portland Convention.

So what about that convention? As you’ll see in the following pages, we adapted. Just as we’re adjusting to the changing landscape in our profession, we demonstrated in Portland that we can forgo the swanky four-star hotels we had become accustomed to and still have the substantive discussions and, more importantly, the good times we always have when we gather together.

Who cares if the hotel bar went out of business just weeks before? Hell, we’ll just take it over and, by golly, that suits us even better. Come to think of it, taking over a hotel bar may be the metaphor I’m searching for. Because if we don’t take charge of our own destiny, bartender is just about the only other job we’re qualified for.

 

 

 

 

Appreciating JP

JP: An Appreciation

 

By V. Cullum Rogers

 

This issue of the Notebook is the first since 2002 that hasn’t been edited by J.P. Trostle, who grabbed the torch from my failing hand eight years ago and passed it on to Stephanie McMillan this summer. (Congratulations, Stephanie; also, good luck.) For those keeping score, that works out to 32 consecutive quarterly issues, a record for a single editor that is not likely to be broken, at least not by a sane person.

J.P. added color to the Notebook, switched to better paper and created a PDF edition with embedded videos, website links and other interactive features; somehow, he found a way to do all this while cutting production costs. He single-handedly designed and laid out the biggest issue ever, the 112-page Golden Notebook, which is virtually an official history of the AAEC’s first fifty years. And he did it on schedule, a talent possessed by few if any of his predecessors.

No tribute like this would be complete without a few sentences designed to make its subject squirm, so here are a few obscure facts that J.P. might wish would stay that way:

* He loves pussycats. There are usually at least a couple lounging around the home he and his wife Maura McLaughlin share in Durham.

* He can grow a full beard, or head of hair, or both, in about two weeks.

* He is the world’s leading expert on Rollerball, a game that doesn’t exist outside science-fiction movies.

* He still has his childhood collection of Wacky Packages stickers.

* Once, when the two of us got lost driving to Columbus, Ohio, and found ourselves in a greasy spoon in some godforsaken town in Kentucky, he heard a waitress ask if I was his father. No one should be subjected to that. (For the record, I’m not.)

* Finally, and most important, his favorite drink is the dry Martini. Order him one next time you see him. He’s earned it.

______________________________

 

The Prez Salutes JP

by Rex Babin

It’s hard to believe back when JP took over as Notebook Editor that the role was basically just that — editing our humble B&W quarterly newsletter.

During JP’s tenure the information business transformed itself with the emergence of the blogosphere and its need for almost constant feeding. JP property recognized the necessity for the AAEC to keep up with that demand. His involvement with our website allowed us the opportunity to post more news items in a more timely manner and with more frequency.

JP took on that challenge and his efforts have helped our organization often control the narrative on issues important to us. Whether they be the AAEC eBay auction or Black Ink Monday, he has been instrumental in moving AAEC initiatives forward and made sure the word got out.

So vital has been his input that he has been informally invited by AAEC presidents past and present to help strategize on virtually every pressing issue facing the AAEC. In the process, he earned his title of Minister of Information (said title which he himself rediscovered hidden in the Association bylaws), or as I refer to him, Special Advisor to the President. Let us thank him for his valuable years of service and wish him luck starting up that lucrative lobbying firm of his.

Cullum Noncarborundum

By R.C. Harvey

 

If the forthcoming election pans out in the way it portends to with regard to your correspondent, I’ll be trying to fill gumboots too large for even my ego—namely, those of one Virginius Cullum Rogers.

I might be able to add and subtract and come up with the same unvarying results as our retiring (but scarcely bashful) Secretary-Treasurer, but his numbers always had more flair than mere math.

I might, given a sharp enough pencil, be able to take notes and write up minutes eventually, but I’ll never be able to deliver a pedestrian truth with the same ponderous pontification Cullum can muster for the most mundane of utterances—punctuating said utterances with loftily raised eyebrow and widened orb, both of which bespeak a comedically irritated disbelief as well as astonishment that anyone could actually countenance what he was saying.

Would that I could.

Think of the continents I could conquer.

This is, after all, the gentleman who once practically put the entire Association membership on the floor laughing as he read off the tally from an unpaid bar tab from the previous evening. He is frequently able — and just as often called upon — to regale an audience with a historic tidbit or a salient quote without consulting his notes, and his 12-year tenure as Secretary-Treasurer is an AAEC record (a fact which I had to go to Cullum himself to confirm, as no one seems to remember a time when he didn’t hold the post.)

That would be enough for us to rejoice in his honor and memory. But there’s more.

No one will match his mastery of the history of our medium and of our club. No one can pluck from the shadows of the ancient past such plums as both entertain and inform our derelict modernity. And like everything he has done—from reading minutes to summarizing our lack of financial status—Cullum so obviously found pleasure in it, in the sheer verbal dexterity of it all.

