Editorial Cartoonist Walt Handelsman Retires

From The Times Picayune.

Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Walt Handelsman is putting away his pen and ink after decades of delighting Louisiana with his alternately humorous and poignant takes on the state's peculiar politics, personalities and events.

Handelsman, 69, will retire from The Times-Picayune | The Advocate at the end of December.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” he said. “I’ve been doing daily cartooning for roughly 45 years. I felt like it’s time to take a break from daily deadlines, reflect on my career, relax and look forward to doing other creative things.”

He’ll conclude his career with his annual year-end roundup of his favorite locally and nationally themed 2025 cartoons. 

He also plans to pen a farewell to readers featuring memorable cartoons from years past.

His overall body of work spans an estimated 12,000 daily drawings plus cartoon strips, animations, nine books of his editorial cartoons and one children’s book. 

His cartoons, which he still hand-draws before coloring them digitally, are syndicated by Tribune Content Agency to media outlets across the country. 

At one point, they appeared in more than 200 newspapers nationwide.

“When I watch the news, I’m taking notes," he said. 

"It’s interesting to think about not having to respond to a news event right away in a cartoon for the next day.”

Life-changing classified ad

Handelsman grew up in Baltimore as the son of a surgeon. 

After graduating from the University of Cincinnati in 1979, he placed a classified ad in The Baltimore Sun seeking an entry-level advertising job.

One respondent was Howard Blankman, who, along with his wife Iris, ran Quality Composition, a Baltimore ad layout firm. At Quality, Handelsman pasted up advertisements for grocery stores and other clients.

The couple's daughter, Jodie, worked there as a typesetter. In 1982, she and Handelsman got married.

At night, Handelsman practiced cartooning and hustled freelance assignments. 

In 1982, the Patuxent Publishing Corporation, a chain of weekly newspapers in Maryland, hired him as a cartoonist, initially on an interim basis, then full-time.

He moved on to the Scranton Times, a daily newspaper in Pennsylvania, in 1985. 

He launched a weekly comic strip called “The Hound and the Bureaucrat,” won his first national award and signed a national syndication contract with Tribune.

When editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich left The Times-Picayune for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1989, Handelsman applied to replace him.

He and Jodie had never visited New Orleans prior to his Picayune interview. 

Wandering the French Quarter, Handelsman, who had played harmonica in a Scranton blues band, liked what he saw and heard.

A 1992 Walt Handelsman cartoon about the potential cultural effect of a casino in New Orleans

In New Orleans, they cultivated a wide circle of friends even as Louisiana’s customs, quirks and, especially, its politicians provided a never-ending source of material.

“Everything was perfect for cartooning and perfect for having a fun life and meeting a million friends,” he said.

The likes of Edwin Edwards, David Duke and Mike Ditka populated his drawings, along with multiple presidents and ordinary New Orleanians.

“The average person you meet here turns out to be a character. That’s part of what’s fun about being a cartoonist here and just being here.”

In addition to five daily cartoons a week, he produced his “Picayune Toons” comic strip every Monday for years. 

He won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1997, the same year the Picayune earned its first Pulitzer, for Public Service.


A move to New York

In 2000, the New York tabloid Newsday solicited Handelsman to chronicle the “Subway" World Series between the Yankees and Mets. The next year, Newsday offered Handelsman a job.

Leaving New Orleans was “a very tough decision,” he said. But the opportunity to work at a larger newspaper in the No. 1 media market and be closer to his aging parents prevailed.

A 1992 Walt Handelsman cartoon about the Saints.

During 12-plus years at Newsday, he won another Pulitzer. Looking to stay relevant as readers moved online, he started creating labor-intensive animations.

But New York was not New Orleans, despite his family’s boisterous takeover of a Long Island sports bar during Saints games: “Socially, I recognized pretty quickly that the whole family really missed New Orleans.”

He made multiple trips back after Hurricane Katrina, covering the aftermath for Newsday and helping friends and former colleagues. 

Those visits “really bonded us to the city. We recognized how much we still felt a part of this place.”

Return to New Orleans

A New Orleans newspaper war created an opportunity for Handelsman to return.

In 2012, Advance Media, which owned The Times-Picayune at the time, reduced home delivery to three days a week. 

Later that year, Baton Rouge newspaper The Advocate launched the daily New Orleans Advocate.

After John and Dathel Georges bought The Advocate in 2013, they, editor Peter Kovacs and publisher Dan Shea courted Handelsman to return to New Orleans.

"Walt’s work stands with the best editorial cartooning ever published,” said Rene Sanchez, current executive editor of the Times-Picayune.

Formerly Uptown residents, the family built a house in Lakeview. 

After Georges Media Group bought The Times-Picayune and NOLA.com from Advance in 2019, Handelsman’s cartoons were restored to the Picayune’s editorial page.

A 2015 Walt Handelsman cartoon about Bobby Jindal's short-lived presidential campaign

A periodic cartoon caption contest he launched at Newsday grew in popularity in New Orleans. A November 2025 contest garnered 1,200 entries.

He gradually shifted the caption contest away from political themes to lighter topics. 

"Politics are so negative now. This is a reprieve from all that negativity. It’s been a delightful thing for me to do.”

As retirement looms, he’s reflected on the difficult times in his life. 

His younger sister, Jane, and her husband, Pryor, died in a 1989 plane crash while on vacation in Mexico. 

Older brother Bruce, a painter and photographer, died of lymphoma in 1992. (Another brother, Steve, is a retired Washington, D.C.-based NBC correspondent.)

In a 1997 photograph of Handelsman celebrating his Pulitzer win, a lump is visible on his upraised arm. 

The lump turned out to be a sarcoma. The cancer returned during his tenure at Newsday and was once again treated successfully.

A 2014 Walt Handelsman cartoon about former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin's legal troubles

“I was very fortunate,” he said. “It certainly makes you appreciate the positive things that have happened in your life when you see how tricky life can be.”

In the constant rush of a 24-hour news cycle, selecting a cartoon topic that will still be relevant the next day is a challenge. Hence the title of his most recent book, “I’m Drawing As Fast As I Can.”

“That’s how it feels sometimes,” he said. “There’s so much to keep up with."

He’s looking forward to traveling with Jodie, illustrating her children’s books and spending more time with their two adult children. But he’ll miss cartooning and interacting with readers.

“That’s something I’ve done since I was in my 20s. But at the same time, I’m looking forward to stepping back from that task and seeing what else lies ahead.”