a lot of cartoons use humor. but i know that if i have challenged my readers to think about an issue, maybe differently, maybe one they may not agree with, then i've accomplished my mission. so mike? >> yeah, you know, i'm a very idealistic about cartooning. i feel like we're perfecting our union. and i think that i'm trying to make people like rick says think and i'm trying to show what i believe is not right out there. and there's a lot that's not right right now. and so they say that bad news is kind of good for cartoonists because it gives us a lot of fodder. but i would rather -- i would rather work harder and have less bad news and know we're going in a right direction.

and i think that we're -- we're kind of not going in a right direction right now. so i feel very -- i feel very like it's the real calling for me to -- to get my opinions out there. >> all of the guys said is right. one of the interesting things i think is how cartoonists in contrast to any other member of the -- the journalism school, has the ability to penetrate a -- a society. is that -- each cartoon you imagine is a sentence. they're simple, straightforward, we try to get a point across in a succinct way. over the course of a week, the sentences perform a paragraph. maybe over the course of a month, a chapter. you have a long-term conversation with your readers. and because -- they use humor. they use pictures, we have an interesting way to reside in a special part of the brain. the people approach us open

minded because they think there's half a chance they're going to laugh. and so we -- we are engaged in a very personal relationship with these people. so over time, the ability to both reside in somebody's brain and then go to what rick mentioned before, it can make them think about subjects that sometimes they may be affixed ideas about maybe rethinking them a little bit and sometimes awakening them to the stories they need to know about. in some ways, i'm going sound like miss america here, we want to make the world a better place. and that we're trying to do it, though, in our unique medium. >> questions? yes? >> for those of us not at a paper, would you run down the process for how it's determined which articles are going to have a cartoon attached or attached to a city or a stand alone?

>> my first couple of ideas suck and they tell me they suck. and that gets my adrenaline going. i come up with something better. it gets later and later. my day starts in procrastination and ends in panic every single day. at my deadline at 5:30, i have to draw really quick. so i don't pencil anything in. i just ink right on the drawing. so you can see i've got whiteout on my hands. i just got done with a cartoon. i'm drawing, going as fast as i

can. that's how my day goes. >> wow. >> my cartoons are stand alone as well. i'm in the office with editorial writers. if i do a cartoon on syria, there's an editorial on syria, you might get the idea we paired them intentionally, but it just sort of happened. my day starts at 9:30. so i come in -- >> wow. >> i come in a little earlier. but i also look like i'm not doing anything. when i really am. and i -- i hope to have my sketch done by lunchtime. and that's got to go through the approval process. and i do a different way of inking. i have a light box that i put my sketch underneath. i ink right on top of the paper. sort of like mike that i got the

sketch to guide me when i do that. i scan it in. hopefully i've got inking done by about 3:30. and i started to do color -- you asked how the web affected -- we didn't have a color position in print but a color position on line that say i do it in color every day. so hopefully by 5:30 or 6:00, i have the color version done. that's my day. >> do you guys assign yourselves or does someone say, mike, we want a cartoon on syria? >> well -- >> for me, no. they don't say -- my editor likes to suggest ideas sometimes and sometimes i listen to him and most of the time i don't. i just do whatever i want to draw. >> i don't even go to meetings. no one bugs me the entire day.

until someone comes out of there and shows me the rough, they know what to do. >> a great situation. largely the freedom that each of these fellows here have in large part because they have built up a reputation that they will deliver. one of the things is it's tight deadlines, creating art and satire on a deadline. it requires a skill set of being a journalist, keeping up with the news. then you to put on the part of being a columnist. and i really like to think that's the way people should regard us. we regard ourselves, we're approaching the news, we normally come up with our own perspective and subject that we're going to cover. but then we have to be a say tirist where we apply humor to our commentary. and then finally, the last thing is we're an artist. you're going use pictures to

