Wash Post presumably fires Bob Staake, as it ends longtime reader favorite Style Invitational contest

or, more accurately, “Wash Post cancels weekly Style Invitational contest illustrated for 29 years by Bob Staake.”

 

by Mike Rhode (updated 12/3 with comments from Bob) 

 

Bob Staake has been illustrating the Style Invitational contest for well over a decade... actually it's been for three of them. Buried in this story about firing the Post's dance critic (another loss as the paper tries to shrink to greatness, AGAIN) is this nugget, "The paper has also eliminated its weekly Style Invitational humor contest, which involved ending the contract of former longtime Post editor and current contributor Pat Myers." Meyers wrote a column herself as well. And Bob wrote in correcting my headline (which is fair - I wrote it to get attention to the grievous loss of yet more cartooning), noting, "I wasn’t “fired,” the Post simply cancelled a humor column that I illustrated. They didn’t cancel ME. It seems to me the more apropos headline would be 'Wash Post cancels weekly Style Invitational contest illustrated for 29 years by Bob Staake.' No matter how you look at it that’s a Hell of a run and all good things must come to an end." Bob is completely accurate, and we regret the misleading headline, but as they say in the news biz, "if it bleeds, it leads."

One of Staake's last illos

Staake has created an illustration for the contest which has run in color in the Style section (NOT the magazine which they also killed this week) since 1992 (or 1994) and has conservatively probably done 1500 cartoons for it over the thirty years. When he wrote to us here in 2009, he also noted that he'd been working for the Post for 25 years at that time, which puts him starting doing work for them in 1984.  You can find ComicsDC's coverage of him here and it goes across multiple pages. At one point when I mentioned him, out of the blue, he sent me a drawing of WWMRD (what would Mike Rhode do?) which hangs over my dining room table. When he was in town for the National Book Festival, after doing the poster for them, I interviewed him for "Illustrator Bob Staake on Dark Humor, New Yorker Covers, and Analog Art in a Digital World," Aug. 28, 2014, http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/books/2014/08/28/illustrator-bob-staake-on-dark-humor-new-yorker-covers-and-analog-art-in-a-digital-world/ and it was reprinted in the International Journal of Comic Art.

Empress Meyers writes of him, "To Bob Staake, Gene's and then my visual partner since 1994 — way longer than either of us. Over the decades while Bob gained wide renown as a New Yorker cover artist and bestselling children's book author and illustrator, Bob continued to send a cartoon to the Invite, as "really the only steady job I've ever had." Bob and I have met in person only once — he lives on Cape Cod — but every week we're the Invite version of the Kramdens, bickering and threatening to send each other to the moon, but aww we make up."

The end of this contest is probably the last vestige of all the Miami Herald staff and innovations that actually made the Post a must-read for many years beginning in the 1980s as the Watergate sheen was beginning to wear off. I've never entered the Invitational, but I know many people who have, and am sure the complaints about this have started. Personally, I'll miss seeing Staake's cartoon.

I used to compile a list of cartoonists appearing in local publications back when it was worth doing. Here's one from 2007, of which barely any of the publications still exist, and only Matt Wuerker at Politico is really soldiering on.

Cartoonists in Washington, DC area newspapers as of late May 2007

Washington Post
-Tom Toles - editorial cartoonist (semi-daily)
-Richard Thompson - Richard's Poor Almanac (Saturdays); Cul de Sac strip (Sunday's Magazine), illustrations for Joel Achenbach's Rough Draft column (Sunday's Magazine)
-Rob Shepperson, Tim Grajek - illustrations for Sunday's Business section
-Nick Galifianakis - cartoons for ex-wife Carolyn Hax's Tell Me About It advice column.
-Bob Staake - cartoons for Style Invitational contest (Sunday)
-Patrick M. Reynolds - Flashback comic strip; unique Washington version (Sunday comics)
-Eric Shansby - illustrations for Gene Weingarten's Below the Beltway column (Sunday's Magazine)
-Christopher Gash; Christopher Neimen - spot illos especially on Sunday
-Michael Cavna - editorial cartoons in Arts section, extremely irregularly
-Julie Zhu - Montgomery Blair High School student cartoonist for Extra Credit column in local Extra sections
-Saturday box of syndicated editorial cartoons
-Turkish cartoonist Selcuk Demirel illustrations in Book World, semi-regularly

Of the Post people, 15 years later Richard's dead, we gained Ann Telnaes as an online animated political cartoonist, Toles was replaced by Michael de Adder (on contract from Canada, and they're running his piece too small and in b&w on the opinion page), the Saturday box of 4 political cartoonists is still there, Nick Galifianakis continues to illustrate Carolyn Hax's column albeit from an undisclosed location that's not Northern VA, Reynold's retired his Flashbacks strip this fall, and Cavna and Dave Betancourt cover comics stories but far less than they did when their Comic Riffs blog existed. And the Post has 2 pages of comics daily, down from 3, and printed microscopically, and 1 section of Sunday comics, instead of 2. Awww, get the hell off my lawn already. 

