The Times They Are A Changin'...Cartoons!
Today the New York Times switched the credit line on the cartoons for Signe Wilkinson and Rob Rogers. Mistakes happen but there should have been an easy indicator for the person laying out the text: the artist's signature. Unfortunately, for reasons they won't divulge, the Times goes in Photoshop and removes the signature of each and every cartoon they run. As far as I know, they are the only paper on Earth to do this.
Not only is it insulting, but pointless. I've asked numerous cartoonists whose work is run regularly in the Sunday Times why this happens and none have an answer. They all hate it.
Not that it matters in this situation, but both Signe and Rob are highly respected cartoonists with numerous awards under their belt. Signe has won a Pulitzer and snagged the RFK Journalism award last week. Would a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist be asked to put up with this level of ineptitude and insulting treatment of their craft? Perhaps instead of simply issuing a correction they could use this moment to reevaluate this stupid policy.
Update: A few artists have said that a lot of other publications do this and that the Times habitually gets the names and syndicates of the artist wrong. And the worst: apparently you don't even get paid for running in the Times as a cartoonist unless you catch it and send them a bill.
Not only is it insulting, but pointless. I've asked numerous cartoonists whose work is run regularly in the Sunday Times why this happens and none have an answer. They all hate it.
Not that it matters in this situation, but both Signe and Rob are highly respected cartoonists with numerous awards under their belt. Signe has won a Pulitzer and snagged the RFK Journalism award last week. Would a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist be asked to put up with this level of ineptitude and insulting treatment of their craft? Perhaps instead of simply issuing a correction they could use this moment to reevaluate this stupid policy.
Update: A few artists have said that a lot of other publications do this and that the Times habitually gets the names and syndicates of the artist wrong. And the worst: apparently you don't even get paid for running in the Times as a cartoonist unless you catch it and send them a bill.
posted by Matt Bors at
10:11 PM
4 Comments:
Several magazines removes signatures in editorial 'toons, too (US News & World Report being one of them). Can't say I'm a fan of tampering art, even lousy ones.
I had thought they were the only ones. That's even more infuriating.
I just don't get the idea behind this.
Many newspapers and magazines have a policy of removing signatures from illustrations via PhotoShop--they want the only credit to be the typed credit line.
That is ridiculous. Cartoonists and illustrators put time into crafting a stylistic signature, a branding of their work that should be recognizable to fans.
Of course, I have to remind myself to sign my stuff, so what do I know?
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