deliver a secure commentary. each cartoon has a different kind of energy. i have to wear two hats because i work with the economist which is an international publication at weekly and the baltimore sun and then now doing one cartoon a week for them. i'm going to tell my story going backwards from where my cartoons end. i imply i use an old fashioned english style pen that takes me three hours just to apply the ink. so -- three hours of scratch, scratch -- pen, dip, scratch, scratch. so it's -- if the deadlines same seven, it takes me back to four. then i have all of the pencil sketches before that. that takes me two or three hours. then coming one the idea that as mike points out, everyone finds a way to get to the ideas at a different faction. they do come through quickly. but other times, they go through

a lot of processes. so my day is an eight to ten-hour day depending on what's going on. this is another additional point i would like to adhere is about the freedom we're given is that with all freedoms comes responsibility. and what i admire about my peers who do it well on a daily basis is how managing to do cartoons that are both at and right on the news and not sexist and not racist, powerful one day, funny the next day. vary it up. they have to go the mix when they're choosing their cartoons. >> the next question, would you mind going to the microphone, please? i forgot with caroline. >> well, i was on the editorial board and i can vouch for mike's work ethic. but -- but what i want to ask

about all of you and not particularly because i particularly now then would write a column i couldn't believe the reaction was totally not what i meant for the reaction to be. so i wonder if there's been any one particular -- one or two cartoons you ever drew that you were flabbergasted at the response. and you thought it was really, really misinterpreted. it would be fun to know a specific example. >> yeah, okay, first of all, i think often when there are cartoon controversy sis, one reason is that the symbolism kind of overtakes the idea that you're trying to get across. and people don't understand what you're trying to say. i did one a few years ago, it was when we were in iraq and -- and america was starting to understand that we were actually torturing people.

and so i thought, well, that's what -- that's what our enemies do. so i thought about it and i realized after i did the cartoon and it ran that the symbolism was too strong. and what it was was i drew a -- i drew two hooded figures, one was an american holding a whip. and the other was an al qaeda member with a serrated knife. and the american torture is holding a book called the torture etiquette. theelsing the al qaeda guys, like here's the right thing to do. page 13, par 4, line 2. so it wasn't a particularly great cartoon. but the cartoon ran and people always think that everything with a newspaper is like a big -- it's like a big controversy or a big sinister

thing that conspiracy. and so what happens is my cartoon ran but on the same -- on the opinion page, there was a black and white photo of two american servicemen that had been beheaded by al qaeda. so the combination just -- people went nuts. and this was at a point where people really hasn't processed that we were actually torturing. people were still denying that we were. so people started complaining and it just became a big thing. and then there was security from cox -- you know, cox owns the paper -- security in our neighborhood. i was getting death threats. and they wanted me to be on fox news. they called -- fox news with the bill o'riley show. i begged, please, can i go on? i can explain this. and she was very -- she didn't -- she thought it would be misinterpreted or i'd do

something stupid. so she didn't let me go on. they did the most nasty one-sided thing on there and just got really ugly. it started to die down, but rbm took out a full page ad with a letter from the president of rbm saying that, you know, we have the freedom in this country to say what we want. this cartoon was way beyond the pall. so it generated all the crap again. so i was so glad when that was over. but i don't know if you guys have -- if you've had the same thing with the symbolism overrides the idea. i run into that as well. but we do so many cartoons that are considered funny, we use humor. they have to switch gears and do something serious like when

somebody die, obituary cartoons are the hardest to do. you want to be respectful and pay tribute and everybody is expecting you to crack a joke and they think, you know, maybe you're making fun and something like that. that's the worst thing to be misunderstood. mine was a local cartoon that you wouldn't know about. it was a local school. we got letters for like four days. didn't get any death threats. still holding out for some. >> a situation that's along the lines of what happened with mike where the background -- this was in the mid 2000s when the israeli government sharon had a policy of bulldozing the homes of palestinian terrorist family members.

