Back in the autumn of 1989, I had the arrogance to think I could be The Eagle’s next great editorial cartoonist.
I drew a cartoon or two, dropped them off at the Eagle offices, and went back to my dorm room to await my Pulitzer.
The Pulitzer never arrived, but lo and behold, there in the next issue of The Eagle was one of my cartoons.
It…did not look good.
I’d drawn it in ball-point pen. Ball-point pen does not reproduce well.
I’d drawn it at an odd, vertical size. Odd, vertical sizes do not get prominent placement on the editorial page.
My characters, poorly reproduced and shrunk down in size, barely looked human.
My lettering…shudder. A child’s scrawl would have been more readable and stylish.
But forget all of that — I was in print.
So I kept at it. I bought better pens and paper. Learned the right dimensions for the editorial page. Got friends in the dorm to pose for me. Studied professional cartoonists. And pointed my finely tuned satirical sword at the worst thing I could possibly experience: the school cafeteria.
The editors kept publishing my cartoons, but they quickly tired of jabs at Marriott food services and conveniently lost (“misplaced”) one of my grislier cartoons.
That taught me a lesson — and opened a door. I quickly started drawing about a wider variety of topics: controversies at school, the Gulf War, the Supreme Court, George H.W. Bush and oil.
Yes, precious oil, and all we did in its name. This was in the days before climate change became part of the national conversation, but there was still plenty to talk (and draw) about.
I’m still proud of those cartoons. I’d find them hanging on walls all over campus, and even at the magazine where I interned. Real editorial cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, who worked out of the Chicago Tribune’s D.C. office (where I also interned) gave me some great advice about continuing — after he gruffly shooed me off the first time that I introduced myself.
There weren’t all that many journalism jobs (or any jobs) when I graduated in 1991. There definitely weren’t any editorial cartooning jobs. That profession, unfortunately, has since pretty much gone extinct.
But extinction became the defining element of my career. Twenty-odd years ago, after stints in reference books and marketing, I became an environmental journalist focusing on wildlife and the extinction crisis. Today I’m the editor of The Revelator, a small, editorially independent environmental news site published by the Center for Biological Diversity — and yes, I’m still writing about oil and climate change.
And I’m still drawing! After a brief break (launching The Revelator was time-consuming, all-encompassing work), I’m back at the drawing board working on new editorial cartoons (not that there’s anyplace to publish them), other odder cartoons, weird drawings, and even the occasional painting.
I’m still not drawing about food services, though. On that, I learned my lesson.
John R. Platt SOC/B.A. ‘91 was an Eagle editorial cartoonist from 1989-1991.
