Cartoon Exhibition Cancelled Due to "Fear of Offense"

 

Via UK Daily Telegraph Political Cartoonist Patrick Blower:

"An exhibition featuring Britain’s top political cartoonists entitled Licence to Offend, has been cancelled by the venue owner. Perverse, given that all the cartoons to be exhibited, have been previously published in mainstream newspapers and magazines. In 40 years of freelancing, I’ve never come across something like this. A real sign of the times as there is now a terror of offending absolutely anyone."

 

It's always hard to fathom the fear of a cartoon, but there it is, time and again. 

The good news is that the Licence to Offend political cartoon gallery show will go on at another venue.  

 

"In a move that reignited concerns about the narrowing boundaries of acceptable speech and expression, a London gallery pulled an exhibition celebrating Britain’s storied tradition of political cartooning on the grounds that it might offend – though following a backlash, organisers say they have since received countless offers of support, and the show will now go ahead at a new venue.

"Titled Licence to Offend, the show was intended as a tribute to satire’s role in a healthy democracy. It brought together dozens of works by cartoonists from across the political spectrum, including long-standing Fleet Street names such as Mac (Stanley McMurtry) and Jonathan Pugh, as well as the Guardian’s Martin Rowson. But on the eve of its opening to the public, organisers were informed that the artwork would have to be removed immediately after its private view.

"According to a message sent by curator Zoe Dorelli to participating artists, management at the venue – TownSq, a co-working space on Kingston Riverside in southwest London – felt the work was 'too offensive'. The organisers were told that because the company worked with councils around the country, it could not risk appearing “too political” or upsetting visitors.

"'We had a great relationship with the venue, but the management freaked out and thought it might be too offensive,' said Dorelli. 'They said that maybe some of their members might get upset.'"

 

John Rose: Storyboard Artist to Stanley Kubrick

 

My friend Matt Jones has unearthed a short video interview with John Rose, an illustrator who also worked on films for Kubirck and David Lean. 

From a 2010 BBC profile:

"John began his career illustrating books, but also worked on some blockbuster movies, including Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

"John said of working on the 1968 film: 'Stanley wanted some illustrations of what it might look like in outer space.

"'He wanted professional imaginations, or as they subsequently came to be known, conceptualists.'"

Here's the video, along with glimpses of some of John Rose's amazing storyboard skills.

 

Cy Whitling's Autobiographical Comic

 

Cy Whitling has written and drawn a short autobiographical comic at his Instagram. His bio reads: "Mostly doodles. Has written lots about bikes and skis." I stumbled on it this week and, even though I don't know Cy, I wanted to share his story here. He writes, "Took a break from drawing cute critters for something more serious."

 

 

AI Illustrator Job Posting "There is no time or bandwidth to sit around waiting for 6 months for anyone to hand-illustrate a comic."

 

Hayao Miyazaki reacting to a presentation of Artificial Intelligence. Link to video below. 

 

 My friend John Klossner forwarded this to me. It's an ad that's currently at LinkedIn:

Role Description

This is a fully remote role for a solo comic writer/artist. You will be working on comics in our IPs only, original content, and storytelling and you will be given full freedom to craft your storylines and series from a narrative standpoint inside the world building that we have done in our IP development.

The AI usage

Using AI to do the illustrations instead of doing it manually is mandatory. The comic industry from a profit point of view is heavily dominated by the Japanese Manga industry even in the west, now accounting for 2 out of every 3 comics sold. To compete effectively, we need to be both fast and good at delivering products to market. There is no time or bandwidth to sit around waiting for 6 months for anyone to hand-illustrate a comic. That is not the reality of jobs in the comic industry anymore.

Compensation

This role is envisioned as a full-time role. We will expect you to deliver one full comic a month. A comic in our world is 32-64 pages. A strong comic narrative designer fluent in a top-tier AI illustration tool should be able to do this comfortably.

Yipe! I saw this yesterday and thought it was made up! But it is a real ad from WRKS Games, based in Singapore.

So nasty. I never thought of all of us as "hand-illustrators" before. I didn't know that there's just no time for that sort of thing any more. At least at WRKS in Singapore.

Aside from the nasty morality that AI is based on theft from real people, it's not copyrighted work. At least, that is, according to laws in the US. And I don't think that there are people clamoring for the latest piece of media that AI has done like they would for, say, Mayazaki. 

 

Alex Zalben at Comic Book Club Live has this to say:

 

AI Illustrator Job Posting Comes Under Fire:

A job posting for a Comic Writer/AI Illustrator has come under fire.

Posted for WRKS Games, which calls itself “a transmedia game developer and publisher based in Singapore,” the posting calls for a writer/artist to work on their IPs, and noted that AI usage was a must.