many allies thought it was an inadvisable policy, controversial inside israel and outside. i was doing a cartoon that basically and also bush was trying to tell sharon don't do this. and sharon was telling them do whatever you want to do. then the cartoon, you have arafat as a cat being chased by a big bulldog who's sharon. he makes a great bulldog. he was pulling through the air, george bush, who was saying good boy, silt, stay. and he said it was a good cartoon. somewhere between the time i finished the cartoon and the next morning's paper, a terrorist bomb and attack killed 80 people, buses. you might recall. the next morning, all of the images everywhere were of the carnage. people turned the editorial page

and see the cartoon and blaming sharon. i became on the talk shows as you can imagine and the fallout. slaving to give a talk outside of baltimore at the heart of the jewish community. that was going to be the focal point. the library called and said we're getting a lot of threats. if i cannot have a civil discussion in the library, what are you doing in the rest of the world. the security, we wept down there, it's mayhem and chaos. you want to shut the whole thing down. but it's a misunderstanding. it touched a raw nerve. going to the room, the room is

about this size, packed to the gills with folks. i gave the presentation. and i said we're addressing what everyone wanted to hear. it was just a bad movie people are passing out, oh, my god, it was something else. and i said, look, every person who has something to say wants to say it in this room, going to have an opportunity to say it. i will stay here until next week if required to make sure they hear all of that. they did a wonderful thing both to let the air out of the bag and let the air out of the room. it served something special in our society. we can vent, say these things, say it in a civilized fashion and it turned out to be i think a great exercise in democracy.

>> have you found yourself more careful since then about cartoons related to israel? >> no. that cartoon you can see it's a misunderstanding. but we all are, of course, aware with what happened to the danish cartoonist. but we also for guys like us who have been in the game for a long time, we already know that there are land mines out there that you have to be careful about how you manage your way through these things. abortion issues in the united states, guns, rape. they have their own redlines they have to be aware of. a cartoonist can get away with in san francisco may be different than in parts of alabama. they understand who the audience is. mike made a good point at the beginning is that it's often not what you say, it's how you say it that gets you in trouble. and if you can actually -- i

don't think there's any subject that's off bounds, it's a matter of trying to get the best ways to do an effective cartoon about it. >> some of the cartoons that give you the most trouble are the guys rushing out trying to be first rather than trying to get the thought. a little bit of time in the event and the cartoon goes a long way to avoiding some of that controversy. >> each of our guests now is going to share some of their favorite cartoons. so why don't we start with you? or i guess -- here we go. >> do i get a clicker? >> she's going to click it for me. can i stand up and walk around? thanks, i can see him. all right, great, great, great. okay. well, look, by the way, this is

a huge fun for us to be here. this is my first cartoon, the very important cartoon. this is a real cartoon. it's got abraham lincoln, gettysburg address, this cartoon inspires a motion picture daniel day lewis. this cartoon. okay? so here's the thing that's interesting is i did this at age six and everybody is drawing at age six. between 6 and 12, most people drop off. it's trying to capture reality with lines, whether using crayon or pencils. for cartoonists, you stay 6-year-old for our life. it's the notion of how brains work to be able to capture things in lines. okay, next. so as we mentioned over the years, i've done 140 covers for different magazines.

i have a few covers i want to show you here. each of these ones have particularly interesting stories behind them. this is a story about this. you might remember back in 19 98, we were economically booming. we're now -- we're no longer getting deficits for coming out of deficits. and this is the leadup to the state of the union address. and the economist is doing the cover story about how bill clinton who wanted to spend lots of money having budget surpluses and going into the state of the union address. it's like a kid and the candy shop. that is a disgrace. i did this cartoon with all of the gals showing all of the sweets. he had a big sweet tooth and loved mcdonald's and all of that stuff. in is great. we go to press on a wednesday, wednesday at noon.

