I see the cartoonist as contributing to the content, being critical, because we do poke holes in some of the dialogue and find new ways of seeing things.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Well, there are better cartoonists now than there ever have been. I firmly believe that. There's some amazing work being done.
I can definitely say that of all my friends who I consider to be really great cartoonists, we're all trying to aim at basically the same thing, which is an ever closer representation of what it feels like to be alive.
Cartoonists create so many cartoons on any given topic that we can follow the life cycle of a comic idea and how it evolves over time more quickly than we can with a form like the novel.
There are a lot of really great cartoonists out there. It's nice to be thought of as one of them.
Drawings don't have a point. Cartoons, you want to have an opinion; you want them to express a viewpoint.
When I first started as an editorial cartoonist, I was terrified on a daily basis. Filling that hole the next day, knowing that tens of thousands of people were going to expect something funny. There is still that pressure, but you kind of learn how to cope with it a little better.
With a standard editorial cartoon, you're taking tons of information and synthesizing it down to a single bite - a single moment in time. With animated editorial cartoons, it's more storytelling.
Editorial pages all say, 'Well, the other guy has a point, too. It remains to be seen how this will come out. We certainly hope it comes out fine; blah, blah.' Cartoonists don't go that way. Our job is to stick out our tongues, to show a big raspberry to whatever pompous jerk happens to be mouthing off.
There is too much illustrating of the news these days. I look at many editorial cartoons and I don't know what the cartoonists are saying or how they feel about a certain issue.
Editorial cartoons are about concept. The illustration is merely a vehicle to convey a point of view. We're here to protect and inform the public, to attack and repel those who do not agree with our long-term shared interest.