Syrian Cartoonist Akram Raslan Reported Slain

From Cartoonists Rights Network: Syrian cartoonist Akram Raslan is reportedly dead.

According to unconfirmed reports, Mr. Raslan was put on secret trial in Syria on July 26, 2013, along with other prisoners of conscience (fellow journalists, artists and other intellectuals). Mr. Raslan was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment, but, then was taken away from the others and executed by the Deputy Vice President for Security Affairs in Syria, Mohammed Nassaf Kheir Bek. He is buried in a mass grave near Damascus.

Mr. Raslan, who had been drawing cartoons about the ruthlessness of president  president Bashir al-Assad, was "disappeared" from the newspaper offices where he worked about nine months ago. He was incarcerated in a Syrian prison. During that time, he received the Cartoonist Rights Network International's 13th annual Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning.

"As Mark Twain once said, 'against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.' The tyrant might be able to call out an army to quell a rebellion in the streets, but against his own people laughing at him, there’s no defense. The power of the pen is nowhere more powerful than in the hands of a daring cartoonist. 

"Akram Raslan knew the risks when he started drawing president Bashir al-Assad as a ruthless dictator. Two years ago, another Syrian cartoonist, Ali Ferzat, was kidnapped, driven to the outskirts of Damascus and brutally assaulted because of the growing popularity of his cartoons criticizing Assad. As the goons were finishing their work they broke his fingers, telling him that his broken hands would assure he never drew another cartoon embarrassing the big boss. 

"When this attack became public, political cartoonists and journalists all over the world responded with an unprecedented flood of anti-Assad cartoons, editorials and newspaper articles. The regime paid a heavy public relations price for the attack on Ferzat. This time, instead of an extrajudicial beating during the dark of night, the regime chose to trump up charges of sedition against the cartoonist. The only evidence against him will be the cartoons he has drawn that embarrass Bashir al-Assad and his minions.

-- Robert Russell, writing for the Salt Lake City Tribune. 

My thanks to Bado for alerting me to this story. 

Editorial Cartoonist Eldon Pletcher 1922-2013

Sad news. From The Times-Pacayune:

Eldon Pletcher, The Times-Pacayune's editorial cartoonist from 1966 to 1984, died Sunday of emphysema and congestive heart failure at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose, Calif. He was 91.

Eldon Pletcher started sending me emails some years back. And then we began to exchange Christmas cards. He chatted to me like an old friend -- some shop talk, some talk of cats or a nice comment about the garden, which he saw on the blog. He was one of those fellows who, if I ever got to the New Orleans area, I should stop by and shake his hand. He treated me like an old friend, even though we never met in person.

Before he was at The Times Pacayune, he was at the Sioux City Journal from 1949 to 1966. And before that, he was in the army (Eldon was in the Battle of the Bulge), and a contributor to Yank magazine.

He was a traveler -- studying in Chicago, and, after the war, at the University of Scotland in Aberdeen, as well as the John Heron Art School in Indianapolis.

The funny thing about Eldon, ot "Pletch," as he signed all of his emails and notes, was that he kept in the "now." He never mentioned his editorial cartoonist career to me at all. He sent me a long personal note of comfort when our beloved kitty died in 2012. He had been there too, losing his sweet cat Callie -- but now he had a new cat named Blitzen.

He thanked me for a blog entry I wrote about coloring.

He wrote, "I appreciate your tips on using color. I'm sure in my case it would be big help if I wasn't color blind."

Pletch would only email about his past life when it was relevant. Like this email I received in 2010, which was in response to my email to him about some great gag cartoonists I admire -- specifically: Don Orehek and George Booth. Here's Pletch, talking about his days at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts:

"Don Orehek and George Booth are certainly cartoon greats, all right. I also like and admire their work.