the monica lewinsky story breaks, okay? they scrap the lead editorial and they're going to talk about the womanizing and they look at the college and say we're going to use cartoon, that same cartoon. i thought it was great. really great. so next -- the next two cartoons we're going to show you is stories about what it's like for cartoonist before the internet and after the internet. this one when miguel gorbechev came on to the scene in the soviet union. he was a new kind of russian leader, he's young and hip. and i was working in the uk at the time. i lived there for 11 years and i was in the office and i said, hey, how about a great idea, how about if we turned miguel gorbechev into a new character that's just been launched. you might have heard of it, "miami vice." let's do "miami vice." the problem was before the

internet, how do i get pictures of miami vice? there were no pictures. what did i do? my wife and i went shopping. i went down to the stores in brighton and we did our best to kit me out in clothes based on miami vice. and i modelled for that drawing, okay? now, that wasn't my car, i have to say, but it was my outfit. so this was the most expensive cover i had to make. because we had to do a wardrobe to go with it. next? this cartoon -- i have another one to show you later. there's black and white ones here featuring uncle sam because he's a great cartoon character. we have brought him as cartoonists into the -- into the vocabulary of not only the united states, but the world. what's my favorite -- what foreign enemy thinks a human is looking for -- world control. what americans are really looking for -- remote control.

so i came back from abroad, i realized that this is very accurate. next -- this cartoon i did, i had just come back from cuba where i was part of a delegation to go down there. met with a group of cuban cartoonists back in 1999. i came back and did this cartoon. so you can see, there's fidel and uncle sam saying people of cuba -- next. why stick with that dictator idiot castro. next -- oh, i'm missing one. uh-oh. what happened? let me -- go back to the -- i'll read the rest of it. he says why stick with that dictator idiot castro when you can freely elect your idiots like we do? so the thing about this is everybody can be good cartoon fodder. whether you're a democrat or a dictator, you're good fodder for cartoonists. okay, next. this cartoon is the most popular

cartoon, it's done in 1989. reproduced around the world many times techlt you a story about it in a second. let me read it to you. the stock market -- just a normal day at the nation's most financial institution. the guy says i have a stock here that can really excel. really excel, semi, sell, sell, sell, sell -- next. and carries on -- sell, sell, sell. the guy says this, is madness, i can't take anymore, good-bye, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy -- he said i have a stock here that could really excel. so here's the story. the cartoon appears in the baltimore sun. gets picked up, "the new york times," herald tribune. starts being reprinted around the world. and then i started to get phone calls. from stockbrokers. from like zaza, australia, all over the place. they say two things.

first, they say they want a copy of the cartoon. and second they say that is exactly how it is. seriously. and recently, i get requests almost every months for people to use it in odd ways. a stockbroker from hong kong wanted one the size that you could see there to be put on the wall in their lobby. we have to send them one. right. so next -- this is an interesting cartoon story behind it because we're talking earlier about the value of cartoonists bring. this is the cartoon in baltimore. probably the only person in a newspaper that has the full responsibility. but it's the local cartoon that get people's real attention.

local politicians, main your, city, older men, or a governor. we are it when it comes to satireizing them. they watch us like hawks. here's the case in point. 20 years ago, the cartoon took place. this is an area in baltimore called the block. it was a red light district causing trouble for the then mayor curt schmoke. he was going to do a policy to get rid of it by doing a severe zoning laws and thought he could just close the whole thing down. i and others thought this would be ill-advised because if you close it down there, it will open up and spread in other places. the best way is current laws, enforcement, other ways you could approach it. you got the block here. he explodes it. he said, yeah, it's gone at last. little blocks drop down all over the place.

the mayor, about a year ago, wrote an essay in the baltimore sun to say this cartoon changed his mind about policy. it was a cartoon that he was going in one direction, he had put the law -- proposed the legislation into the -- into the city council. he withdrew it after he saw this cartoon. he was brave enough because he was no longer in politics. he was now in the private sector to say a cartoon helped to change his mind about things and there are times that the cartoon would affect politicians in ways that we will never hear because no politician who's worth his assault will ever admit that a cartoon changed their minds. be but it probably happens more often than we probably know. next, this cartoon i will show you because i finished this last night at 4:30 in the morning. we had afghanistan, uncle sam is ready to crack it. look what happens here.

