A cartoon by Chip Bok of the Akron Beacon Journal, whose last cartoon will appear in the paper October 13.The stock market isn't the only thing to take a hit this week, as two more editorial cartoonists leave their staff newspaper positions amidst a tanking newspaper market.
Chip Bok of the Akron Beacon Journal, and Jim Lange of The Oklahoman will both be filing their final cartoons for their respected papers.
Bok, the Akron Beacon Journal's cartoonist for 22 years, has accepted a buyout and will file his last cartoon on Monday, October 13th. According to the Daily Cartoonist, this was the third buy-out offer for his paper’s employees and Chip decided that now was the time to try something else.
"Everyone knows that the newspaper industry is grim right now. The rust belt is perhaps more grim than elsewhere,” he told Alan Gardner, referring to two other Ohio cartoonists, Jim Borgman of the Cincinnati Enquirer, who accepted a buyout offer, and Mike Peters of the Dayton Daily News, who will be scaling back to 2-3 cartoons a week.
Jim Lange, the editorial cartoonists at The Oklahoman, is leaving after almost 60 years of cartooning.Also leaving is Jim Lange, who is retiring "early" from his position at The Oklahoman after 58 years with the paper. His last cartoon will run this Sunday, October 12.
According to the Daily Cartoonist, members of the newspaper staff paid tribute to Lange's career that produced a eye-poping 17,000 cartoons and illustrations. Jim plans to donate all of his original artwork to the history museum in Oklahoma City.
Despite being 82 years old, and working for the paper almost 60 years, the retirement wasn't voluntary, and Lange wasn't ready to let go. “He liked what he did, and didn’t really want to retire," his wife reportedly said.
UPDATE: Tom Spurgeon, writer of the Comics Reporter blog, has a nice post about the career of Chip Box, and ended the post with his own observations of the dying art of being a newspaper cartoonist:
There's a point at which this is no longer a profession but a quirky job, like driving a Zamboni or being the guy who does a blog about amusement park rides. I'm not certain we've reached the tipping point, but if you can't envision this steamrolling into an extinction event in the next half-decade, you're probably not trying hard enough. I think this would be an immeasurable loss to American journalism and cartooning. If you have a cartoonist in your paper you like to any extent at all, show them support. Maybe think about writing a letter to the publisher thanking them for that hire. Because honestly? I'm not sure I have any other ideas except to suggest everyone hold on, dig in, and hope.
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More from Politicker.com editorial cartoonist Rob Tornoe:
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