Cyberspace loses one of its brightest stars
Allen Forkum and John Cox have announced they will no longer produce editorial cartoons. Allen writes:
For better or worse, I’ve always had to approach the editorial cartoon work as a “part time” career. I never quit my “day job” as co-owner of a small newspaper publishing business. The editorial work, though intellectually rewarding, is not very rewarding financially. Furthermore, researching the cartoons, writing/designing them, managing the blog, publishing the books, marketing them, and running the business side all take an enormous amount of time.
All of that comes with the territory, of course, and John and I have done pretty well over the last six years. We’re fairly well known on the Internet, we have a few newspaper and magazine clients, we’ve self-published four books, and we’ve made some money, if not a living. But lately, for reasons I won’t go into here, I can no longer afford to divert so much time and attention away from my publishing business and other personal concerns, such as my family.
I also want to stop focusing so much of my creative energy on negative aspects of daily life. There’s still an ideological battle to be fought, not to mention an actual war, and I will stay engaged in some form and medium. But at this point, anything seems more appealing than immersing myself in the sewer of daily politics.
That said, I imagine we won’t be able to resist creating an occasionally editorial cartoon. And if we do, we’ll post it here.
In an interview, John and Allen elaborated a bit about their decision.
Dear John and Allen:
You have enlarged my vision of the world and inspired me to weigh in on issues many times.
While we had no better friends than you two during our efforts to remove The Center for Hate America First from sacred ground, you were right there with us in the battle of ideals more times than we could count. We will greatly miss checking in each day at Cox&Forkum for your thought provoking work.
Thank you for all you have done. Best wishes in all your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
Tim Sumner
