Cartoonists as endangered species

Alan Gardner of The Daily Cartoonist has compiled a dispiriting account of attrition in the ranks of editorial cartoonists over the last three years.

Gardner tallies a net loss of 29 artists working in the field. Some of this is due to habitat loss (decline in the number of papers) and some to environmental reasons (financial pressures convince papers to cut payroll by axing staff cartoonists). Publishers' decisions to remove one of their paper's most lively and well-read features may prove to be short-sighted. That's been the claim of cartoonists, their fans and increasingly, journalistic webmasters who see the traffic that strong visuals draw to their sites.

Paul Bradshaw at Poynter Online makes the pro-cartoon argument in E-Media Tidbits. To test his theory, Bradshaw collaborated with artist Alex Hughes on a cartoon called The Five Stages of A Blogger's Life, posted it and then sat back and watched it get 40,000 hits in one week, a record for his site. Even discounting for the self-referential obsessions of the blogging world, I think he's on to something.

It's not just visual flash that's at issue. Cartoons serve as early BS detectors in a way no other features in a paper can. They stimulate debate and reader involvement whether it's angry disagreement or thankful praise. And the more varied cartoon voices the better. That's one of the motivations behind the Globe's Ink Tank, a daily roundup of editorial cartoons. When I started cartooning in 1980, there were nearly 200 full-time daily editorial cartoonists in the US. That number is about to hit 50. Not good for papers or readers or public debate.