- A letter from the president
Friends and Colleagues,
Well, it seems it's over as quickly as it started. It has been an honor serving
all of you as president of the AAEC. It has certainly been an eventful year.
My first letter to you as president broke the news that the AAEC had lost $44,000
on the 50th anniversary convention in Washington D.C.
I'm pleased to say that,
while we still have a ways to go, we have made significant progress in making
that up. PNA agreed to several months of free service, which saved us about
$14,000.
Also, thanks to a very successful drive for sponsorship support for
this year's convention, lower than
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- Long, Bad Summer for Jobs
Newspaper Publishers and Editors Panic and Start Throwing Staff Overboard
Summer 2008 will long be remembered by newspaper people as The Summer of Layoffs,
as thousands of staff were let go from papers nationwide as owners tried to
deal with hemorrhaging readership and shrinking profits. Editorial cartoonists
were, or course, some of the first to go — and a few, seeing the writing on
the wall, left voluntarily.
In a three month period at least nine cartoonists announced they were to be
laid off, forced to take buyouts or had decided to step down or retire from
their long-time drawing gigs.
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- A Cornucopia of Awards
Signe Wilkinson has been awarded this year's Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Award
for editorial cartooning. Regarding The Daily News' editorial cartoonist,
judges wrote that her work was instrumental in moving the issue of violence
in disadvantaged neighborhoods and schools to the top of the Philadelphia's
agenda. Her cartoons offered a “steady drumbeat of funny, moving and shocking
images,” and “her series attacking gun violence in Philadelphia spared no
one and drew complaints from everyone — the hallmark of any good cartoonist.”
Bruce Mackinnon,
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- Briefly Put
On July 1, Universal Press Syndicate Tuesday announced a partnership with Deviant
Films of Los Angeles to offer daily animated comics for newspaper Web sites.The
shorts will feature a rotating group of Universal strips and panels — including
“The Flying McCoys” by Gary and Glenn McCoy.
“Newspapers have been asking for more dynamic content for their Web
sites, and we felt like this is the natural evolution for our comic properties,” said
Universal Director of Content and Acquisitions John Glynn in a statement.
He
added that the animations also provide newspaper sites
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- Books & Shows
Just in time for both national political conventions, Pelican
Publishing has
released two collections of presidential primary cartoons. “The Race For
The 2008 Democratic Nomination: A Book of Editorial Cartoons” and “The Race
For The 2008 Republican Nomination: A Book of Editorial Cartoons” includes
contributions from dozens of AAEC members.
“Astute and amusing, these collections are timely and valuable volumes
for the fall 2008 election season,” noted a Pelican Publishing press
release. “With
an informed reflection on each of the candidates, these
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- Wanted: Female Cartoonist
Jen Sorensen explains why comics have
historically been a nerdy guy thing
By Jen Sorensen
Why are there so few female political cartoonists? I've been asked that question
many times over the years. It's OK, I don't mind. We're something of a rare
breed. Exact statistics are difficult to find—even the national group
Association of American Editorial Cartoonists can only estimate the national
number of political cartoonists, let alone break them down by gender, ethnicity,
or class. But to give you a rough idea, of the association's 185 current regular
members, only 15
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- Why I'm Ending Denver Square
By Ed Stein
[Editor's note: on May 21, Ed Stein ended his long-time local comic strip "Denver
Square." Here is the article he wrote for the Rocky Mountain News about
his decision.]
A number of readers have expressed concern about the direction I've been taking
lately in my Denver Square comic strip. Friends have called to ask me what's
going on. Well, they're on to something. The fictional family really is going
to move out of town. And, yes, the strip is going to end [on May 21].
Twelve
years ago I came up with a crazy idea. Why not create a daily local comic strip,
a feature
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