A very interesting article discussing the affects of the web in editorial cartoons is up on the Online Journalism Review (www.ojr.org) site. The article, by Mark Glasser, talks about the difficulties in finding an audience for editorial cartooning on the web. On one hand you have the older newspaper reader who is most likely to be interested in editorial cartoons, but may be reluctant to use the internet to read them. On the other hand you have the younger, more technically savvy readers willing and able to consume cartoons from the web, but who has been traditionally uninterested in editorial cartoon content. A hard puzzle to solve, for sure.

From the article, “The Internet has changed the way editorial cartoonists distribute their work and compete with others, while also allowing them to broaden their ideas into brief animations. Though the initial dot-com boom for animations (remember Mondo Media and Shockwave?) waned long ago, the current rebound in online advertising and political satire (think “The Daily Show” and JibJab) might bring another wave of interest to the old art form of political cartoons.“