"Martin Garrrity, now deceased, who drew gag cartoons in the better period of magazine cartooning, the 50s and 60s, also taught gag cartooning at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and [George] Booth was a student of his. Marty was a good friend whom I knew well from my Chicago days. At an earlier time, when I studied at the Chicago Academy for awhile, I had Don Ulsh, for gag cartooning and Vaughn Shoemaker, for editorial cartooning. After Marty and his wife moved to Fair Oaks, California, he stopped doing magazine cartoons and did editorial cartoons for a paper in that area. He belonged to the AAEC and when the convention was in Orlando Florida, in 1985, he arranged for me to sit in a seat with George Booth on a bus trip. We had an interesting conversation, about Missouri, where he was from and my wife being, from Kansas City etc....and about our military life. I believe his first work was printed in Leatherneck magazine, the Marine publication. Booth gave a humorous talk at the convention."

A memorial service will be held on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. at the Yoder-Culp Funeral Home, 1911 S. Main St., in his home town of Goshen, Indiana. Burial will be in Rock Run Cemetery in Goshen.

I'm thankful Pletch took the time to send emails and chat. I will miss seeing his name in my in-box. What a kind and talented soul.

But I would be remiss if I didn't pass along some samples of his work through the decades.

Here's some of his cartoon work, and more details about his life. The below is from a 2007 blog entry titled "The Three Cartoon Worlds of Eldon Pletcher." It's a terrific overview of his career.





I got a note in last month from Eldon Pletcher:

"My friend Dave Carpenter has told me of your conversation, in which you expressed an interest in possibly doing a blog on me ... going from editorial cartooning to 'gag' cartooning. While I haven't felt there was anything special in doing both types, if you would like to do a blog on the subject, it's OK with me."

So it is written, so shall it be blogged!
Cartoonist Eldon Pletcher was born in Goshen, Indiana on September 10, 1922. After his first year at the Chicago Academy of Art, he went overseas, to serve in World War 2.


Like a lot of cartoonists, he started by drawing some gag cartoons, which are reproduced here. But he didn't have to buy his art supplies. Art supplies found him. Here's Pletch:

"I was in Germany when World War 2 ended. At that time I found some art materials at a bombed out artists supply store and started sending some cartoons to the Continental edition of Yank magazine, published in Paris. It was some early efforts in 'gag' cartooning. 

"I've enclosed a few of those they used while I was in Germany and while at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, while waiting for the number of 'points' I had (the Army had a point system in determining the order of when troops came home) to be enough to get me home."

When he got back to the States, Pletch attended the John Herron Art School in Indianapolis. He married Barbara Jeanne Jones in 1948. By the next year, he was the editorial cartoonist for the Sioux City Journal, a position he held for seventeen years.

The family moved to New Orleans in 1966, where he drew the editorial cartoons for the New Orleans Times Picayune for the next 19 years. Here is a selection of his editorial cartoons that he passed along for me to share:

There's Kennedy ...

The more things change, the more they stay the same. There's Romney, Sr. in the line up!

The pendulum swings back and forth.

Remember Billy Beer?


Dick Nixon piloting the capsule? Now that's a NASA disaster waitin' to happen!

So, from gag cartoonist to editorial cartoonist and now ... back to gag cartoonist. Award winning cartoonist Eldon Pletcher continues to cartoon. Here are a few recent ones.


Thanks for sending these along, Eldon. I loved the story of finding those art supplies in the rubble of post-war Germany. Keep toonin'!


Hat tip to the Wichita State University Library for the biographical info.

Kim Thompson 1956-2013

Kim Thompson, co-publisher of Fantagraphics Books and champion of comics as art, died on Wednesday morning, June 19, 2013. The cause was lung cancer. He was 56 years old.

Warren Bernard, founder of the Small Press Expo, tells The Washington Post:

Kim helped bring some of the greats in comics to the forefront, such as Chris Ware, Jacques Tardi and the Hernandez Brothers,” Bernard says of the Fantagraphic-published creators. “The comics world is a much better place because of Kim’s efforts over the last 35 years of the comics continuum.”