 

Updated: Friend of ComicsDC, cartoonist Clay Jones pointed out that Staake had posted about this on his FB page.

School Library Journal on the National Book Festival

Gene Luen Yang Rouses the Crowd at DC National Book Festival

By Rocco Staino

School Library Journal September 5, 2014

http://www.slj.com/2014/09/events/gene-luen-yang-rouses-the-crowd-at-dc-national-book-festival/

Staake contest results in The Post

Three weeks ago, The Post ran a special contest due to having run 1000 of Bob Staake's cartoons.

Today, they published the results.

Bob Staake featured in today's Post

Bob Staake is featured in today's Washington Post for a decade of weekly contest drawings.

Bob Staake's favorite cartoons of 20 years of Style Invitational
Washington Post March 3 2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/bob-stakkes-favorite-cartoons-of-20-years-of-style-invitational/2013/02/27/b7c015e2-7b99-11e2-a044-676856536b40_gallery.html#photo=1

Bob Staake establishes the zaniness to the unwary of the Invitational. Bob started illustrating the weekly contest example in 1994, and he's drawn close to 1,000 images.

and a biographical note:

The art (or 'art') of the Invitational
By Pat Myers,
Washington Post (March 3 2013).
online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/the-art-or-art-of-the-invitational/2013/02/28/65239f10-7564-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html

Bob Staake contest in Washington Post

Style Invitational Week 937: Staake it to Bob in a picture book caption contest

By Pat Myers
Washington Post September 18 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/style-invitational-week-937-staake-it-to-bob-in-a-picture-book-caption-contest/2011/09/11/gIQA5AQVWK_story.html

In this week's contest, Style Invitational illustrator Bob Staake was going to tweak the work of some famous New Yorker cartoonists, much as he did for us back in 1998. But now that Bob is now a New Yorker cover boy himself, not to mention a disturbingly successful, Cape Cod waterfront-residing children's-book author and illustrator, we decided instead to make fun of Bob's own oeuvre. This week: Write a caption for any of the five pages or details pictured above from some of Bob's more than 50 picture books. (His name's pronounced "stack," by the way.)

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place gets a prize custom-made for the Invite: a dress sewn from two classic Loser T-shirts by Loser Barbara Turner. It even has pockets. But you have to be fairly petite — it's about a size 8. Before lunch. Modeled at a Loser brunch by "Loser groupie" Denise Sudell.

Matt Wuerker on Paul Conrad

Among others, Matt's recollections of the great cartoonist are here - Conrad the mentor: An editorial is 90 percent idea and 10 percent drawing
By Kevin Cody
Easy Reader September 20th, 2010.

There's a tiny thumbnail of Matt's obituary cartoon - I don't know if it appeared in Politico or not.

'Losers' comic book a prize in Style Invitational contest, while Staake is taken to task

In today's Style Invitational contest, 2nd prize is an issue of DC Comics' The Losers #176 from the 1970s: Second place gets a comic book we're surprised we hadn't heard about before: This 1970s series was about a group of Nazi-fighting World War II heroes -- one for each branch of the services -- who called themselves the Losers because they kept getting refrigerator magnets with stupid cartoons on them. No, it was because men had died under their command. Whatever, this is an original comic, sealed in plastic, and was donated by Fighting Loser Peter Metrinko.

Nice Joe Kubert cover on that comic. The early issues were covered by Jack Kirby. I'm surprised they haven't heard of the comic, because DC brought it back 8 years or so ago, set in Rwanda perhaps, and it's now being turned into a movie.

Meanwhile, on the letters page, cartoonist Bob Staake is taken to task for his drawings for last week's contest. Humor.. . it's just so not funny.

Style Invitational comic strip mashup with Staake

The clever among us should immediately go to the Washington Post's Style Invitational's contest for Week 837: Strip Search, October 3, 2009 to answer the question: Combine two comic strips that appear in The Washington Post or at http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics . This was probably somewhat inspired by all the recent Disney-Marvel mashups, but I like Bob Staake's take on Dilbert - Spider-Man. Feel free to write to me if you have a question about a strip in the print edition.

Thompson nominated for Reuben for 2nd year

Alan Gardener's reporting the nominations for the National Cartoonist Society's Rueben Awards, and Cul de Sac is up for newspaper comic strip again this year. I don't know where Lars Leetaru lives, but he's been doing work for the Washington Post lately since the NY Times dropped him from their Metropolitan Diary column and some of that must have influenced his newspaper illustration nomination. I like his work quite a bit. Bob Staake is up for magazine illustration - presumably for his New Yorker work, but he's still appearing in the Post every Saturday.

