I’ve written here about quite a few cartoonists who have lost their jobs to newspaper cutbacks – but this is the first time I can remember that I’ve written about a cartoonist losing his job because his newspaper shut down. My buddy, star Canadian cartoonist Michael de Adder, finds himself out of a job as his newspaper bites the dust. I put up a special section of Michael’s great work and asked him to give me a few comments below. E-mail Michael at: [email protected] and see his best cartoons here.

It is with a sad heart that the Daily News (Halifax) folded and then was replaced by a free newspaper called the Metro. The Metro does not run editorial cartoons. In fact there is no opinion what-so-ever in Halifax’s free Daily. So when the Daily News folded, so did my job as editorial cartoonist.

It was done quickly and quietly.

On Monday, Feb 10, 2008, we came into work like we do every Monday morning. Chatted, set up our computers for the day’s work, read Monday’s newspaper and a mass email came through telling us there was a meeting at 10:00am. The strange thing was it was 10:15am. Management always gave us at least a few hours notice before scheduling a meeting.

About a minute after the email came through, management came through herding people to the meeting area. Our marketing director told somebody in the middle of a phone interview to hang up the phone and come to the meeting. I had never seen somebody interrupt a phone interview before so it seemed quite urgent.

When we were in place there was a hushed silence as more people came gathered. For a long time there had been rumours that the whole office was moving from its downtown Halifax location to save money. Thinking this was that announcement, I asked, ” Are we moving?” to the senior person beside me loud enough for everybody near us to hear. When I got no reply, I said jokingly, is the Daily News folding? Still I got nothing. My heart sank.

About a minute later Marc-Noel Ouellette, senior vice-president of the Transcontinental’s newspaper group told us as of today the Halifax Daily News has folded. There will be no newspaper the next day. He proceeded to tell us that a new free daily called the metro would take its place. Some people would find employment with the news paper but the vast majority would not.

That was it. It was like a hurricane came in and destroyed our home.

I worked at the Daily News for seven and a half years. It was a good environment to draw editorial cartoons. Editors let me do my work and wanted me to cause a stir each day. They encouraged hard hitting, opinionated work. A rarity at today’s newspapers.

I did land on my feet quickly. I’ve had calls from a number of news sources asking me about my cartoons, mostly local publications outside Halifax. And as much as I feel lucky, I can’t help but mourn the loss of what was one of the best work environments for an editorial cartoonist in North America.

–Michael de Adder

My buddy John Sherffius just e-mailed to tell me he won the Herblock Award for Editorial Cartoons. We’ve put up a special section showing the twelve cartoons that won the prize for John. Want to e-mail your congratulations – or complaints to John? He’s at: [email protected]. And see John’s editorial cartoon archive here.

Castro Resigns

The future of Cuba without Fidel is generating lots of cartoons. On the left, Cuban cartoonist, Ares, who lives in Cuba, has a very different view of the Cuban future than Alen Lauzan, a Cuban who left Cuba for Chilé.

The Ares cartoon on the left is the only drawing of Fidel I’ve ever seen by a Cuban cartoonist in Cuba. Cartoons of Fidel are a taboo in Cuba – although in this case, Ares is making the point that nothing will change; maybe that makes this Fidel drawing go down more smoothly with the communists.

Check out our Fidel Quits cartoons.

From: John Evans

Subject: Why

So you characterize me as a “Monkey” because I don’t like someone’s political beliefs. How disgusting of you.

Typical Liberal Democrat – It’s ok to insult someone as long as they are not a Minority. It’s still an insult and you should apologize.

You are a racist, just because we are conservative and not agree with you, you make us into Monkeys????

What’s wrong with you, where is your open mind, where is your compasion and caring for others?

John

(Phone number deleted)

Why don’t you call my number and call me a Monkey to my face, don’t you believe in what you do?

I wouldn’t say the conservative character in my cartoon is a “monkey” – I’d say he is “evolutionally challenged.” –Daryl

Our new site, CaglePost.com, is born out of years of my frustration with editors who can’t see that cartoons are as powerful, or more powerful, than words. We’ve gathered most of the top newspaper columnists, along with our great selection of top editorial cartoonists, and we mix them together in a continuous, chronological flow, with the new cartoons and columns appearing as soon as they are released. – and with cartoons getting equal play on the site with the columns. I think it is already the best news/opinion site on the web.

On The Cagle Post front page the newest columns show up at the top of the middle of the page. In the left column we have a list of each columnist with their most recent column along with archives and RSS feeds for each columnist. At the right we have topics, where you can see a mix of columns and cartoons by topic, and subscribe to a topical RSS feed.

