I'm just back from vacation, so I'd missed this nice item: apparently Eddie Vedder wrote a piece on his website urging readers to complain to alternative newspapers about comics cancelations -- of his friend Tom Tomorrow and other cartoonists.
The only way this vital artwork will return is through a sustained outcry from readers. We have to tell editors at our local alternative weeklies that we don’t want them to suspend cartoons; if they already have, we want them brought back.
This is amazing, and I really appreciate this very cool appeal. So it may seem a bit churlish when I say that I found one phrase he used pretty funny -- it not only undermines the position that political cartoonists are cutting edge humorists, it sort of makes the case for the newspapers that dump us:
Many cartoonists were the Jon Stewarts of their day, quickly cutting complex issues to their cores.
Ouch. Yes, he's making a historical analogy that's intended to be flattering, but it's partly because of the fact that we have a Jon Stewart of today (i.e., Jon Stewart) that certain editors and newspaper executives are deciding the services of political cartoonists have been obviated.