The NCS Cartoonist of the Year

In My Humble Opinion
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The Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year, 2000, will be given May 26, 2001 in Boca Raton, Florida. This year’s nominees:

Jack Davis (Mad Magazine, et al.)
Pat Brady (Rose is Rose)
Matt Groening (The Simpsons, Life in Hell)

Not a bad lineup, actually, even if I don’t care much for “Rose is Rose.” At least the dude is trying.

Before I give my pick for this year’s winner (note that the award given in 2001 is the award for 2000. Kinda like the Oscars), here are the last 5 winners:

1999: Patrick McDonnell (Mutts)
1998: Will Eisner (The Spirit)
1997: Scott Adams (Dilbert)
1996: Sergio Aragones (Mad Magazine, Groo the Wanderer)
1995: Garry Treaudeau (Doonebury)
1994: Gary Larson (The Far Side)

Yeah, that’s actually six winners, sue me.

Notice that the awards vaguely fluxuate between and oldie an a contemporary. That means, by my way of thinking, it’s Jack Davis in a walk. The guy has never won, so it’s really his time. The National Cartoonists Scoiety Webpage doesn’t archive nominees, so I don’t know whether he’s been nominated before (I’d be surprised if he hasn’t).

Let’s see what Google can tell me about previous runners-up:

1999: Pat Brady, Greg Evans (Luann) [winner McDonnell]
1998: Pat Brady, Patrick McDonnell [winner Eisner]
1997: Pat Brady, Greg Evans, Patrick McDonnell [winner Adams]

Hmmm… I’m looking up the nominees in real-time as I write this. It may be Pat Brady’s year. I had him pegged as the long shot, until I looked this stuff up.

The notation on the NCS website ( http://www.reuben.org ) indicates that Groening is being nominated as much for his production work with “The Simpsons” and Bongo Comics, as for “Life in Hell” (the only one he actually draws).

So who should win? Who will win? My pick for both is Jack Davis, although it’s nice to see Groening on the short list.

-Myron

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I’ll be interested to see if many people respond to this thread. Not many people know what a Reuben award is (it has nothing to do with sandwiches, BTW), let alone the NCS.

That said, I’d say Jack Davis probably is a likely winner. He’s an amazing talent that’s been around for ages. Matt Groening is certainly second and Pat Brady a distant third.
I never cared for Rose is Rose much either, though it is very well drawn.

Being that Jack’s 77, it’d be nice to honor him before much more time, or he, has passed.

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Jack Davis should be rewarded. I’ve read his work in MAD magazine for decades. His style is instantly recognizable and his chariactures spot-on.

I like Pat Brady’s work a lot. Sweet and sentimental sometimes without tripping over into Ziggy-spew. Notice how “Rose” tries to break the boundaries of the frame with unusual perspectives? That takes a lot of effort to pull off, especially in so tiny a space.

Groening deserves it too, especially for his “Hell” books. If historians want to know just was living in these times was like for most of us, those books tell the truth.

In fact, the lineup for the Reubens shows exactly why awards are so ridiculous and, in the long run, meaningless. Why should Groening get a nod and not Peter Bagge? Pat Brady and not Lynn Holly Johnson? Jack Davis and not Don Martin (or David Berg or Al Jaffe?) In fact, why use an award to compare an artist’s lifetime work (as it would for Davis) with a producer with a couple hit series (Groening)? And why praise a cartoonist in general, and not for a particular run of books, a graphic novel, or a newspaper sequence? No other major award does this, except for those of the ‘lifetime achievement.’

Awards are nice, but not to be taken seriously, even for comics.