KAL wins his 6th Overseas Press Club Award

Kevin (KAL) Kallaugher is the winner of the 2026 Overseas Press Club Award for editorial cartooning. 

This is the sixth time KAL since 1998 that KAL has won the award. KAL’s winning portfolio spans cartoons published in The Economist, The Baltimore Sun, and his Substack, KAL Draws the Line.

"His work is pointed yet funny," stated the judges, "balancing sophisticated hard-hitting satire with belly laughs, the true mark of a great editorial cartoonist."

You can see cartoons from his winning portfolio by clicking here to go to his Substack. 

National Newspaper Awards 2025 Nominations

The Canadian Daily Newspaper Association announced the finalists of the 77th National Newspaper Awards.

Michael de Adder, The Globe and Mail, for his political satire on the impact of the Trump presidency. 

Judith Lachapelle, La Presse, for her multi-panel illustration about daily life in Ukraine and the challenges of travelling into an active conflict.

David Parkins, The Globe and Mail, for a portfolio of cartoons ranging from domestic politics to international, to the search for missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Jack Ohman wins 2026 Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning

From the Herblock Foundation.

Jack Ohman was announced as the winner of the 2026 Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning. 

Pedro X. Molina was named as this year’s finalist.

“Under Pressure”: Report on the Situation of Threatened Press Cartoonists Worldwide (2023–2025)

From Cartooning for Peace.

Niels Bo Bojesen (Denmark)

The new report on the situation of threatened press cartoonists around the world will be released on March 2, 2026. 

It is the result of a joint effort by Cartooning for Peace, Cartoonists Rights and their partners: Freedom Cartoonists Foundation, FORHUM, Columbia Global Freedom of Expression – Columbia University, and Reporters Without Borders.

Cartoonists’ & free speech orgs in support of LeMan magazine

From Cartoonists Rights International.

The undersigned are appalled by the victimization of staff at LeMan humor magazine, Istanbul in recent days, following the publication June 26th of a cartoon strip by Doğan Pehlevan, the content, meaning, and intent of which has been distorted by government officials in Turkey, leading to inaccurate media coverage and misguided public outrage and, ultimately, four jailed on multiple charges, two more colleagues wanted by police, and the entire entity under investigation for accepting foreign influence.

• Association of Canadian Cartoonists / L’Association de caricaturistes Canadien
• Daryl Cagle – Cagle Cartoons, Inc. (Newspaper Syndicate)
• Cartoon Movement
• Cartooning for Peace
• Cartoonists Rights
• Columbia Global Freedom of Expression
• European Cartoon Award
• Forum for Humour and the Law (ForHum)
• Freedom Cartoonists Foundation
• Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC Strategy
• Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation (PCO)
• ToonsMag

The Baltimore Sun sets for Kal

From Substack.

I am disappointed to announce that after 31 years of award-winning cartoons in The Baltimore Sun, I was abruptly dismissed from the paper on Friday.

It was just a matter of time.

In February of 2024, David Smith, the conservative owner of the Sinclair Broadcasting group purchased the struggling paper. 

As my politics do not align with the new owners, I assumed my days were numbered. 

AI Re-Imagines original cartoons

From The Daily Cartoonist.

It seems a fairly new YouTube uploader is taking cartoonists’ original cartoons, “re-imagining” (read: swiping) them through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and then passing them off as their own.

Original Jack Ohman cartoon

"Capitulation is contagious"

Adrienne LaFrance in the March issue of The Atlantic.

By killing a cartoon that lampooned its owner, The Washington Post set a dangerous precedent.

UPenn Lays Off Cartoonist Mr. Fish

From The Daily Cartoonist.

Days after the Trump Administration froze $175 million in federal funding the University of Pennsylvania has terminated the employment of progressive Lecturer (and Cartoonist) Dwayne Booth, aka Mr. Fish.

From the Mr. Fish Patreon page:

National Newspaper Awards 2024 Nominations

The Canadian Daily Newspaper Association announced the finalists of the 76th National Newspaper Awards.

The New Yorker 100th Anniversary

 

The New Yorker celebrates its centenary this month.

 It’s been one hundred years since our founding editor, Harold Ross, and his wife, Jane Grant, dreamed up what they called a “comic paper” over poker games and liquid lunches at the Algonquin Hotel and other midtown haunts. 