We’ve been beta testing the new Cagle Post site for a couple of months with our newsletter audience and we’ve gotten lots of good advice and ideas from our readers. One thing readers wanted to do was leave comments with each cartoon, and we have some active discussions going for both the columns and cartoons. The most recent comments can be seen on the front page, click on a comment to go to the cartoon or column that is the subject of debate.

We also have a great new slate of free e-mail newsletters, where our readers can subscribe to any or all of the Cagle.msnbc.com cartoonists and their favorite columnists.

Our Cagle.msnbc.com site is growing old; it is still a collection of separate html files that is managed the same way we did it ten years ago. The new Cagle Post site is database driven and gives us a path to upgrade and modernize the Cagle.msnbc.com site. We may combine the two sites in the future, or The Cagle Post may go its separate way, we’re not quite sure, but for now, The Cagle Post is a separate site.

We’ve gotten some complaints from readers who don’t like the one cartoon per column and thumbnail displays on The Cagle Post; they prefer the way we show the cartoons now, by artist, with many cartoons on each page. Don’t worry, our current site and multi-cartoon layout are here to stay; when we upgrade, we won’t be changing the layout you are comfortable with. The Cagle Post site just provides different ways to see the cartoons.

Part of the reason for the redesign was the “Search for a Cartoon” link in the left column here on Cagle.msnbc.com – we haven’t had a good search function for cartoons here because of our archaic setup; the link used to go to our online store at Politicalcartoons.com where we had a nice search script. What happened was, over time, more and more readers found Politicalcartoons.com through this link and preferred the Politicalcartoons.com format for browsing the most recent cartoons. Over time the traffic on Politicalcartoons.com grew to millions of page views and it became clear that people didn’t really want a store – they really just wanted to look at and search for the cartoons in the thumnail, dated format of our store. In fact, the audience on Politicalcartoons.com has grown to the point where it is about the same size as our huge audience on Cagle.msnbc.com – we knew we had to make a change, and that’s why the Cartoon Ticker page on The Cagle Post looks and works just like Politicalcartoons.com.

As time goes by, we’ll be gently nudging our readers to do their pleasure reading on The Cagle Post ticker page, to move them out of our Politicalcartoons.com store and into a different reading room. Don’t worry, any changes to Cagle.msnbc.com will not disrupt your daily routines and will not change the look and feel of our site.

Give The Cagle Post a try – unlike other opinion sites like Townhall.com, our site has no political agenda. We have liberals and conservatives together on the same topics. And we have the best cartoons presented in the way that many of you prefer. Come! Look! Be angry and leave a comment! And subscribe to our new newsletters and RSS feeds!

There’s nothing else like it!

We have a new site! The Cagle Post!

Our new site, CaglePost.com, is born out of years of my frustration with editors who can’t see that cartoons are as powerful, or more powerful, than words. We’ve gathered most of the top newspaper columnists, along with our great selection of top editorial cartoonists, and we mix them together in a continuous, chronological flow, with the new cartoons and columns appearing as soon as they are released. ­ and with cartoons getting equal play on the site with the columns. I think it is already the best news/opinion site on the web.

On The Cagle Post front page the newest columns show up at the top of the middle of the page. In the left column we have a list of each columnist with their most recent column along with archives and RSS feeds for each columnist. At the right we have topics, where you can see a mix of columns and cartoons by topic, and subscribe to a topical RSS feed.

We’ve been beta testing the new Cagle Post site for a couple of months with our newsletter audience and we’ve gotten lots of good advice and ideas from our readers. One thing readers wanted to do was leave comments with each cartoon, and we have some active discussions going for both the columns and cartoons. The most recent comments can be seen on the front page, click on a comment to go to the cartoon or column that is the subject of debate.

We also have a great new slate of free e-mail newsletters, where our readers can subscribe to any or all of the Cagle.msnbc.com cartoonists and their favorite columnists.

Our Cagle.msnbc.com site is growing old; it is still a collection of separate html files that is managed the same way we did it ten years ago. The new Cagle Post site is database driven and gives us a path to upgrade and modernize the Cagle.msnbc.com site. We may combine the two sites in the future, or The Cagle Post may go its separate way, we’re not quite sure, but for now, The Cagle Post is a separate site.