Bleeding Cool News has the press release from Fantagraphics:

Fantagraphics co-publisher Kim Thompson died at 6:30 this morning, June 19. “He was my partner and close friend for 36 years,” said Gary Groth.

Thompson was born in Denmark in 1956. He grew up in Europe, a lifelong comics fan, reading both European and American comics in Denmark, France, and Germany. He was an active fan in his teen years, writing to comics — his letters appeared in Marvel’s letter columns circa early 1970s — and contributing to fanzines from his various European perches. At the age of 21, he set foot, for the first time, on American soil, in late 1977. One “fanzine” he had not contributed to was The Comics Journal, which Groth and Michael Catron began publishing in July of 1976. That was soon to change.

“Within a few weeks of his arrival,” said Groth, “he came over to our ‘office,’ which was the spare bedroom of my apartment, and was introduced by a mutual friend — it was a fan visit. We were operating out of College Park, Maryland and Kim’s parents had moved to Fairfax, Virginia, both Washington DC suburbs. Kim loved the energy around the Journal and the whole idea of a magazine devoted to writing about comics, and asked if he could help. We needed all the help we could get, of course, so we gladly accepted his offer. He started to come over every day and was soon camping out on the floor. The three of us were living and breathing The Comics Journal 24 hours a day.”

Thompson became an owner when Catron took a job at DC Comics in 1978. As he became more familiar with the editorial process, Thompson became more and more integral to the magazine, assembling and writing news and conducting interviews with professionals. Thompson’s career in comics began here.

In 1981, Fantagraphics began publishing comics (such as Jack Jackson’s Los Tejanos,Don Rosa’s Comics and Stories, and, in 1982, Love and Rockets). Thompson was always evangelical about bandes dessinées and wanted to bring the best of European comics to America; in 1981, Thompson selected and translated the first of many European graphic novels for American publication — Herman Huppen’s The Survivors: Talons of Blood(followed by a 2nd volume in 1983). Thompson’s involvement in The Comics Journaldiminished in 1982 when he took over the editorship of Amazing Heroes, a bi-weekly magazine devoted to more mainstream comics (with occasional forays into alternative and even foreign comics). Thompson helmed Amazing Heroes through 204 issues until 1992.

Among Thompson’s signature achievements in comics were Critters, a funny-animal anthology that ran from 50 issues between 1985 to 1990 and is perhaps best known for introducing the world to Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo; and Zero Zero, an alternative comics anthology that also ran for 50 issues over five years — between 1995 and 2000 — and featured work by, among others, Kim Deitch, Dave Cooper, Al Columbia, Spain Rodriguez, Joe Sacco, David Mazzuchelli, and Joyce Farmer. His most recent enthusiasm was spearheading a line of European graphic novel translations, including two major series of volumes by two of the most significant living European artists — Jacques Tardi (It Was the War of the Trenches, Like a Sniper Lining up His Shot, The Astonishing Exploits of Lucien Brindavoine) and Jason (Hey, Wait…, I Killed Adolf Hitler, Low Moon, The Left Bank Gang) — and such respected work as Ulli Lust’s Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life, Lorenzo Mattotti’s The Crackle of the Frost, Gabriella Giandelli’s Interiorae, and what may be his crowning achievement as an editor/translator, Guy Peelaert’s The Adventures of Jodelle.

Throughout his career at Fantagraphics, Thompson was active in every aspect of the company, selecting books, working closely with authors, guiding books through the editorial and production process. “Kim leaves an enormous legacy behind him,” said Groth, “not just all the European graphic novels that would never have been published here if not or his devotion, knowledge, and skills, but for all the American cartoonists he edited, ranging from Stan Sakai to Joe Sacco to Chris Ware, and his too infrequent critical writing about the medium. His love and devotion to comics was unmatched. I can’t truly convey how crushing this is for all of us who’ve known and loved and worked with him over he years.”