Staake and Thompson in New Yorker

Bob Staake, who regularly appears in the Post on Saturday, did the March 9th cover for the New Yorker. Our Man Thompson has a small caricature of a fugitive American millionaire who may be ruining sports in England. The issue also has Anthony Lane's negative review of Watchmen.

Bob Staake wrote in the other day after I posted something about him, and noted how long he's been in our paper - "17 consecutive years on the Style Invitational -- and over 25 with the Post." That's amazing. Here's 3 Style illos from the past year that caught my eye and got clipped.

Staake tops Time's list

Art Cafe (really?), Bob Staake's webmaster, wrote in to remind me that Staake's New Yorker cartoon was picked as the year's best magazine cover by Time Magazine.

I must say, Staake can work in a bunch of styles. This cover is nothing like what he does for the Post on Sundays, and I've got some of his how-to books which are well-worth having.

Bob Staake, the Post's Style Invitational cartoonist

Here's a nice, if short, interview with Bob Staake, the Post's Style Invitational cartoonist. Staake's moving into children's books as well as New Yorker covers, but he's got some interesting how-to books out as well, iirc.

See "G FORCE | BOB STAAKE: He's got it covered," Boston Globe November 27, 2008.

Bob Staake leaps from Washington Post to New Yorker

Actually, the two probably have nothing to do with each other, but Bob Staake, the regular cartoonist for the Washington Post's Style Invitational contest did the cover of the June 2 2008 New Yorker. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's done covers for them regularly including a nice Statue of Liberty with a fluorescent light bulb instead of a torch earlier this year.

Staake comic strip contest in Style Invitational

Today's Post has a contest based on three comic strips drawn by Bob Staake - Week 761: Strip Mining, Saturday, April 19, 2008; Page C02. Remember, you don't have to live in DC to enter the contest.

Dilbert, Gorey via Staake and Thompson in Saturday's Post, Sunday book reviews

It doesn't appear to be online, but the Post ran a letter to the editor - "Dilbert's 'Jesus'is offensive" by Earl H. Foote of College Park.

Also, the Style Invitational Contest is poetry couplets ala Edward Gorey ...

You know - the Post's website sucks as far as linking up with the print version. The Washington City Paper ran a good article a few weeks ago as to why that is - the two operations have nothing to do with each other and aren't even in the same state.

Here's the Gorey contest with the excellent Staake parody cartoon.

Finally Richard Thompson's got one of his excellent Spring cartoons in the Poor Alamanac, but I'm not even going to look for it. And Get Fuzzy complains about the comics page being stuck in 1954.

Tomorrow's book reviews are online as well - The Ten-Cent Plague is reviewed in "Horror! Suspense! Censorship! A cultural critic recounts how comics were ripped out of kids' grubby hands." Reviewed by Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post Book World Sunday, March 23, 2008; Page BW08. The new Kirby book is reviewed in "The Fantastic One: The father of so many superheroes could never conquer the forces of corporate America." Reviewed by Glen David Gold, Sunday, March 23, 2008; Page BW08.

As a reminder, Ann Telnaes cartoons keep appearing.

Self-righteous but Forgettable - letter on Staake

This letter published in the Post refers to the Bob Staake cartoon reproduced above. If anyone can tell me what's blasphemous, I'd be glad to hear a semi-cogent argument. Spare me any righteous angst though please. I really don't understand why the cartoon is worse than the contest.

Sacrilegious but Forgivable
Washington Post Saturday, March 8, 2008; Page A13

I was not happy to see a drawing of Jesus in an Elvis Presley-style jumpsuit in the March 1 Style Invitational. As a Christian, I find that blasphemous, and it made me angry with the cartoonist and the people who would publish such a cartoon.

For a second, I empathized with the people who were angry with Danish newspapers that published a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. Then I remembered that Jesus loves the cartoonist whose work appeared in The Post anyway and expects me to do the same.

Jesus's teachings called for us to love others. What a difference it would make if everyone did that.

-- Shannon Howell

Post cartoon contest results

The Post's Style Invitational contest last week "supplied several "captions" and asked you to describe the cartoons they would accompany: The Empress posted this contest, at the Czar's suggestion, with some trepidation, concerned that dozens of descriptions of undrawn cartoons would just be too tedious. She concedes that her fears were unfounded, and therefore owes the Czar the heart cut out of her chest. Invitational Cartoonist Bob Staake chose this week's top four winners from the entries below, and will personally deface each winning sketch with his signature as a prize."

You can see the other cartoons and suggested captions through the link.

Meanwhile, Richard Thompson and 'Richard's Poor Almanack' continue to "be on vacation."

obligatory Richard Thompson mention

Well, Richard wasn't in yesterday's Post Health section so I guess his plan for taking over the Post is going a little more slowly than I expected. However, he did have a caricature in the July 2nd New Yorker, the one with the nice Staake Statue of Liberty cover.