Fortunately for us, he’ll still be in the audience: even if he’s not in command at the head table, he’ll be in command at the back of the room. And we’ll delight in it, as always.

News Briefs

SHOWS


ANGELO LOPEZ, who is an illustrator (magazines as well as three children’s books), muralist and painter in addition to an editorial cartoonist, will show his whimsical cartoonish illustrations and more realistic watercolor work plus a few cartoons, along with the work of five other artists, at the Sunnyvale Art Gallery (Sunnyvale, CA), Aug. 2-30. For more info, see sunnyvaleartgallery.com. He will also have a show in Gallery Saratoga (Saratoga, CA) in October. To see some of his paintings, visit http://www.gallerysaratoga.com/artists/Lopez/index.html

* * *
ED HALL has a one-man show of his fine art, opening at the Corse Gallery in Jacksonville, FL on September 2. Usually he caricatures people; now he has expanded his repertoire to include dogs. He uses a variety of media ranging from house paint to sand and charcoal to portray them leaping, playing and running in action drawings that exaggerate their bodies “almost to abstraction,” according to the gallery notes. “This is not your normal pet painting!” they add. Take a peek at http://www.corsegalleryatelier.com/artgallerya_005.htm

* * *

An exhibit of KAL cartoons and animation was on display at the Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival, July 21-25 in South Korea. KAL will also have more than 40 cartoons, covers and illustrations from his 33 year career with The Economist on display, Sept. 10-Oct. 24 at the Center for the Arts, Jackson Hole, WY. In addition, KAL was a featured speaker at the opening event for the technology festival Betascape, July 15 at WindUp Space in Baltimore, MD.

* * *

BOOKS


In No Cartoon Left Behind: The Best of Rob Rogers, Rogers recounts his humorous path to cartooning and shares his own personal perspective on the major news stories of the past two and a half decades. He covers a diverse range of topics including the Cold War, gun control, smoking, racism, the environment, 9/11 and presidential elections. Funnyman Dave Barry contributed the Foreword. See a review by RC Harvey on page 11.

* * *

Prizewinning Political Cartoons: 2010 Edition, edited by DEAN TURNBLOOM has been issued by Pelican Publishing. The anthology presents work by and brief interviews with the winners of the year’s top ten editorial cartooning awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Headliner Awards, Thomas Nast Award, and the Fischetti Award. It also presents information about each award and its origins.

* * *

Taxpayer’s Tea Party: A Manual for Reclaiming Our Country, by Georgia
State  Representative Sharon Cooper (R) and illustrated by CHUCK ASAY, is “more than a manual for political revenge; it’s a step-by-step guide in cartoon form to carry out our own American Revolution.” The book is graced with not one but two introductions, by Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.

* * *

Mischief in the Forest, a children’s book written by environmentalist philosopher Derrick Jensen and illustrated by STEPHANIE MCMILLAN, will be issued in September by PM Press in partnership with Flashpoint Press.

* * *

TED RALL’S most radical book yet, The Anti-American Manifesto, will be issued in September by Seven Stories Press. In it, Rall argues that the economic and political collapse of the United States provides an opportunity for justice- and equality-minded people to launch a revolution to overthrow the oppressive capitalist system.

* * *

GIGS

Chicago Now has begun running cartoons by MICHAEL GARMAN. Garman is also currently illustrating a children’s book of poetry with writer Paul Handley.

* * *

The Sun-Sentinel (South Florida) has begun running the editorial cartoon Code Green by STEPHANIE MCMILLAN, twice a month on the editorial page. They have also agreed to a six-month trial period for a monthly animated version of the cartoon to run on their website. They will be animated by David Essman.

* * *

b free daily, a paper associated with the Baltimore Sun, has begun running Crabby and Hon, a thrice-weekly comic strip by CHELSEA B. CARR about a crab who hates Baltimore and a woman who loves it. View samples here: http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/bthesite/bs-bthesite-crabbyandhon-gallery,0,5730892.gallery

* * *

After five years as director of the Department of State’s Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program, CHIP BECK retired. The next day he packed his bags for a new stint as security division director with the Nairobi-based organization Africa Expeditions. He will help provide “life support systems” to NGOs, international organizations, contractors, peacekeepers, governments, oil and mining companies and others in remote areas of southern Sudan, the Congo River basin, Darfur and other places. Previously, Beck created Supercrat, the Super Bureaucrat (1979-1993), State Magazine’s first serialized comic strip. He was also the Navy’s official combat artist for Operation Desert Storm. For more information on his work, see combatartist.com.