he's chased out. now uncle sam, a little more sober. approaches iraq. gets chased back by a larger set of bees. now look at the beehive with syria. uncle sam is thinking more carefully about what we're doing. my deadline is at thursday morning at 4:00 in the morning. 4:30 in the morning, this arrived in london. next. this cartoon, let me read this one. takes place, you can see. hello lord al mighty's office. voice from offstage, who is this? john paul 2 on the line. again? he's worried about this movement to ordain women as priests. but i've already told him what i think. tell him i'm busy. i'm sorry. she's busy right now.

trick yip subject like religion, if you treat them right, they can be affected. next -- that's it. i'm through. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> i really like the -- i liked all of them. but i liked the one -- the afghanistan one, that was so -- very clever. okay, so before we start, let me just think about what i'm going to say here. oh, i know what i'm going to do. this is what i needed. this is what i needed. i had a brain part. -- brain fart. now i have to put my glasses on. okay, if you read my cartoons, you know that i'm pretty -- i have a kind of a strong view sometimes. as politics has gotten crazier and in my opinion opinion, the republican party has become more insane, i've become more strident. so this first cartoon kind of shows i think sort of what the

republican approach to governing. i think this is the one. republicans in the debt ceiling hostage taking, i await your response. we have your dog. they're already planning another thing with the debt ceiling. that's just not how you govern. but the gop keeps talking about how they're going rebrand themselves, show that they're more accepting of other people, of gays and latinos and african-americans and the middle class. but to me, it's just b.s. so i did this cartoon. now here's another thing -- you know, we awash in guns in this country. and you know bill clinton -- i

was so pissed at him yesterday because when he feels giving his speech, he had the best line. he said, you know, a great democracy, you know, it shouldn't be harder to vote than it is to get in a phone. i should have done a cartoon saying that. what a great line. so because of the nra, they have such a lock on the republican party, that we can't -- we can't do anything -- we can't get any kind of sensible gun control. so i did this cartoon. i've got wayne lapierre, showing his idea at the airport, removing the shoes, full body scanner. telling someone on plane, i'm travelling to d.c. to argue about background check ms. -- checks. and so, we had a recent example of, you know, a -- assault

weapons with huge magazines and a mental health issues and this is what resulted. i've got one saying as a member of congress, my goal is to do the nr a's bidding so i won't do my job. questions? he's talking to that empty classroom. no, mainly people liking the cartoon. and they get posted on facebook. and so i get -- i get a lot of response. and that one was pretty -- >> responses. >> i don't usually respond unless it's like a -- if they get really nasty or if it's a really -- if it's just something that's just beyond, i'll sometimes just have fun with it.

i don't like to get into big things with people, it's like having an argument with the relative. nothing is ever resolved. it gets uglier and uglier. i tend to avoid that. so here's the other thing, you know, the republicans are losing it demographically so they're coming up ways to discourage voting and you had the supreme court decision on voting right. this is now that the voting rights acts has been gutted, he's talking to thomas and sotomayor, have to show further idea before casting a vote with us. this is a crappy drawing before you show it, i have to set it up. this is a crappy drawing. i had done a cartoon on michelle bachmann leaving congress. i can't even remember what the punch line was, but i have her in a straitjacket.

i can't remember what she's saying. so i'm getting read the i to leave. i'm add the elevator. my editor said, we shouldn't do this because it might make -- it's making fun of people with mental health issue us. so i thought, oh, crap, that night, i was getting in my car to pick my daughter up because she was working in an internship. oh, no, we'll run a cartoon. a syndicated one. i hate doing that. so i said, no, no -- let me see if driving over to pick my daughter up, if i could come up with the idea and i'll drive her home and got to come back and drive. so they said okay. this is the cartoon -- the new bachmann cartoon. that's my house. the cartoonist lives there, the flag is at half staff.

