The Flying Cartoonists

A brief and biased history of political cartooning...

So I’m in grade school and some adult says maybe I should be a commercial artist which sounded pretty good to me because the inclusion of the word “commercial” made it sound like there might be money involved.

You know who wasn’t a commercial artist?

Vincent Van Gogh.

According to the internet (lots more on that momentarily) Van Gogh sold just one painting in his life and he sold it to another artist. Actually (also according to the increasingly dubious internet) Van Gogh may have sold other paintings, but the evidence for that is sketchy.

(And now let’s all take a moment and enjoy that unintentional art pun.)

Along with a wide variety of shitty jobs—I played drums in a lounge act, dressed dummies in a department store, put bindings on skis, did paste-up and composition for a print shop—I eventually landed a job as a commercial artist, but found out I didn’t like it all that much and I don’t think the people I worked for were all that thrilled with me either.

So now I’m wondering what’s next and in 1974 I see a PBS documentary called The Flying Cartoonists about Bill Mauldin and Pat Oliphant and it was called The Flying Cartoonists because in addition to drawing political cartoons, Bill and Pat were pilots.

Timeout for some Google AI “Research”

I wanted to double-check the year The Flying Cartoonists aired and according to Google’s AI Overview it was 1974, but it only had one source for that information:

Me.

It came from an essay I wrote in 2019 and now that I know I can get Google’s AI to repeat whatever I say and tell other people it’s true:

Lee Judge was the American League’s Most Valuable Player in 1812.

I’m pretty sure the key to my scheme is saying something so unlikely that nobody bothers to offer contradictory evidence and since the American League wasn’t founded until 1901, I’m guessing there’s a shortage of people claiming they won the MVP 89 years earlier.

So after you read this Google “who was the American League MVP in 1812” and if it’s me, I might be on to something.

Time Back In

From high school on, I could always cartoon a little bit, so a job where I could talk to some editor for 5 minutes and then spend the rest of the day drawing goofy pictures sounded awesome, so I immediately drew three political cartoons and sent them to 300 newspapers and when that didn’t work, did it again.

Over the next two years I got 700 letters of rejection.

Two years after seeing The Flying Cartoonists I finally got my first political cartoon published in the Sacramento Union on April 1^st, 1976 and the fact that my political cartooning career started on April Fool’s Day probably should have told somebody something and that somebody is probably me.

After that first cartoon, the rest is history—unless Google’s AI Overview describes it and then it might be Tall Tales or Science Fiction.

And speaking of history…

My Brief and Biased History of Political Cartooning

Prior to Pat Oliphant the most famous political cartoonist in America was probably Herblock (real name Herbert Block and he worked for the Washington Post). Political cartoons were generally drawn in a vertical shape which is good for dramatic images like portraits or people standing around or sitting behind desks and they were generally drawn with grease pencil on stipple board (imagine scraping a crayon across fine sandpaper) and looked like this:

At least among cartoonists, these cartoons were considered part of the “Ashcan School” of Art which emphasized realism and “ashcan” was supposed to be an insult (look at the gritty, disgusting things they draw, like Nixon in a gutter) but most of the artists were OK with that label; they wanted to be considered realistic.

Personally, even though he came along a little later, I thought Paul Conrad (LA Times) was the best political cartoonist from that era and cartoons like this one of Richard Nixon crucifying himself explain why:

Now here’s what Paul thought of the Republican Party’s relationship with the Democrats:

Quick story Paul told me: one day he’s drawing a cartoon that he knows will make some readers batshit crazy and he asks the LA Times phone operators (back when we had those) to get the names of the people who called to complain and over 200 people called in the next morning, but the vast majority didn’t even subscribe to the Times and only two of the people who called to complain quit subscribing and one of those two readers re-subscribed within a month.

Paul’s attitude (and one I adopted) is if he did something controversial, people might scream and shout and do the Peppermint Twist and talk about how horrible he was, but then come back to see what horrible thing he did the next day.

Another Conrad story: Paul was from Iowa and Des Moines Register-Tribune cartoonist Jay “Ding” Darling was his hero, so early in his career Paul shows Ding some of his stuff and Ding says it’s no good and Paul should get into another line of work, which let’s face it, was a Dick Move by Ding.

Considering what we do, we have a surprising number of inflated egos in the cartoon business and one night about three Manhattans into the evening, New Yorker cartoonist Charles Barsotti talked about how important we were, so I asked Charlie if he was stuck on desert island, would he rather be stuck there with a cartoonist or a carpenter.

At best, we’re a maraschino cherry on top of society’s banana split.

