Pulitzers

Mike Luckovich was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning today, his second time around, and well deserved. I figured Mike's "WHY?" cartoon as the one to beat the minute I saw it some months ago. (In case you missed it, Mike lettered the names of all 2000 US servicemen and women who had died in Iraq up to that point inside the word WHY?) It was powerful and had an immediate visceral impact.

Sometimes those of us in the profession cringe when the winners of the big contests are announced, but not this time. Luckovich continually draws lively wacked out cartoons full of energy and cool caricatures. There's a wonderful childlike scribbling quality to his drawings which a lot of us have learned from. And he's always right on top of the news with a fresh perspective.

The great thing about the timing of Mike's win this year is that he is such a great ambassador for editorial cartooning at a time when the profession is suffering from plummeting newspaper budgets and staffing cuts. Mike has a fun, telegenic personality, which may help editors and publishers look again at the value of this artform and its unique contribution to editorial pages in search of vitality and relevance.