Last week I noted that Art Spiegelman’s Maus won a Pulitzer Prize. It was the first, and so far it’s the only, graphic novel to be awarded that distinction.
The category of graphics that the Pulitzer people have recognized for exactly one hundred years is editorial cartooning. But no more. From now on, the category will be called Illustrated Reporting and Commentary. Cartooning is not illustration, and if they think this somehow dignifies the craft, it doesn’t work for me.
http://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2022/01/21/editorial-cartooning-legend-dead-to-pulitzers/
The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists seems to be taking the change in stride. Maybe some of their Illustrated Reporters and Commentators will have something to say about it.
FYI for cartoonists entering the @PulitzerPrizes. From their site: "The Editorial Cartooning category is now called Illustrated Reporting and Commentary. Redefined last year, the category recognizes "a distinguished portfolio of editorial cartoons or other illustrated work"
— AAEC (@AAEC_Cartoonist) January 20, 2022
I have to say it … doesn’t Herblock’s backside view of Stalin remind you of somebody?
Winslow Homer was embedded with the Union Army as an illustrator. Like Sacco, Homer was a journalist, not an editorial cartoonist. My hope is the Pulitzer people changed the category with the intention of expanding it. Otherwise, why bother? Just to be clear, I prefer the term “political” cartoonist over “editorial” cartoonist, because journalists can cover politics without editorializing. When depicting an atrocity there’s no need to say, “this is a terrible thing.”
me again, look, i dont know or remember any others, maybe kubert fits, wih hisn sarajevo book, but sacco is a journalist who works mostly in war zones. and just happens to file his stories in terms of sequential cartoons. if you call that a political cartoon, then i am going to your house armed with a step-l;adder, and punch you in the nose. yer non=-vionent friend. ps i left out my main point (marijuandering)@ possibly doddering politacal cartoon absolutely connotes opinion piece in most minds.
Maybe Pulitzer’s new category is intended to include political comic books, as well as daily panels?
hey, doug. what about joe sacco , i think illustrated reporting is a fair descriptor of what he does. i might have preferred graphic reporting, since graphic seems to have become a synonym for cartoon, although as i look at it the old meaning seems to pop ourt, so illustrated is fine with me.