[icernet] Political cartoons come of age online

[Arul Selvan MIC]

Technology doesn't make the cartoon, explained Mark Fiore, the recent
winner of the 2002 Online Journalism Award for commentary and finalist
in the Creative Use of the Medium category, in a Cyberjournalist Q&A
session. Fiore began his career doodling as a traditional print
political cartoonist, dabbling in a short, stifling stint with a major
daily before high-tailing it out to work full-time on animated cartoons.
For Fiore, the most important factor in making an animated editorial
cartoon effective is having a strong opinion about a topic, though he
admits that technological advances greatly enhance the potential for
sound and music that add a vast depth and emotion to the animation.
Fiore said he believes that the biggest problem with online news sites
is that they are treated as merely a place to duplicate the newspaper.
Case in point: a bad precedent was set with repurposed print cartoons
being shoved online under the rubric of them subsequently being an
online cartoon!
 without truly taking advantage of the medium. Still, he stressed,
technology is not what gives the cartoon its zing; "The cartoon,
animated or static, still comes down to the idea."

Source:
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/features/behindthescenes/fiore.html