In focus: Daryl Cagle's Professional Cartoonists Index

When cartoonist Daryl Cagle put what he called a “vanity page” up on the Web some ten years back, he probably had no idea it would morph into one of the best-known editorial cartoon archives on the Internet.

Coaxing fellow cartoonists to post their work online in the mid-90s and shunning the notion that only vain amateur artists utilized the Web, Daryl Cagle’s Professional Cartoonists Index was born. Later, Cagle would go on to spam thousands of state school teachers’ e-mails -- back when spamming was not such a no-no, Cagle said -- to promote a teacher's guide to editorial cartoons and drive traffic to the site. The resulting traffic brought Cagle enough attention to earn a partnership with Microsoft and a place in the online opinion magazine, Slate, now owned by The Washington Post Co.

Now, with a host of cartoonists from across the nation and the far reaches of the globe, Cagle’s artist army has expanded from its humble origins, and his cartoonist syndicate brings opinionated glee to hundreds of US-based newspapers.

"I’m kind of like the cartoonists’ e-bartender to the world because everybody knows me. It’s unique and kind of strange, but it works for me," said Cagle.

"It raised my profile, and it gave me a better byline, and it was a basis for my starting my syndicate. We represent some 44 cartoonists now and distribute them to 800 newspapers -- more than anybody else in editorial cartoons."

When Microsoft sold Slate late last year, Cagle's cartoons found a home on the MSNBC website. From this perch, Cagle continues to raise the bar for editorial cartoonists, challenging the quality of their work by way of an online method he calls "Yahtzee".

"When a bunch of cartoonists all draw about the same thing at the same time, I call it a Yahtzee and put all their cartoons up together — and that embarrasses them and makes them think they should not draw the first thing that comes to mind. That’s done a little bit of good. The cartoonists live in fear of Yahtzees now," said Cagle, who added that doing this on the Web has encouraged cartoonists to reflect and churn out better, more creative pieces.

The best example of a Yahtzee, Cagle said, was the weeping Statue of Liberty icon, which was rampant the day after the 9/11 tragedy. Cagle drew and posted one of these himself, only to find that most cartoonists had done the same thing.

"It was a great cartoon and I got a lot of fan-mail on it, but a week later when I realized that every cartoonist in the world drew the same cartoon on the same day, I wished I hadn’t drawn it," he said.

Also up on the MSNBC site is Cagle’s three-year-old blog, which documents issues in editorial cartooning — and whatever Daryl Cagle may feel like at the time.