Said the posting, “Using AI to do the illustrations instead of doing it manually is mandatory. The comic industry from a profit point of view is heavily dominated by the Japanese Manga industry even in the west, now accounting for 2 out of every 3 comics sold. To compete effectively, we need to be both fast and good at delivering products to market. There is no time or bandwidth to sit around waiting for 6 months for anyone to hand-illustrate a comic. That is not the reality of jobs in the comic industry anymore.”

As you might imagine, nobody on the internet was having it. Responses ranged from “there is no profit in AI comics” to “people who use AI for comics don’t understand composition, paneling, storytelling, just comic making in general.”

The job listing has subsequently removed the functionality to apply, presumably because real humans were spamming responses. And a reminder that what WRKS Games and others are selling is flat-out wrong. AI is not inevitable, and it’s not mandatory. It delivers poor results that is plagiarized from other people’s work, looks like garbage, and drives away customers. That’s not to mention the negative environmental impacts. AI is bad and unnecessary, from art programs to ChatGPT. Cut it out of your life, immediately. And certainly out of your comics.

 

Seconded!

EDIT: Here is a short video of Hayao Miyazaki reacting to a presentation of AI that was posted on YouTube some eight years ago now.

“I am utterly disgusted, if you really want to make creepy stuff, you can go ahead and do it. I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.

 

“I feel like we are nearing to the end of times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves.”

 

 

Jack Katz 1927 - 2025

Writer and artist Jack Katz, best known for his 24-issue First Kingdom epic series of independently published comic books, passed away on April 24th. He was 97. 

He worked at a variety of comic book publishers from the 1940s on. He also worked as an assistant to King Features cartoonists.

"He met Alex Raymond and Hal Foster, two of the artists he considered his biggest influences. Foster, in particular, was his favorite artist from the age of 6. The former’s epic Prince Valiant was a major influence on Katz’s First Kingdom project, because of its broad scope and huge, varied cast. Foster told Katz that drawing comic books was a waste of his talents, Katz said, in his 2010 interview. Veteran Superman artist Stan Kaye told Katz that he should keep at it.

"... By 1955, he had left the comics industry to become a teacher and painter. He taught classes at the New York City YMCA, and he also had a small number of private students. This break from drawing comics lasted for 14 years.

In 1969, inspired by Jim Steranko’s innovative work on Marvel’s Captain America title, Katz returned to comic books. He worked for a variety of publishers during his second career in comics. He went back to Marvel and contributed to such titles as Sub-Mariner, Monsters on the Prowl and Adventure into Fear. For the first time, Katz also did work for Marvel’s rival, DC, drawing stories for House of Secrets and romance comics like Young Love, Heart Throbs, Falling in Love and others. He also contributed to Jim Warren’s Creepy during this time, writing, penciling and inking." - TCJ

Influenced by the success of underground comix, Katz began his own epic series in 1974.  

Daily Cartoonist:

The First Kingdom was a twelve year, twenty-four issue effort by Jack that was, as Lambiek’s Comiclopedia says, “a complex science fiction epic that tells of man’s migration into space, the ensuing galactic battles, and the great mystery of mankind’s origin before the fall of civilization.”

 Wikipedia:

A number of stylistic touches set Katz's illustrative style in Kingdom apart from that of other comic artists. It is highly detailed. All of his human (and humanoid) forms have ideal, heroic bodies rendered with anatomical accuracy; and there are no gutters, with murals filling single-panel pages throughout the work. The quality of Katz's art matures as he progresses further into the story: the panels get larger and he shifts from pen to brush in the fifth book, a suggestion from Jim Steranko.^[24]

Will Eisner and Jerry Siegel^[25] among many others considered Kingdom to be innovative in many respects. In the foreword to issue #23, Eisner claims the work helped carve a niche for the graphic-novel medium. Comics historian R. C. Harvey believes Katz was the "...first person in comics to pursue a personal vision at such length'".^[26] Katz's stated intention in the first issue was to trailblaze: "The work I am undertaking...is the first in a series of books in which I hope to extend the dimension of comics to the potential art form that one of its earliest and greatest artists, Hal Foster, laid down the foundations for."^[27]

 

Turkish Cartoonist Zehra Ömeroğlu Receives 2025 Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award

 

Via Daily Cartoonist:

Cartoonists Rights has bestowed the 2025 Robert Russell Courage in Cartooning Award 2025 on Zehra Ömeroğlu, a Turkish cartoonist, who has been the target of criminal prosecution for a cartoon that was published in 2020 and faces a three year prison sentence.

