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12/16/2010

Cartoons on the world stage

Citation_Royaards_2010
The United Nations Correspondents Association has announced the winners of the Ranan Lurie Award for 2010. This brilliant caricature of North Korea's Kim Jong-il is by Dutch cartoonist Tjeerd Royaards and is only one of 13 cartoons cited for excellence (First, Second, Third place and 10 citations). I chose to highlight it because (A) he was the one who tipped me off on Facebook and (B) it turned out to be my favorite of the 13. But do go have a look at the others.

Lurie himself is quite a fellow and also worth having a look at. I ran into him back in the middle 90s when he began publishing a monthly magazine aimed at students and packed with political cartoons for them to analyze. It was brilliant but too expensive for most classrooms and we spoke on the phone about trying to come up with a format newspapers could publish as part of their Newspapers-in-Education programs. (This was at a point when newspapers were still actively investing in future readership.) The talks petered out, not for lack of interest on our part but over logistics and other side issues. But before that, a colleague from the Danbury (CT) News-Times went down to Lurie's home in Greenwich to discuss the possibilities, and came away awestruck and not a little starstruck as well.

Not only was the house itself impressive, but the walls were covered with photos of the cartoonist with every world leader she could think of and several she hadn't. Lurie received her with grace, offering coffee and cookies on china as if she were one of the people in the photographs, and the cartoonist and the former art teacher had a very congenial conversation.

Apparently, although the magazine appears to have ceased publication, Lurie has not lost his interest in inspiring other cartoonists to take up their pens and work.


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Mark Jackson

This cartoon is also featured on the new Cartoon Movement site ( http://www.cartoonmovement.com/ ) - Tjeerd Royaards is one of two cartoonists from their 70-strong international network of contributors to have made the honors list.

Posted by: Mark Jackson | 12/16/2010 at 10:22 AM

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