Does animation count?

Does an animated cartoon qualify as an editorial cartoon? Such cartoons have a long history as static, single-pane sketches, but thanks to consumer-level animation products like Flash, the traditional is getting shaken up. Of course, an animation is far more time-consuming than traditional sketches.

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A battle is currently raging in the field about whether an animation should be considered a true editorial cartoon. Several sketchers think that the Pulitzer committee should ultimately create separate prize categories for print and moving toons to settle the argument.

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The flashy animations are fun but enormously time-consuming, Handelsman said. It usually takes him one to three hours to finish a print cartoon once he has the concept. A Web animation can gobble up 40 to 70 hours and requires scads of drawings and original voices. Handelsman is a natural mimic and does all of his own voice characterizations.

He originally agreed to produce an animated cartoon for Newsday every two weeks, but the workload nearly broke him because he was still responsible for daily print drawings: "Pulitzer shmulitzer. I couldn't keep up that pace as long as I was a full-time editorial cartoonist." He has since cut back to one animation per month.

Read the Poynter story

In school, I had the amazing good luck to sit in on a teleconference with Mark Fiore, arguably the most well known animated political satirist on the internet. He works long and hard to create what, by comparison to what comes out of Pixar, would qualify as “rudimentary” animation. But it’s entertaining, original and certainly seems to qualify as good political satire.

How much can the media morph before it becomes another medium? Does a Flash qualify for the Pulitzer? What are your thoughts?