Cartooning the Campaign

NPR conducted an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution cartoonist Mike Luckovich and Mike Peters of The Dayton Daily News about the presidential campaign so far. Of note: Mike celebrates his 40th anniversary at The Dayton Daily News this year!

The above cartoon is discussed in the interview.

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What is an "arform?"

From About.com Spotlight: Edward Steichen, born on this date in 1879, was a pictorialist photographer at a time when photography was not universally respected as an art form. Steichen worked with his close friend, Alfred Stieglitz, to found Photo-Secession, a group that strived to have photography recognized as a fine art. As curator of NY's Museum of Modern Art, Steichen created the Family of Man exhibition. The collection of 503 photos taken by some 270 photographers in 68 countries was a depiction of the human experience. It was turned into a book, with a forward written by Steichen's brother-in-law, Carl Sandburg.

Quote: "Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man." — Edward Steichen

I know this has nothing to do with comics (so to speak), but when I read blurbs like the one above, it gives me hope for the future of comics (as perceived by the mainstream culture). Maybe Sunday Comix will one day be written about in the same light as Photo-Secession... who knows?

Rejects Rejoice!

Gag cartoonists... have you ever felt down after getting the short end (or sharp point) of the editorial stick?

Cartoonist Matthew Diffee feels your pain (or perhaps your indigestion... if you're an elephant). Over the course of eight years, Matthew Diffee has had more than 100 of his illustrations published in the cartoonists' bible, The New Yorker. But that magazine gets more than 500 submissions a week — and for each issue, the editors select only 20 cartoons, in a process that Diffee says may or may not involve the use of darts.

So even Diffee has had to deal with rejection. Happily, he's found a channel: His new book, featuring his own work and that of 37 other New Yorker regulars, is The Rejection Collection, Vol. 2: The Cream of the Crap.

Listen to Mr. Diffee's interview on NPR's Fresh Air and feel the cartoon love (and rejection).