We’ve gotten some complaints from readers who don’t like the one cartoon per column and thumbnail displays on The Cagle Post; they prefer the way we show the cartoons now, by artist, with many cartoons on each page. Don’t worry, our current site and multi-cartoon layout are here to stay; when we upgrade, we won’t be changing the layout you are comfortable with. The Cagle Post site just provides different ways to see the cartoons.

Part of the reason for the redesign was the “Search for a Cartoon” link in the left column here on Cagle.msnbc.com – we haven’t had a good search function for cartoons here because of our archaic setup; the link used to go to our online store at Politicalcartoons.com where we had a nice search script. What happened was, over time, more and more readers found Politicalcartoons.com through this link and preferred the Politicalcartoons.com format for browsing the most recent cartoons. Over time the traffic on Politicalcartoons.com grew to millions of page views and it became clear that people didn’t really want a store – they really just wanted to look at and search for the cartoons in the thumnail, dated format of our store. In fact, the audience on Politicalcartoons.com has grown to the point where it is about the same size as our huge audience on Cagle.msnbc.com – we knew we had to make a change, and that’s why the Cartoon Ticker page on The Cagle Post looks and works just like Politicalcartoons.com.

As time goes by, we’ll be gently nudging our readers to do their pleasure reading on The Cagle Post ticker page, to move them out of our Politicalcartoons.com store and into a different reading room. Don’t worry, any changes to Cagle.msnbc.com will not disrupt your daily routines and will not change the look and feel of our site.

Give The Cagle Post a try – unlike other opinion sites like Townhall.com, our site has no political agenda. We have liberals and conservatives together on the same topics. And we have the best cartoons presented in the way that many of you prefer. Come! Look! Be angry and leave a comment! And subscribe to our new newsletters and RSS feeds!

There’s nothing else like it!

Thanks to our friends at Editor & Publisher for permission to post this story.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark Danish police said Tuesday they have arrested several people suspected of plotting to kill one of the 12 cartoonists behind the Prophet Muhammad drawings that sparked a deadly uproar in the Muslim world two years ago.

The arrests were made in pre-dawn raids in Aarhus, western Denmark, “to prevent a terror-related murder,” the police intelligence agency said. It did not say how many people were arrested nor did it mention which cartoonist was targeted.

However, according to Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the drawings on Sept. 30, 2005, the suspects were planning to kill its cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. It said those arrested included both Danish and foreign citizens.

“There were very concrete murder plans against Kurt Westergaard,” said Carsten Juste, the paper’s editor-in-chief.

The cartoons were later reprinted by a range of Western publications, and they sparked deadly protests in parts of the Muslim world.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

Westergaard, 73, and his wife Gitte, 66, had been living under police protection because of the murder plans, Jyllands-Posten reported.

“Of course I fear for my life when the police intelligence service say that some people have concrete plans to kill me. But I have turned fear into anger and resentment,” Westergaard said in a statement published on Jyllands-Posten’s Web site.

PET, the police intelligence service, called the action “preventive,” saying it decided to strike “at an early phase to stop the planning and the carrying out of the murder.”

In the uproar that followed the publishing of the cartoons, Danes watched in disbelief as angry mobs burned the Danish flag and attacked the country’s embassies in Muslim countries including Syria, Iran and Lebanon.

Jyllands-Posten was evacuated several times because of threats and posted security guards at its office outside Aarhus and in Copenhagen.

The paper initially refused to apologize for the cartoons, which it said were published in reaction to a perceived self-censorship among artists dealing with Islamic issues, but later said it regretted that the cartoons had offended Muslims.

The Danish government also expressed regrets to Muslims, but noted that it could not interfere with the freedom of the press.

Kasem Ahmad, a spokesman for the Copenhagen-based Islamic Faith Community, a network of Muslim groups that spearheaded protests against the cartoons in Denmark, said he hoped Tuesday’s arrests would not rekindle the uproar.

“We urge Muslims to take it calmly,” he told the TV2 News network.

The rage over the caricatures resonated beyond Denmark. In Germany, two men were accused of planting bombs aboard a pair of German commuter trains in 2006 that failed to explode.

One of the men, Youssef Mohammed el-Hajdib, a Lebanese citizen, is on trial in Duesseldorf. The second man, Jihad Hamad, was convicted in December in Lebanon and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

El-Hajdib told the court last week that Hamad planned the attacks as revenge after some German newspapers reprinted the Muhammad caricatures.

Hamad, however, testified at his trial in Lebanon that el-Hajdib was the initiator of the failed plot. He said el-Hajdib brainwashed him and exposed him to extremist videos and propaganda.