Monday, September 6, 2010

News Spotlight: Political Cartoonist Paul Conrad Dies


Conrad at work


The blame game


Doggystyle minus said animal

It is both true and unfortunate that no one misses you until you're gone. Or that an artist is more famous when they're dead. Paul Conrad was probably the most celebrated political cartoonists, but I never knew who he was until I found out he died. After I looked at his cartoons, I realized I liked his stuff a lot. The envelope. He pushed it.

"Paul Conrad, 86, a political cartoonist who won three Pulitzer Prizes by turning his outrage into journalistic art but who was even more proud of being named to the Nixon administration's enemies list during the Watergate era, died Sept. 4 at his home in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. His family did not provide a cause of death.

Mr. Conrad spent most of his career at the Los Angeles Times, where he demanded and received the freedom to draw cartoons about any subjects he chose. Two of his favorite subjects were Californians who moved east to take up residence in the White House: Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Armed with superb drawing skills and a finely honed sense of moral indignation, Mr. Conrad took aim at pomposity, injustice and corruption. He had been merciless to President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War in the 1960s, but after Nixon's election in 1968, Mr. Conrad became utterly scathing. " Read more here.

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