The 100th Anniversary Issue is available in full today exclusively to our subscribers. 

The Latrobe Bulletin will do away with editorial cartoons

From The Daily Cartoonist.

The Latrobe (PA) Bulletin has decided they can no longer publish opinion pieces – oops, make that political cartoons – “because we strive to better the community, not divide it.”

Cartoonist Lee Judge‘s commentary was the source of controversy in a red part of the purple state.

Political Cartoonists on facing Donald Trump

Zach Rabiroff in The Comics Journal.

Trump's ABC by Ann Telnaes

Zach Rabiroff for The Comics Journal investigates the state of political cartooning as the practitioners face a revitalized and seemingly very powerful Donald Trump who is entering his second term as President of the United States with few limits in his way. 

Being "Bado"

From the Historical Society of Ottawa. 

The editorial cartoons of Bado (alias Guy Badeaux) have offered Le Droit's daily readers a humourous and insightful running commentary on almost a half century of local, Canadian and world history.

Join us on January 25 as he reflects on a remarkable career that has spanned two generations of Trudeau and a vast expanse of lampoon-able news events in-between. 

Ann Telnaes reflects on the Charlie Hebdo killings

From The Freedom Cartoonists Foundation.

10th anniversary of Charlie Hebdo killings – A visual essay by Ann Telnaes

Ann Telnaes Quits The Washington Post

From Open Windows.

(rough of cartoon killed)

I’ve worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist. 

I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. 

Until now.

Darkness at News

Mike Peterson in The Daily Cartoonist.

There have been a number of cartoons responding to Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos having spiked an endorsement for Kamala Harris, many of them playing on the Post’s motto “Democracy Dies in the Dark.”

Ann Telnaes gets the top spot in part because she works there and her cartoon joins with 16 Washington Post columnists who signed an outraged statement protesting the move, which is reason enough, but also because while she is perennially one of the most inventive political cartoonists, she knows when it’s time to be plainspoken.

And her fans recognize her outrage, as the comments on her page indicate.

The fact that the Post has published protests over the topic — from both staff and readers — is encouraging, because it indicates a chasm between the people who make the paper and the man who owns it, and that there is a difference between doing what you’ve been ordered to do and behaving like a lickspittle.

Saudi Arabia sentences Mohammed al-Ghamdi to 23 years

From the Associated Press.

Saudi cartoonist Mohammed al-Ghamdi, who drew under the pen name Al-Hazza, has been sentenced to 23 years in prison, according to the Sanad Human Rights Organization.

The sentence for Mohammed al-Ghamdi marks the latest in a widening judicial crackdown on any perceived dissent in Saudi Arabia since the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, now seen as the kingdom’s day-to-day ruler in place of his 88-year-old father King Salman.

Saudi officials did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday from The Associated Press. 

Michael de Adder fired from the Halifax Chronicle Herald

From Reddit.

We have just learned that cartoonist Michael de Adder has been let go from the Halifax Chronicle Herald after working there for almost 30 years.

There will only be two editorial cartoons per week in the Chronicle Herald from now on.

In related news, SaltWire had just been sold to Postmedia, Canada’s largest newspaper publisher majority owned by the U.S. hedge fund Chatham Asset Management. 

Chatham is also the majority owner of US-based McClatchy newspapers which last year fired their three staff editorial cartoonists and has given up on political cartoons on their papers’ opinion pages.

Also:

Michael de Adder Let Go by Postmedia – Update in The Daily Cartoonist,

Layoffs at SaltWire and Chronicle Herald

From The Globe and Mail.

Layoffs at Atlantic Canada’s largest newspaper chain are necessary because the properties were facing bankruptcy, according to the CEO of Postmedia Network Inc., who says his company’s purchase of the troubled assets prevented a “terrible tragedy and travesty” for the region.

In an interview Friday, days after the Toronto-based media company finalized its $1-million purchase of insolvent SaltWire Network Inc. and the Halifax Herald Ltd., Andrew MacLeod said he didn’t have specifics on how many people have so far lost their job. The situation is a “fluid process,” he said.

A day earlier, media union CWA Canada said more than 60 SaltWire staff had been laid off, while nearly 300 remained employed until their future is decided by Postmedia.