is what was this. okay. the last couple of weeks, we had a discussion and celebration with martin luther king's 50th anniversary of the speech. so i have an elephant saying, "i have a dream" and because -- because -- because the republican party has gone so far to the right, you know, they've been taken over by tea party people and talk radio people. so this is the cartoon i did about that. which one is the face. all right. thank you very much. >> they might put me on the bill for equal time. a little more conservative than mike. i'm the baby of the bunch. i've been watching these guys

work since i was a very, very, very young child. the first one is i do a lot of local cartoons and for us the falcons are a local team. and i've gotten some good advice into don't hit it hard every single day. mix it up a little bit. any falcons fan could appreciate the crossth crossed fingers in the playoffs. i tried to market that. the foam finger. this is the one that back when kim jong un was causing all of the problems. this one was popular on the internet. another force, another local topic from me. i'm from augusta. he's been at it every since.

uga won the masters. this is where equal time comes in. there was a period of time when president obama was trying to position himself as the new reagan. so i used the rockwell self-portrait painting to show really more like the old carter than the new reagan. there's another one. there's an instance where the department of justice was listening -- tapping in to the phone records, not listening to the calls. the a.p. and the fox news. got one of the papers here for the press listening in on it. another one we went to the period where things were happening. president obama said i heard about it on the news just like you did.

i heard about the bug on the news just like you so i have no information on where it may or may not have stopped. just in time for labor day. the hope and change poster in the flames. and another one joined the campaign, it was a big uproar for mitt romney wants to kill big bird. a lot of people out there without jobs saying, i'm okay with that. but i also -- i go after republicans. this is my newt gingrich when mitt romney took florida in a landslide. this is newt's other woman. of course, anthony weaner, whatever you do, don't let him kiss your baby.

this is the last thanksgiving uh where you had to invite your nephew the tsa agent. the turkey is a metaphor for something, but not sure what that is. enough. >> we have a couple more minutes. please, go to the microphone, please. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. my name is adnan al guita. i've been living and working in this area for the past 43 years. i'm a builder. going to be brief with my question which you addressed. since i am originally from iraq, i'm proud to be both u.s. and iraqi citizen.

i can't help but ask a question to you all, which is the third question i ask a few months ago at this hall to the former editor of "the wall street journal". the question is very simple. if someone told you all that the media and general at 100%, the trade -- the american people by not telling the truth, why we lost in such a big way in iraq. >> yeah. i -- it was a rush to war and we were sold a bill of goods on that.

i think in a just world, bush and chaney ought to be in prison. and i think the members of the press didn't ask questions and actually it was propaganda involved. you remember judith muller from the new york times. one of the worst mistakes that america has made and we're going to be paying the price and iraq is going to pay the price for many years. i'd say the cartoon when 2000 american service members were kill in the iraq war, i did a cartoon and wrote the word "why" with a question mark and i wrote it -- drew it this size and i

wrote all of the names of all of the troops that had been killed in iraq in the -- in the letters. w-h-y. and that generated a lot of controversy at a time when people still thought the war was a good thing. >> i think that cartoon was responsible for getting you the pulitzer prize that year. >> i felt offbeat about it at the time. i felt strongly about it. it's an interesting story about how it pertains to the resilience of the american public and also the power of cartoons. you might recall the patriot act just when it's in the process of being written, it was done sort of in secret for a couple of weeks and everyone wanted to know including members of

congress what was going on behind closed doors. after berating john ashcroft to come forward publicly, he did and gave a presentation to the senate committee. he had a written statement very short in the beginning. he said to question my actions to aid the enemy. you shouldn't question. you should just take what we're going give you. i remember hearing that and saying, you know what, this is every citizen's jobs and responsibility in a democracy to ask questions. we're paid to do it. a cartoon that was strident. it was a strange mood and atmosphere. i thought this is going to get a lot of e-mails, letters. my phone is going to be ringing off of the hook tomorrow. tomorrow came and there was no comment.

