The Round-up
April 12, 2013 in General, Links, News
© Ed Fisher/Cartoon Bank @Procartoonists.org
Cartoon captions are a major theme in this week’s Round-up. Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor of The New Yorker, looks back at the work of Ed Fisher (including the excellent meta-cartoon above), and also recalls some of the best caption contest entries by Roger Ebert. Both Ebert and Fisher passed away recently.
Over at The Telegraph, editorial cartoonist Christian Adams has unveiled his first caption competition, and is offering the original artwork as a prize for the best suggestion. Each contest will be topical, and this week’s features the late Baroness Thatcher. Head over to his blog to enter.
Unsurprisingly, Thatcher has been the subject of many cartoons in the past week or so. Gerald Scarfe, a cartoonist famous for his savage depictions of the former PM, talks about his relationship to his subject in this Q&A for the BBC. Elsewhere, David Ziggy Greene posts a piece he wrote and drew for French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo back in 2010. Read it here.
One of our members, the delightfully talented Gabriel Alborozo, has launched a new project. Simple Pleasures celebrates those small moments in life that make everything a little better. Alongside his own ideas, Gabe is taking suggestions from visitors to the site. You can also follow the project.
A new documentary film, Dear Mr. Watterson, celebrates the world of Calvin and Hobbes, while the strip’s creator, Bill Watterson, is also discussed in this article from Salon which argues that we should all respect the great man’s privacy.
The prolific cartoonist David Langdon, whose long career included work for The New Yorker, Punch and The Spectator, has died at the age of 97. Among his achievements, Langdon claimed to have originated the ‘open mouth’ expression now used by almost every gag cartoonist to clarify who is speaking in their compositions. See The Guardian for an extensive 
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by Blog Team
Opinion: Beware digital challenges to the paper of record
January 30, 2013 in Comment, General, News
Gerald Scarfe cartoon of Benjamin Netanyahu @ procartoonists.org
The Sunday Times has removed the Gerald Scarfe cartoon from all of its digital editions following the controversy about its print publication.
The retrospective removal of the cartoon reported by Press Gazette this morning challenges a traditional role fulfilled by printed journalism as a paper of record. The removal of the image changes the paper of record, post publication.
We believe that such “digital cleansing” is harmful to the expression of opinion in publishing, in either print or pixel form. If the cartoon was good enough to see the light of day in ink on Sunday 27 January, 2013, then it should exist in the enduring pixelated editions too.
To be clear, we do not think this act of removal is “censorship” – that would have prevented Scarfe’s opinion cartoon being published at all. And the owners and editors of the newspaper also have a right to do as they will with the content they purchase from contracted contributors.
But when retrospective editing of “controversial” published items becomes acceptable practice inside digital newsrooms then we start to worry about access to provocative drawn opinions, and probably also written ones.
Are we right? If you have things to say about this, please do so in the comments below.
Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu, digital, Gerald Scarfe, journalism, paper of record, Press Gazette, print, Procartoonists.org, Professional Cartoonists Organisation, The Sunday Times 4 Comments »