Cartoonist's animations to be syndicated

Following a discussion at this years American Association of Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) convention about how the growth of online news will change how editorial cartoons are judged, the desire for newspapers to provide animated editorial cartoons to their readers continues to grow.

Nick Anderson, the editorial cartoonist for the Houston Chronicle, will now have the cartoon animations he currently produces for chron.com syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group.

This follows the move by Ann Telnaes away from her syndicated cartoons to producing cartoon animations exclusively for the Washington Post.

More and more cartoonists are dipping their feet into the water of online animation, including cartoonist Drew Litton of the Rocky Mountain News, who has just produced his first sports animation for the newspaper's website.

Speaking about the difference in producing an animation rather than a normal cartoon, Litton says it "is a bit like being Dr. Frankenstein. Bit by bit the cartoon is pieced together and the animators only hope is that it doesn't terrorize the community at the end of the process."