and instead, i saw cartoonist around the country also echoing the same thing. i heard from members on both sides of the aisle coming out in protest to that sort of thing. and i thought at that moment that the democracy was tested and we passed that test. two years later when the library of congress was doing a special commemoration exhibition part of the 9/11 aftermath, they asked for a few cartoons and that one appeared among that. >> the question is why did the media not tell the truth about how we lost the war? i don't think there was a grand conspiracy, they were doing their best to tell what they perceived to be the truth. that's all i have to say. >> i'm going to shock you and surprise you because i believe that nobody should pinpoint the

finger or criticize without having the facts to support and position. so i'm going to give you some documents here that the atlanta press club had -- they had the documents -- >> you're welcome to hand them out afterwards. we're going to focus on the cartooni cartoonists. >> let me finish? >> sir, go ahead. >> you're welcome to -- >> the time -- the constitution they have full knowledge why we lost in iraq. >> you're welcome to hand them out. >> don't try to protect them, please. >> i'm not. >> please. go ahead. >> go to the mic? >> doesn't apply to cartoonists as well as editorial writers, the literate editorial writers

are more liberal and the oral editorial writers are more right winged. does that draw an illusion or -- >> people who draw are smarter. >> yeah. >> there are so few commentators. >> versus -- >> versus what you see on tv? >> from my perspective, liberals outweigh conservatives period. and until fox news came along, it really wasn't a whole lot of conservative voices on tv. rush limbaugh came along. now you have talk radio seems to be completely eaten up with conservatives. your point is right. liberals have a tough time. msnbc is struggling.

al gore's tv channel is gone. it may be because there's one place if that's what you want to do. i think as far as print, there are fewer conservatives in journalism period and that's reflected among cartoonists as well. it's generally not a conservative thing. so it's journalism tends to draw, i would think, to be fair to say, people who are more liberal. >> i think i agree with that. but my paper, i think there are a variety of reporters and editors that are, in fact, conservative and liberal. and my payer, because you know the internet people can go and get the exact news that they want in their own bubble, the paper has -- is -- now the paper runs my cartoon and directly below it, they run a cartoon called "from the right" or

something like that. so they're running, you know, they're running -- they're -- both views. they're trying so hard. because -- and i think it's a good idea. because if you're conservative and you have the paper in hand and it's just liberal, the editorial page is liberal, well, you're going want to -- you want to have some -- have some -- hear a sympathetic voice or read some sympathetic voices, you go to the internet. i think what the paper has done, they run a liberal and conservative columnist every day. if you're conservative, you can read the liberal columnist or cartoonist and probably definitely not going to break. you can kind of understand where they're coming from, maybe, and the same for the liberal and the conservative. so i think it's a good thing. boy, i just forgot what the

question was. >> yeah. so -- so two points about that. first -- you know, i lived and worked in the uk for 11 years where it's widely regarded that the media is conservative. so it was very amusing for me to come back here and things kind of turned on its head. and i also note that everyone in their head is their own the spectrum of what they think is liberal and conservative and where all of the gray area is. we can all agree on a truly conservative, truly liberal. every place is up for grabs because the spectrum in massachusetts is different than the other parts of the country. so there's a lot of gray area for how people define what's going on. it's curious what you're saying about drawing versus -- print versus the oral thing. it will be worth kind of investigating. where i think in our realm, it's

something very interesting. it's satire. satire is usually taking on the status quo. and says usually comes from similarly on to the left or the unorthodox taking on the or the docks sis. in that case, you are understanding that you have more nonconventional people in that realm. not always the case. i thought it was real interesting to see rick because he does an articulate demonstration of his point of view and that there is lots of room for different kinds of voices in our craft. it should not just be from one perspective. >> young man in front?

