How many minorities does it take to draw a cartoon?

Scuse me for changing the subject here. I just couldn’t believe this in the LA Times and many other papers today.

But for one day — this Sunday — nearly a dozen cartoonists of color will be drawing essentially the same comic strip, using irony to literally illustrate that point. In each strip, the artists will portray a white reader grousing about a minority-drawn strip, complaining that it’s a “Boondocks” rip-off and blaming it on “tokenism.” “It’s the one-minority rule,” says Lalo Alcaraz (“La Cucaracha”). “We’ve got one black guy and we’ve got one Latino. There’s not room for anything else.”

Or, as Darrin Bell says in Tampa Bay here:

Cartoonist Darrin Bell likes to call it the “two strip rule.”

It’s the trend he’s noticed while pitching his syndicated comic strip Candorville to newspapers across the country. Most newspapers, it seems, will make room for only two strips drawn by people of color, no matter the subject.

It does seem a little unfair, although the Times goes on to point out:

Still, others argue that it’s not that simple. For one, there are demographics to consider, says Rick Newcombe, chief executive of Creators Syndicate, (Hi, Rick!) which syndicates “B.C.,” “Herb and Jamaal,” “Working It Out” and “Cafe con Leche.”

“In defense of newspaper editors,” says Newcombe, “it’s only natural to buy [comic strips] according to categories. You might have one according to sports, or one according to office etiquette or work.

And some other syndicate editors remind us if one strip is picked up, another is dropped, the paper business is hard, yada, yada.

Immediately, I go to the LA Times to count strips (as if I haven’t done this before.) Hmm, the LA Times has three strips by cartoonists of color! The Times is ahead of the game!

And how about cartoons by women? Let’s see…two. Two strips by women, For Better or For Worse, and Cathy. Huh. Of course, there are several strips ABOUT women, but apparently women weren’t able to draw or write them. That’s peculiar…

9 Chickweed Lane – by Brooke McEldowney, a man with a girl’s name.
Sally Forth – by two men. You know, to get a woman’s “voice” just right.
Blondie – by two men. But they’re very sensitive men, I’m sure…

The Times says there are a dozen minority (men) syndicated cartoonists, but I can’t think of even 10 syndicated women, and this is my business. Oh, dear, [slap upside the head], how did I forget Six Chix, by King Features?  King Features, the syndicate that figured one woman couldn’t “carry” a panel by herself, so it takes 6 (as in Six Chix) women, all patched and stitched together, to make some kind of funny impact.

Did I make my point yet?

On the plus side, my cartoon in Parade today is in color! A full page of color Valentine’s Day cartoons for your sweetie! And if you’d like to read more about cartoons in general, and my cartoons in particular, my cartoon blog, Why I Did It is quite right. And my blog, The Opposite of Wrong, with political and editorial cartoons, is even righter.

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Donna Barstow

Syndicated cartoonist in the New Yorker, LA Times, Harvard Business Review, Slate, textbooks, papers. Columnist for 10 years in Psychology Today.

Set painter in studio Art Depts. Member Scriptwriters Network, script analyst.

Author, 2 hardcopy books, Barnes & Noble Calendar.

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