* * *
A painting by RANAN LURIE was affixed to an Israeli satellite (the Ofek 9, to be precise) and sent into space on June 22. The satellite’s mission is to spy on Iran’s military and nuclear activities. The Chairman of Israel’s Space Agency, Major General Professor Isaac Ben-Israel, declared that the artwork, titled The Uniting Painting, expresses “a universal desire of people to live in harmony.” Lurie says that he recognizes the irony of a painting about peace adorning a military satellite, asserting that it is “the balancing olive branch to the spy satellite’s sword.”

* * *

Congratulations to proud parents MIKHAELA REID and MASHEKA WOOD! After Mikhaela went into labor at the same time as the AAEC convention was being held (which must, somehow, be a good omen), and being in labor for five days (!), Zora Ruby Wood was born at 3:07 p.m. on June 22. She weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs, 6 oz and measured 20.75 inches long. Welcome to the world, Zora!

___________________________________________________

Ariail Joins Herald-Journal
By Luke Connell

Veteran editorial cartoonist Robert Ariail is now penning his work under the (South Carolina) Herald-Journal banner.

Ariail’s cartoons on global, national and state issues are featured in more than 600 publications across the country, and his first cartoon drawn specifically for the Herald-Journal appeared on the Opinion page and at GoUpstate.com on July 27.

Ariail worked as The State newspaper’s editorial cartoonist from 1984 until March 2009, when he was laid off during a round of personnel cuts. He was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize — in 1995 and again in 2000 — and has won numerous other awards for his work, including five Green Eyeshade Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, a National Headliner Award in 1990, and the Overseas Press Club’s Thomas Nast Award in 1997. In 2009, he became the first American to win the United Nations Ranan Lurie Political Cartoon Award.

After leaving The State, Ariail kept drawing, distributing his syndicated cartoons through United Media. Still, he wanted to work with a newspaper.

“Of course, South Carolina is a gold mine for cartooning,” Ariail said. “It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to leave the state, and a reason I’m so excited about working with the Herald-Journal.”
The recession and a changing job market for journalists haven’t yielded many job openings for cartoonists in recent years, and many newspapers have eliminated the positions entirely.
“I think the Herald-Journal is showing a lot of faith in the future of newspapers and of editorial cartooning,” Ariail said.
Herald-Journal Executive Editor Mike Smith said the newspaper had a unique opportunity to provide more for its readers.

“Robert Ariail will be doing unique local content our readers have not had in the past,” Smith said. “Most of our readers are familiar with his award-winning work on national issues, but adding his graphic perspective on Spartanburg issues will bring a new level of commentary to our pages and generate additional interest in the Herald-Journal and GoUpstate.com. We’re enthusiastic about this partnership.”

Ariail said Herald-Journal readers should expect local cartoons soon.
“I just have to learn about the people and what’s going on here in Spartanburg before I can do that, but I’m sure I can do that fairly quickly,” the University of South Carolina graduate said.
Ariail recently made headlines after penning a cartoon of Republican gubernatorial Nikki Haley wearing a bathing suit on one panel and a burqa in the adjacent panel. The cartoon, Ariail said, contrasted Haley’s campaign promises of open government and her lack of transparency in some recent actions. Some, however, took issue with the Muslim garb, perceiving it as a slam against Haley’s Sikh heritage.

Ariail lives in Camden with his wife, Fair, and their 15-year-old daughter, Virginia Elizabeth.

—Herald-Journal, July 27, 2010

Recent Awards

KEITH KNIGHT is the winner of the 2010 Inkpot Award for achievement in the Comic Arts, announced at San Diego ComicCon. Knight describes the big moment, “ComicCon International’s David Glanzer showed up at my spotlight panel and started gabbin’ on the mic — I thought I was in trouble — and then he pulls out this shiny, pointy award with my name on it!! Nice!! My wife still doesn’t understand why I got it.”

* * *
The winners of awards for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies were announced at the 15th Annual AltWeekly Awards Luncheon on July 16. The winners of the cartoon category were as follows:

First Place: Failure by Karl Stevens (Boston Phoenix)
Second Place: Slowpoke by JEN SORENSEN
Third Place: Idiot Box by MATT BORS (Boston Phoenix)

Honorable Mention: The Critical Line by STEVE GREENBERG (Ventura County Reporter)

* * *
DWANE POWELL, former cartoonist at The News & Observer (Raleigh), received one of six 2010 Medal of Arts awards by the City of Raleigh Arts Commission in July. “The focus is on artistic excellence,” said June Guralnick, executive director of the Arts Commission. “It is for a lifetime achievement in the arts.” The six artists will receive their medals in a ceremony on Oct. 6. “All the candidates selected this year have done so much for the area and for North Carolina,” Guralinick said.