Thompson was diagnosed with lung cancer in late February. He is survived by his wife, Lynn Emmert, his mother and father, Aase and John, and his brother Mark.

Ed Fisher 1926-2013

Ed Fisher, whose cartoons appeared in The New Yorker from 1951 to 2000, died on April 3, 2013 in Canaan, CT. He was 86.

His son, Mark Fisher, said his father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2000.

Despite this, I saw Ed routinely on The New Yorker "look day" in the early 2000s. He would be sitting on the couch, in the cartoonists' waiting room, with his portfolio, ready to chat. I introduced myself and was really glad to meet him. More than once he pulled out his roughs and showed them to me. Ed treated me like an equal.

His style was stunning. Halfway between illustrative and cartoony, it relayed an assured knowledge of form and mass, and how to play with it. His writing was erudite as well.

Like Bob Mankoff wrote:

"Ed was also an inspiration to my generation of cartoonists, and his work will continue to inspire cartoonists for generations to come."

Born in the Bronx on October 26, 1926, to a chiropractor and a professional singer, Mr. Fisher sold his first cartoon while attending Antioch College. Interrupting his studies, he served in the Pacific Theater in the Army Air Force. Returning stateside, he completed his degree and came back to New York home with a new wife, Ann Sharp. The young couple settled in Upper Manhattan.



From the NY Times obituary by Bruce Weber:

"'He had the same phone number for 60 years,' his son [Mark Fisher] said. At first he tried to find work at graphic design studios, telling potential bosses that he’d sold cartoons to The New Yorker, after which, according to family lore, he wouldn’t be hired because, he was told, he was overqualified."

His cartoon collections include ED FISHER'S FIRST FOLIO, ED FISHER'S DOMESDAY BOOK and MAESTRO, PLEASE. He also wrote a satiric novel in 1960 about ancient Rome titled WINE, WOMEN AND WOAD.

If you look at the cartoons in the books, you'll see why I like him. It looks like he just picks up whatever drawing tool is closest to his board -- a brush, a ball point pen -- and goes at it with skill and energy.


From the NY Times obituary:

Mark Fisher said that years after his parents’ marriage ended in divorce, they remarried when his mother was ill with cancer; she died in 2000. In addition to his son, Mr. Fisher is survived by a daughter, Nancy Rupert; a sister, Carol Romano, and two granddaughters.

The cartoons reproduced here are from ED FISHER'S FIRST FOLIO and are copyright 1959 by Mr. Fisher.

Read: Michael Maslin on Ed Fisher.

Bob Clarke 1926-2013

Above: Bob Clarke's 1967 self portrait from MAD #111.

Bob Clarke, who contributed to MAD Magazine for six decades, died March 31, 2013. The cause was complications from pneumonia. He lived and worked in Seaford, Delaware.

From the MAD Magazine site:

“We’re sad to announce that on Sunday, legendary MAD artist Bob Clarke passed away at the age of 87. 

“Bob was with MAD nearly from the start — first contributing in 1956 and continuing through 2010. 

“During his amazing career as one of ‘The Usual Gang of Idiots,’ Bob was one of the magazine’s most versatile artists, illustrating everything from covers, to articles, to Spy vs. Spy, to bonus inserts for MAD specials [including the MAD Zeppelin paper model and the MAD mobile]. Bob’s contribution to MAD’s legacy is massive, and he’ll be greatly missed.”

From the Seaford DE Statesman Journal:

Clarke had fun being part of the MAD staff – self-proclaimed as “The Usual Gang of Idiots” – and did his share of pranks and jokes, his nephew said. 

When publisher Bill Gaines took artists and writers on yearly adventures, one of Clarke’s pranks was a classic. 

Their hotel had a room behind the registration desk with banks of lights to show when room doors opened or closed. “Bob, whose first wife was Lithuanian, convinced the fellow Idiots to wake up throughout the night and open and close their doors a dozen times or so to keep the KGB on their toes!” his nephew said.

Tom Richmond remembers Bob Clarke