The Voice of the Moobster

(NOTE: Today's post is not about brilliant cartooning. It is about cartooning as part of local coverage, and local coverage as the forgotten factor in why newspapers once mattered.)

My brilliant career as a political cartoonist took place over about a two year period from 2006 to 2008, and was not only short but was only on the writing end, with the art provided by an on-line friend, Jason Togyer, who worked for the appallingly small stipend that was all I could scrape together from my appallingly small budget as editor of a weekly newspaper with a four-figure circulation.

We were amateurs doing it mostly for fun, but I can tell you that, rudimentary as they were, readers enjoyed them, which is the way decisions used to be made, back when newspapers mattered.

The above is my favorite, the Moobster, created at a time when budget pressures were forcing school districts to consolidate. Maine is only 39th in area among all states, but it's a giant in New England, three times the size of Massachusetts, and is divided into two cultures: The seacoast, famous for its lobsters, and the forests, wherein dwell the mighty moose.

But, in hard times, one must do more with less, hence the Moobster.

Our first cartoon was also on the topic of consolidation, specifically of our schools. It was about how, while combining districts probably made sense in Portland and Augusta, we had very small kids on the bus far too long in our massive rural districts already, and consolidation would create ghastly rides of more than an hour each way.

It depicted a small child in pajamas, clutching a teddy bear and pillow and getting on board the school bus under a moonlit sky, with his parents telling him good night.

This one, on the same theme, depicted the superintendents of the various districts in our area, with Gov. John Baldacci, architect of the cunning plan, in the role of the farmer/father.

As you see, it is not only colorized but framed. I was surprised and delighted to see it in one of their offices, and to learn that an education lobbyist in Augusta had presented each of the superintendents with that present.

I was also delighted to hear from our state senator that he had shown the cartoon to the governor, who took a look and then spun on his heels and walked away without comment.

Greater praise no cartoonist can achieve.

This one is a fairly simple and straightforward piece, but local cartooning doesn't have to be terrifically original if it hits the target. In this case, the town of Wilton had successfully managed to hire a new chief of police who promptly obtained the retirements of a cadre of good old boys who had seriously impeded justice.

I don't know that the caption was needed, but I asked Jason to include it because it wouldn't harm anything and it might extend the message to those who needed a clue

What I do know is that this is the other one I saw framed, in this case, in the office of the new chief, and I'm sure it met with favor well beyond his breakfast table. One of the fallacies of the "you're in a heap of trouble, boy" depictions of rural police is the idea that good ol' boy law enforcement is what the locals want.

Bullies are bullies and a town with bad cops is a town divided. Wilton's house cleaning was welcomed by a strong majority, which is why it happened and why this cartoon, simple as it was, struck home for people.

We did a few other cartoons commenting on things like mud season and the changeable spring weather, which is not really "political" so much as "local" cartooning, and I'm certainly not suggesting that any of this stuff is brilliant and needs to be immortalized. 

But it sure would be nice if more newspaper owners understood the bond between a local paper and its people, because it's not just school children who have to deal with the downside of mindless, accountant-driven consolidation.

Our readers enjoyed cartoons that commented on, saluted or simply depicted the local scene, and I remember when more newspapers did that. And I think the industry would be better off if they still did, but I guess those days are over.

Here's what nobody seems to know, or to remember, or to realize: It's easy to look down your nose at papers that run pictures of the Cub Scout Awards Banquet and feature those "Little Old Lady Columns" about who's back from the army and who celebrated their wedding anniversary and what the quilting club is up to.

But "all politics is local," and a newspaper can do worse than to serve its readership by writing about their lives and their concerns.

Our little old ladies' columns included issues like how emergency responders wanted Maine DOT to replace a condemned bridge before somebody died for lack of quick response time, and were part of how our readers knew, for instance, exactly what school consolidation would mean for our own kids and who was for it, who was against it and who was blowing smoke.

You hear horror stories about small towns rejecting the new crusading editor, but they don't want crusades. Crusades are some egotistical crap you learn in j-school and that plays well at big papers in big towns where nobody knows anybody and journalism is some abstract, elite game.

A good local paper knows where to dig, when to dig and how and why, so that, when a local woman was murdered in the office of her business, we didn't cover it as breathless fodder for some cable cop show. But when the usual boyfriend/ex didn't turn up in 48 hours, we started working to let our readers know whether it was a personal thing or if there was some random maniac on the loose, potentially putting them in danger.

The state cops weren't too pleased with our probing and I had my notes subpoenaed and -- Maine having no shield law -- it looked like I might have to spend some time behind bars. But they backed down and later the chief investigator confided that they knew I was just doing my job and he was just doing his. No harm, no foul.

The important thing was that I had a publisher who not only let me do my job but encouraged and demanded that I do my job, and he reported to an owner with the same attitude towards him.

But then the publisher moved on to a bigger paper (as depicted here), and the owner retired and sold out to a chain and they brought in the bean counters and things changed and it stopped being fun and I wasn't able to do my job anymore and so I moved on, too.

And I wish that was a local story, but it's not.

It's a microcosm.

Comments

[Jan]

Have you written an autobiography that we should know about? ;-)

[Mike Peterson]

I'm currently working on it. It's called "Comic Strip of the Day.com"

[Beth Cravens]

Thanks for the kind words about local small papers. We don't get much respect these days. I've been cartooning for the Weakley County Press for the last 8 years and the most popular cartoons have been the local ones. My mayor has one enlarged and hanging in his office. When drawing local, you have to think of it as a conversation with your readers. I'll never be famous, but then again who wants that?