>> i work at fox 2 communications. i wanted to know as an aspiring cartoonist, is there something -- or what is one thing that you would recommend that -- you know -- that you -- i guess would -- >> i would say that -- you know, this isn't a growing bid newspaper cartooning. but you can find an outlet whether it's on the internet or your own website or some suburban paper that you can do drawings for, that's how i got started is i drew from my school, my high school paper and my college paper. i went to the university of washington. i was selling life insurance. on the weekends, i was drawing for suburban papers in and

around seattle and it was a way to get -- to get practice and to -- and then eventually something opened up in south carolina and so i -- i got that job it's a tough situation. i don't -- i think it was easier for us starting out because newspapers were healthy and you knew that if you couldn't get a job right away if you just waited long enough that something might happen. >> i would echo that. if you can find except for selling life insurance, school newspaper, college newspaper, local small town newspaper. you're looking for -- my job was to go to the news department and i work for the atlanta constitution in the late '80s. and it was sort of my foot in

the door until the job in augusta came open. but it is so tough these days to get this job. it wasn't easy for us. so it's even harder now with certain talents and cartoonists do not have jobs right now. i hate to feel discouraged right now. >> i'll echo some of the things these guys mentioned. but i'm also -- i'm kind of bullish about the future of visual satire, though it won't be likely to be in the realm that it's been in in the past couple of centuries where it's been in still images and print. but the prospect of the new media and the fact and software and animation is getting easier to do, it there are all new opportunities that are going to come to life. i'm convinced to it.

i've been doing animation at the university i've been playing with. but i'm seeing some really exciting possibilities there, even in limited stuff. so i would recommend that you do become familiar and agile. turn it to new material to make it your own. >> elizabeth, right here. >> i was curious about the future of papers in america. that i wondered how you ended up in this situation where your cartoons only appeared on-line, do you think they would have the same impact on society? >> i don't know. that's a good question. jeez. there's -- that day may come, i don't know. right now, i'm just speaking

from -- well, what my paper is doing. we have a free on-line presence. we have a paid thing with special -- special content for the paid subscribers. and then you can get in print or both, just a variety of things. and, you know, the ipad, i mean i read the ajc every morning on the ipad. it flips the pages just like a regular newspaper. so i hope that it will just we'll be able to do it in a variety of events. >> i just want to say the legal -- the local thing. the local thing is that we use the local edge. that's that we have a critical mass. and that might be a bit diluted. i imagine it will be different. it will be curious to see how

things will happen. >> i'm sorry, you have to -- give everybody at least one chance before you have a second one. >> i would add that it's -- i think it might have more impact on-line because you can -- i'll see my cartoon, it will get shared on facebook. it gets passed around. that's the thing that's going on right now is more people are reading newspapers i think than ever before. they're just reading them for free on-line. so we've got to figure this out. >> hearing your answers to the earlier questions and seeing the cartoons, especially the ones with the bees in the iraq nest and afghanistan -- you guys can say what everybody is thinking and what journalists can never say. we're supposed to just report the facts. and sometimes i feel like i can watch three broadcasts and read the entire paper and i have no

perspective. and then you guys are able to put it in a perspective with humor that's so true. it's a joke. but it's true. >> let me put you in touch with my publisher. >> sometimes i watch like jon stewart and steven colbert. i think, oh, may hit it on the head. has there been an instance, i came a little late, you might have answered this, did you publish a cartoon that you got a completely unexpected reaction to. positive or negative. >> we talked about that. >> yeah. the cartoons for me -- i don't know about these guys, we draw the cartoon. this is going to be great. and it lands with a thud and you do one that you just don't expect it will get some huge positive or negative reaction. it comes out of nowhere. you can't really predict. i can't predict what's going to -- you know, be the reaction.

so i -- you just have to try to do what you think is best for the day and hopefully it will be another one tomorrow. >> how often do your editors nix your ideas. >> not that often. sometimes -- but it's usually -- i'm always glad that an editorial looks at my cartoon. because you know, it's like if you're looking at an idea and you keep looking at it, you lose your objectivity and you don't know if it works or not. and there's been times when i come up with an idea and i'll -- you know, i'll draw up the sketch and i'll show it to the editor and the editor will say, well, you you can't do that. people are going to say, hey, look what people will think. i have not really realized it. there's a guy, i don't know what -- what was --