The offending cartoon was published in Leman, a satirical magazine composed mainly of women. In 2022, she was summoned to the police station and informed of obscenity charges for her tongue-in-cheek pandemic-related cartoon.

Since 2022 she has been subject to 13 court dates and many delays to have her day in court. In 2024 the cartoon was finally and officially designated as “obscene” by the Turkish Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services who stated:

“We take great exception to the way in which Ömeroğlu’s work is characterised, with a definition that is indistinguishable from that of pornography.”

In February her trial before the Istanbul Criminal Court began but a requested report from an expert panel of academics had not been received by the court. The next hearing is scheduled for June 26th. 

While her legal battle is in limbo Zehra reports that her career in Turkey is ruined. Even if she receives a suspended sentence the risk of harsher penalties hang over her head should she commit another alleged offense.

Regarding the selection of Zehra, Cartoonists Rights’ Executive Director, Terry Anderson, stated:

I’m delighted our Board of Directors chose to honor Zehra this year, especially as we witness the change that is unfolding in Türkiye. In our view, her prosecution is based wholly on her gender; the same cartoon, in the same space and at the same time with a male byline simply would not have attracted the same (over)reaction from state censors. Like many outspoken women in Türkiye, Zehra has been deliberately persecuted, but this attempt to silence her has wholly backfired. As a direct result of her prosecution, Zehra’s cartoons are now seen in international media on a regular basis, and her story will soon be told in a new graphic novel project that she’s currently working on. We commend her bravery and resilience, and above all, her undaunted sense of humor.

"Feeding Ghosts" by Tessa Hulls wins Pulitzer Prize for Memoir

 

Via Comics Reporter:

 

In one of the most stunning recent award wins for a graphic novel, Tessa Hulls’ Feeding Ghosts (MBD) has won the Pulitzer Prize in the Memoir or Autobiography category. 

It is only the second graphic novel to won a Pulitzer….but the first to win in a regular category. In 1992 Art Spiegelman’s Maus won a special Pulitzer award to recognize its powerful message. 

The prize committee wrote of Feeding Ghosts: “An affecting work of literary art and discovery whose illustrations bring to life three generations of Chinese women – the author, her mother and grandmother, and the experience of trauma handed down with family histories.”

Hulls’ book follow three generation of Chinese women through the reverberations of history and personal trauma. Her grandmother was a journalist swept up in the Communist revolution who escapes to Hong Kong but suffers from a mental breakdown. Hulls tells her story and that of her mother and herself as they struggle to reckon with family and world history….and their own attempts to survive it. Told in a dense, woodcut like style, it’s a powerful work that has already won a load of awards including the National Books Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the 2025 Anisfield Wolf Prize, the Libby Award For Best Graphic Novel and the shortlist for the Carnegie Medal. 

Regular readers of this site know that we hold graphic novels and non fiction to be literature of the highest order. It’s still exciting when an award as respected as the Pulitzers recognizes this as well, and especially with a book as strong as Feeding Ghosts.

 

Ann Telnaes, Who Resigned From The Washington Post After Trump Cartoon Was Rejected, Wins Pulitzer Prize

 

Photo via Deadline.

 

Via Daily Cartoonist:

 

Ann Telnaes of The Washington Post awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Illustrated Reporting and Commentary (link includes Ann’s submission portfolio).

The Washington Post proudly claims partial credit for Ann Telnaes 2025 Pulitzer. Or here.

Ann Telnaes, until recently a political cartoonist for The Post’s Opinions page, was awarded the prize for illustrated reporting and commentary. It was her second win in the category, which was labeled “editorial cartooning” when she was first honored in 2001 while working for Tribune Media Services.

While Telnaes was technically honored for her work in the 2024 calendar year, the prize committee citation also alluded to her unpublished January cartoon, hailing her for “delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity — and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years.”

 

Via Comics Reporter:

The Pulitzer is annually awarded annually to a cartoonist, and this year’s winner was Ann Telnaes, the storied editorial cartoonist who made headlines earlier this year when she quit the Washington post when a cartoon criticizing owner Jeff Bezos was squashed. Telnaes was saluted by the prize committee for “delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity – and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years.”

Chris Ware designs US Postage Stamp Pane

Graphic Novelist Chris Ware has designed a pane of USPS stamps celebrating their 250th anniversary.

"250 Years of Delivering, is a pane of 20 stamps by cartoonist Chris Ware that invites the public to spot a fun array of familiar postal items and icons while following a mail carrier on her rounds through four seasons of the year" according to this USPS news release. The set will be available this July.

"Customers may purchase stamps and other philatelic products through The Postal Store at usps.com/shopstamps, by calling 844-737-7826, by mail through USA Philatelic or at select Post Office locations nationwide"