Anyway…

Conrad started at the Denver Post, but got a job offer from the LA Times after their cartoonist Bruce Russell died and in 1964 The Denver Post needs a cartoonist and that’s when Pat Oliphant leaves Australia (he’d been working at the Adelaide Advertiser) and comes to America.

Oliphant Changes Everything

Oliphant arrives un the US of A, but his influences are Australian and English and he’s drawing in a horizontal format which is better for depicting movement. His political cartoons look a lot more fun and lively and everybody loves the new approach. Eventually Pat’s syndicated in over 500 newspapers.

Oliphant’s a Big Deal and every newspaper wants somebody who draws like him.

Pat wins the Pulitzer in 1967, but then pisses off the people who hand those out by saying the cartoon they gave it to was the worst thing he did that year, but he knew it was the kind of maudlin shit they liked and that’s why he entered it:

Guess who never won another Pulitzer.

According to what I’ve read, Pat refused to be considered for another Pulitzer although anyone can enter anybody else and as long as I’m now the American League MVP of 1812, you should go ahead and enter the Pulitzers and then walk around saying you were “considered” for a Pulitzer Prize even though they threw your entry out at the earliest opportunity.

It’s $75 well spent.

And Now Some Pulitzer Prize Sour Grapes

In my mind (if no place else) nobody “deserves” to win a Pulitzer Prize: it’s not the 100 meter dash—it’s subjective.

Also in my mind (settle in, we’re going to be here awhile) if you were giving an award for the “best” political cartoonist in the United States, for several decades you could have given it to Pat Oliphant in the even years and Jeff MacNelly (Chicago Tribune) in the odd years and every Leap Year give it to some cartooning outlier like Don Wright (Miami Herald) or Dwayne Powell (Raleigh News & Observer) and the rest of us wouldn’t have all that much to complain about.

I never thought I was the “best” cartoonist and still don’t and lots of people agree with me.

But also in my mind (sorry, we’re still stuck there) lots of cartoonists who weren’t the “best” had won Pulitzers and if they were going to hand them out in a haphazard fashion (and they did) any one of us might be in the running.

During my career I heard a lot of Pulitzer horse-trading stories and as an example I’ll tell you the worst one. This was told me to me by Bill Sanders (Milwaukee Journal) and a great guy and here’s what Bill said:

The Pulitzer Board decides to give the 1961 Pulitzer Prize to Hugh Haynie (Louisville Courier-Journal) but before it’s announced, Carey Orr (Chicago Tribune) retires and someone from the Chicago Tribune complains to the Pulitzer Board that this will be their last chance to give Carey Orr a Pulitzer, so they decide to change cartoonists in the middle of the stream and give it to Orr instead of Haynie.

Meanwhile…

The Pulitzers are supposed to be secret and none of the people involved are supposed to spill the beans about who won what before they’re publicly announced, but lots of people can’t keep a secret and some idiot tells Hugh Haynie he’s won the Pulitzer.

So Hugh is a bit miffed when they give it to Orr.

Next the cartoonists are having their convention in New York City and they’re told there’s a special treat in store and they all need to get on a bus, but the bus doesn’t go anywhere and it’s hot and humid and they’re all thinking WTF and finally Carey Orr comes doddering out of the hotel and slowly climbs on the bus, but the bus can’t leave because Carey won’t sit down; he’s busy taking all his handshakes and atta boys for winning the Pulitzer.

Meanwhile, Hugh Haynie is fuming.

Finally the bus gets moving and they arrive at Radio City Music Hall and go inside and the Hall’s packed, but they’ve got seats down front saved for the cartoonists and they’re all thinking what the hell is this when Ralph Edwards walks out and says:

“Carey Orr, This Is Your Life!”

Hugh Haynie stands up, says, “That’s it.” Takes a cab back to the hotel, checks out, flies home and wouldn’t come to another cartoonist convention until Carey Orr died.

Sanders was laughing so hard when he told me the story he was crying. I’ve checked the story as much as possible: Hugh Haynie never won his Pulitzer, Carey Orr won his and appeared on This Is Your Life that same year, but according to the same sources that provided that information, I might be the 1812 MVP.

Great story so I really hope it’s true.

In any case…

Stories like this (and there are lots of them about the Pulitzers) means we shouldn’t take an arbitrary award overly seriously, but that didn’t stop any of us from wanting one.

Today’s Lesson

Time to wrap this up and the fact that there’s been so little in the media about Pat Oliphant’s death confirms my suspicion that political cartoonists aren’t nearly as important as we like to think we are, but if we got away with making a living drawing funny pictures, none of us have much too complain about.

But we do anyway…it’s a job requirement.