2012.06.11
Editorial Cartoons
Hey RefreshRT readers,
I’m Chris OBrion, and I’ve drawn editorial cartoons for the Roanoke Times and roanoke.com since 2007. As roanoke.com prepares to be leveled by the tide and rebuilt as an entirely new digital sand castle, I’m wondering if you have any ideas for how editorial cartoons might be used in new ways. (And no, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to use them as digital birdcage liners for “Angry Birds.” But thank you.)
Right now I do a (usually) weekly color cartoon on a (usually) local or state topic. The cartoon appears in the print edition of the paper, on roanoke.com’s opinion page, on the Roanoke Times’ Facebook page (www.facebook.com/roanoketimes) and more recently, on the RoundTable blog. (I also post it on my fridge and mail a copy to my mom.)
Are there other formats or platforms you’d like to see for the editorial cartoons, or additional features we’re missing?
This is just my personal opinion, but could we pretty please with sugar on top keep away from Facebook only? This goes for all things, whether it be comments, editorial cartoons, whatever…
Once it hits Facebook I can’t access it at work. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is in that situation. I love to read the blogs/news on my break and I’d love to be able to continue to do that.
In regards to your cartoon, I had no idea it was even posted on the RoundTable blog – so that’s good to know! Have you thought about having your own “blog” for it??
Comment by Meg J — June 11, 2012 @ 5:54 pm
Thanks for your comment. We have only recently started posting Chris’ cartoons on The RoundTable. Not sure why it took us so long, but we promise to keep it up. We typically post it on Friday afternoons under the title Chris OBrion’s Weekend Toon-Up, so readers of our blog get an early look at the Saturday cartoon, which is also posted at roanoke.com. The cartoons have been popular on The Roanoke Times Facebook page. To be honest, we are still struggling to find a mission for our editorial page Facebook site, so we’ve been less regular about using cartoons there. In any event, we get far more traffic on our blog. All of our local content is posted at The RoundTable so we hope you will spend some time there checking us out. Thanks!
Comment by Christina Nuckols, editorial page editor — June 12, 2012 @ 10:59 am
Thanks for the comments, Meg! Some editorial cartoonists do cartoon blogs, and I may consider that at some point…
Comment by Chris OBrion — June 12, 2012 @ 9:00 pm
I have the same issues with FB, and continue to echo that if more stuff is pushed to FB, that’s just more page hits lost because I won’t be able to access them most of the time. Now, I can access it from my phone (Android-based), but one major problem I have with the RT site on the mobile site through my phone is that commenting on the blogs fails almost every single time, unless I load the full webpage version. It’s beyond annoying, because when I load the full page version, it gets much harder to read, but the mobile version simply is non-functional. It worked fine on my Blackberry though, for whatever reason.
Comment by Other John — June 13, 2012 @ 9:59 am
Chris, do you have a Twitter account? I don’t use Facebook and usually have to be reminded to go to the RoundTable blog or the opinion page to read something, but a simple tweet with a link to your latest cartoon would easily accomplish that.
Comment by Laura — June 13, 2012 @ 5:18 pm
Laura,
You can follow Chris on Twitter @chrisobrion. He tells me his tweets are protected but he will approve Roanoke Times readers’ requests to follow him.
Thanks, Courtney, RefreshRT team member
Comment by Courtney Cutright — June 14, 2012 @ 8:58 am
Re: Chris OBrion latest cartoon on the school shooting
It goes beyond disgraceful and tasteless…HOW sad that you would use such a tragedy for your own personal adgenda!!!!!
By the way Chris did you even BOTHER to find out if the shooter was a member of the NRA or did it just serve your purpose??? how sad…geez
Comment by julie stokes — December 14, 2012 @ 9:07 pm