Politico's Jack Shafer: "The End Times of the Political Cartoon"

Jack Shafer, Poltico's senior media writer, says this is "The End Times of the Political Cartoon." 

"Essays marking the decline of editorial cartooning have been perennial since 1954, when the Saturday Review’s Henry Ladd Smith declared the form trite and exhausted. But we are now really entering the end times of the editorial cartoon. At the beginning of the last century, about 2,000 editorial cartoonists worked for American newspapers. By 1957 the number of full-time newspaper cartoonists had fallen to 275. As recently as 2007, they numbered 84, but the decline has continued to the point that the number of salaried cartoonists has reached about 30. Even freelance editorial cartoonists are feeling the pain—just last week, Pierre Omidyar’s First Look Media ended its funding of the editorial cartoon site The Nib.

"Cartoons were once so powerful they could bring down political dynasties, as Thomas Nast’s brought down Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall in 1870s New York. In the 1960s, Richard Nixon understood that a single cartoon of him by Herblock was powerful enough to block his political comeback. “I have to erase the Herblock image,” Nixon said. Just a generation ago, readers delighted in celebrating or damning the acerbic cartoons by Paul Conrad or Pat Oliphant. But somewhere along the line, editorial cartoons lost their cultural primacy. Who do we blame? And do we have a good reason to root for their return?"

He goes on to cite the decline of the newspaper and the rise of late night TV hosts cracking jokes and photoshopped images or memes -- and how all of that is much funnier (Shafer uses the term "eclipsed") than a political cartoon created by a professional editorial cartoonist.

Ha ha. This is, of course, baloney. It's one of those, "Let's write about the death of ______ ." And we've all seen these. "The death of print." "The death of scripted television." It's fine to have an opinion, but so many people I know LOVE cartoons I just can't take this too seriously.

But if he had written about the end times of the PAID PROFESSIONAL editorial cartoonist, I would have a harder time saying baloney. Editors have slashed these jobs, along with a lot of other newspaper jobs. Being a syndicated freelancer is no guarantee of a decent income, as editors are free to pick and choose. The cartoonist only sees money if his or her cartoon is picked. Yeah, this is spec work.

And it's too bad these late night comics don't want to hire cartoonists. I don't think a good cartoonist is funnier than a meme or a joke.

The Nib is turning to crowd-sourcing to buoy itself after its major back has pulled out. I have friends who use Patreon for help their income. Others are looking for work other than cartooning to eek things out. The old economic model is gone.

But people still love cartoons. I hope they are willing to pay.