WaPo letters on comics formatting and Ellis Rosen cartoons, also Edith Pritchett

The Post published 2 letters about 2 of the 3 issues I ranted about a week ago. See the Daily Cartoonist's summary here, also because they properly identified the strip scrunched into Reply All Lite's space as an old Scary Gary strip.

The two letters are;

Monumentally confusing [Ellis Rosen]

Randy Bograd,

Washington Post May 27 2023: A15

online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/26/reader-critiques-cleopatra-was-not-black/

 

We got it to fit — but it wasn't fit to print

Ted White,

Washington Post May 27 2023: A15

online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/26/reader-critiques-cleopatra-was-not-black/

Taking them in reverse order, Ted White is a former editor of Heavy Metal who doesn't have anything nice to say about the strip and calls it usually incomprehensible and 'assembled from stock bits on a computer.' Actually, Donna Lewis DOES draw it, but on a computer. The continuing sticking point to me is that the Post STILL identifies the strip as being Reply All Lite in its credits!

The first letter is in favor of Ellis Rosen's cartoon of the relaxing Washington Monument. This past week, WaPo published 2 more of Mr. Rosen's cartoons as 'editorial' cartoons, which they are STILL not. They're gag cartoons, or pocket (if you're British). One is a grey aliens gag about being quick in an abduction to get home early. The other is a family on a game show trying to get out a door while their two small children run around.

I'm perfectly ok with the Post giving Bezos' money to Rosen - just stop calling him an editorial cartoonist and running these on the editorial page. They would be just fine on the comics page or any other page on the paper.

Speaking of semi-editorial cartoons, this piece is also listed as an editorial cartoon - it comes a bit closer if you're Entertainment Weekly, which used to publish similar material by Barry Blitt early in his career. Again, does it deserve to be on the editorial pages of the Post? I think rather Style or Weekend would be appropriate. They also did her the disservice of printing it in black and white.

Highlights from the Cannes Film Festival, even if you don't like movies [in print as The (very unofficial) guide to the Cannes Film Festival]

By Edith Pritchett

Editorial cartoonist

Washington Post May 27, 2023: A17

Online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/25/edith-pritchett-cartoon-cannes-film-festival/

WaPo doesn't understand comics 3: This is an editorial cartoon? [UPDATED]

With all due respect to Ellis Rosen, whom I don't know at all, why is this on the editorial page of the Washington Post. Is this a political cartoon? If so what does it mean?

I'm absolutely serious about asking what does it mean. One might have expected to find a cartoon like this in the New Yorker 35 or 40 years ago, but one expected nonsensical comics from them.

The Post made an extremely large mistake by not appointing Ann Telnaes to replace Tom Toles (or Herblock even IMHO), and they continue to compound it by running works like this. 

For their home cartoonist, we should have someone that lives here. Michael de Adder is a perfectly competent cartoonist, but he's a Canadian who stayed in Canada and works on a contract. He's not a WaPo employee. To add to the disrespect they show him, the editor runs his cartoons smaller than this one is, and his color cartoons with extensive cross-hatching are run in black and white, so they are extremely muddy and sometimes unreadable. We deserve our own local cartoonist, and one who is treated with respect, in the great tradition of Herblock.

 

5/16/23: formerly local editorial cartoonist Al Goodwyn wrote in to say that a version of the cartoon had a title of "Monumentally Exhausted" -  here it is in the online version, which I don't understand any better.  Hmmm, the link calls it "Washington Chaos" which isn't any better as a title.

Finally, just to be clear, I know and like Michael de Adder, and I like his work when it's printed in color and larger than 4x4." He's still not a Washingtonian, even a transplanted one like Block, Toles, Telnaes (and me). Also, I'm sure Ellis Rosen is a fine cartoonist - as I said, I don't know him. I just didn't think the Post's editorial page was the place for this cartoon. As a filler on another page, which newspapers used to do, I would have glanced at it, perhaps smiled, and moved on. Adding to this blog on a computer, and not writing it on my phone like I did last night, I can see that he actually IS a New Yorker cartoonist. Good for him. I subscribe to that print magazine too, but I'm way behind on reading it.