Saturday, May 12, 2007

The Saturday Cartoons

It's a big day for our Saturday cartoons as I just found out that our friend Walt Handelsman of Newsday has been awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. Walt, who also won the prestigious award in 1997 while with the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, was cited by the Pulitzer jury for "his stark, sophisticated cartoons and his impressive use of zany animation."

Huge congratulations to Walt for this well-deserved honor.

In addition to being generous enough to give permission to run their work on my site and prescient enough to seek ways in which bloggers and cartoonists can work together, many of the artists featured on this page have also won the coveted Pulitzer, including the following: Tony Auth (1976), Ben Sargent (1982), Mike Luckovich (1995 and 2006), Jim Morin (1996), Ann Telnaes (2001) and Matt Davies (2004).

Last, but never least, is our buddy Nick Anderson of the Houston Chronicle, who won the award in 2005 and was a finalist this year.

And speaking of Nick, he just told me that he's laid up after fracturing his thumb playing lacrosse and is still cartooning away despite surgery, three pins in his drawing hand and large doses of pain medication. But, hey, have a look for yourself:



Heal up, Nick. Heal up.

And, with that, here's Nick leading our editorial cartoon lineup for today.









And while we're showing Walt Handelsman the love for his Pulitzer win, have a look at his latest animation on Mr. Mission Accomplished, George W. Bush.



Click on the screenshot above or go here to see it.

And finally...



  • There are always the national misanthropes we are all subjected to every day like a bad case of the rickets. But even more frightening, are the local cretins who spout their right-wing, double-Y-chromosomed idiocy below the radar -- you know, way below the radar, like the idle jets George W. Bush was supposed to fly in his Air National Guard service while he was busy speedballing in the puke-puddled alleys of Central Texas. Here's my take on one of these local morons.
  • When your magazine's staff is filled with a pre-pubic little wank-a-lot who writes books about how the Democrats are the Party of Death, because they started the war In Iraq and won't allow children to have healthcare -- oh, wait, could that be the Republicans? -- I guess you get what you pay for. And when you have Jonah Goldberg, a poster-boy for nepotism, who's been working on a book calling the Democrats fascists since the first Bush Administration, that can't make The National Review any worse, right? Wrong. Meet Byron York.

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A postscript on today's cartoons: Once in a while I get an e-mail from an up-and-coming artist who, like new bloggers, is having a hard time getting the traction his or her work would merit. I heard today from a guy in New York City named Todd Umbarger who, upon inspection, it turns out is a very talented editorial cartoonist and illustrator.

Here's a look at some of Todd's work -- take a ride on over to his blog and expect to see more from him here on Saturdays.



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All cartoons are posted with the artists' express permission to BobGeiger.com. Please visit the following sites to see more work from these fine cartoonists:

Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle
Tony Auth, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Justin Bilicki, City Pulse
Matt Davies, NY Journal News
Walt Handelsman, Newsday
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol's World
Mike Luckovich, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jim Morin, Miami Herald
Jack Ohman, Portland Oregonian
Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Ben Sargent, Austin American-Statesman.
Ann Telnaes, Syndicated Political Cartoonist