EDITORIAL CARTOONS INSPIRE READERSHIP

Buttressing the commonplace notion that editorial cartoons are among the most popular features with newspaper readers is the experience at the Omaha World-Herald in December. The paper has been running a “Creative Captions” contest for a long time, printing a new photograph each week and posting it on the paper’s website. Then they posted a cartoon by their staff editoonist, Jeff Koterba, asking, as usual, for readers to submit captions. Koterba drew a space alien sitting in Santa's lap, with a child whispering to another as he waited in line. The word balloon was left blank for readers to fill in. Then came the avalanche of entries — more than twice the usual number of weekly submissions. The winning caption? Filling in the kid’s word balloon:  "An Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator? He'll shoot his eye out." The reference is to a classic "Looney Tunes" cartoon in which Marvin the Martian, intent on destroying the Earth, needs the space modulator for his planet-smashing death ray to work. Bugs Bunny, of course, steals it.

In the same vein, over at the Baltimore Sun, according to its former staff editorial cartoonist Kevin “Kal” Kallaugher, who was laid off over a year ago, the paper is now using his cartoons to promote subscriptions. Said Kal: “It seems that a stash of one of my earlier cartoon collections, Kal Draws the Line, was discovered in the basement of the newspaper building. Someone in circulation decided to put the books to good use. When a subscriber contacts the paper to cancel their subscription, the paper puts into motion a brilliant scheme. The Sun sends the former subscriber a package of goodies featuring a copy of my book in the hope of enticing the readers back. I guess the paper wanted to remind their ex-readers what they are missing.” In case I haven’t made the irony clear, remember that the Sun sent Kal packing more than a year ago.