* * *
STEVE GREENBERG won the award for Cartooning in the Southern California Journalism Awards, sponsored by the L.A. Press Club, for a series of cartoons about economic tough times published in the alternative-weekly Ventura County Reporter.

* * *
Accepting his sixth win in seven years, political cartoonist for the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper, DAVID G. BROWN was presented with the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s 2010 Merit Award for “Best Editorial Cartoon.” (See the winning cartoon to the right). The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), also known as the Black Press of America, is a 69-year-old federation of more than 200 Black community newspapers from across the United States. (www.nnpa.org)

* * *
JIMMY MARGULIES won the 2010 Clarion Award for Editorial Cartoons from The Association for Women in Communications, for a portfolio of five cartoons from 2009. He also won first, second and third place for Editorial Cartoons from The Garden State Journalists Association.

* * *
In the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists contest, MIKE SCOTT of newjerseynewsroom.com won first and third for editorial cartoons. MARGULIES won second place. The web site, started by laid off employees of The Star Ledger of Newark, focuses on local state news.

* * *
ED HALL of The Baker County Press won first place in Division C (circulation under 7000) of the Florida Press Association’s 2009 Better Weekly Newspaper contest winners for Original Local Editorial Cartoon:

A Letter from the Editor

So, if things go as planned, this will be my final issue as editor. While I still love doing the Notebook (no, really), I know the signs of when it’s time to move on from a project. After the convention I will be handing things over to the energetic and able Stephanie McMillan, who, no doubt, will bring her own altie aplomb to this venerable rag.

Her DIY background as a cartoonist will come in handy as we move into whatever adventures the “new business model” has in store for us, and finds us relying ever more on our wits and creativity to make a living. (Another reason we picked Stephanie is that she actually knows how to layout a print publication, also a “dying art” in the age of the web page.)

Yes, you sometimes want to scream, we get it — things are different now. 
It is still stunning, however, when you look at just how much has changed in the last decade; my favorite example of this is, conveniently enough, my time with the Notebook of the AAEC.

A while back I packaged up all of the materials and submissions you’ve sent me over the years for the Association archive at Ohio State University’s Cartoon Library. Tearsheets, press releases, photographs, original artwork scribbled on napkins— everything from my first five years as editor took up an entire legal box. 2002 alone filled two fat manila envelopes to bursting. When I deliver the remaining archives to OSU this fall, covering 2007-2010, it will be a DVD and a couple of letters in an envelope so thin it won’t even disturb my cat when I pull it out from under him. That’s change you can believe in.

Does this mean it’s time to change the Notebook as well, go all blog all the time? I don’t think so — in fact, I would argue just the opposite. While the original mission of this newsletter to keep the membership informed and in touch has long been subsumed by the web site, e-mail, and the unstoppable “L”, it has taken on a more important role — as scrapbook.

When Cullum and I did the Golden Notebook, it would have been impossible to tell the history of the AAEC’s first 50 years without that hardcopy archive. I hate the thought that there might be no record of our future struggles, victories and pub crawls because someone forgot to make a backup, or, more likely, there’s no more electricity.

So here’s to the Notebook; long may she scrape.

JP Trostle
AAEC Notebook

A Call to Apple to Support Free Speech from the AAEC

April 22, 2010

Mr. Steve Jobs
Apple
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014

Dear Mr. Jobs:

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists would like to commend Apple for approving Mark Fiore's app, "NewsToons" (which incidentally became the top selling news app in less than 48 hours). Ironically, Apple rejected this very app as "objectionable" until Mr. Fiore received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and considerable media attention. We hope other apps that focus on politics and satire do not have to wait for a Pulitzer Prize before they are approved by Apple.

The recent attention given to Apple's rejection of apps because they "ridicule public figures," and are therefore in violation of the iPhone developer agreement, has brought some very important free speech issues to light. Apple's policy forbidding ridicule of public figures effectively bans all political cartoons and satire from the iPhone and iPad.

While the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists realizes that Apple is a private sector company, Apple is also becoming one of the primary ways people publish news and information. With that innovation comes new responsibility.

A vigorous public discourse, opinion, satire and, yes, ridiculing public figures, are essential to journalism and our Democracy. Our nation would be a very different place if early technological innovators like Benjamin Franklin and those who followed him, forbade their presses from being used to ridicule public figures.

Instead of approving apps containing news and satire based on popularity, the quantity of public outcry, or the quality of award the work has received, there is a much simpler solution. The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists calls on Apple to immediately stop rejecting apps because they "ridicule public figures" and are deemed "objectionable." Now is the time for Apple to welcome a vibrant and diverse world of news and opinion with open arms.

We would be happy to meet with you to discuss this matter further and look forward to journalism and press freedom being an important part of Apple's continued innovation.

Sincerely,
The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists