Ben Sargent, Political Cartoonist

Of Ink and Satire

Published in the December 2006 issue of Austin Monthly magazine

Published as part of 10 Cool Creatives.

Famous for his left-of-center funnies on politicas, Pulitzer prize—winning, syndicated cartoonist, Ben Sargent says, "The point is to make a serious observation, but if you can make somebody laugh, you've gotten past their defenses, and you can bring that point home."

Following in the footsteps of other members of his family, Sargent earned a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in 1970. He worked at the Austin American-Statesman as a reporter in 1971 and then left to pursue other ventures. A self-trained artist, he says, "I accidentally fell into the cartooning business. I hadn't really considered working at it full-time until the Austin American-Statesman approached me [in 1974]."

As the only artist on the newspaper staff at the time, Sargent was tasked with working on maps, graphs and illustrations. "I started doing three editorial cartoons a week, and after a year or so it expanded to five a week. My other art responsibilities sort of faded into the background."

Before putting pen to paper, Sargent first has to come up with a winning concept. Every day, when he arrives at the offices of the Austin American-Statesman, he fishes through the news, (online and in print) for a political topic. Once he finds a subject, Sargent figures out what he wants to say, and the best way to express that in a visual form. After a late-morning editorial meeting, he sits down to draw, taking an average of four or five hours to flesh out the concept, sketching out the composition on a legal pad and writing in the words.

He sketches the final cartoon on a Bristol board, then inks the drawing and shades it with a technical pen. Once he's satisfied with the piece, he scans the image and sends it to the layout person at the Statesman. The cartoon is also sent to the Universal Press Syndicate in Kansas City, Mo., for placement in newspapers all over the country.

Asked for tips on breaking into the business, Sargent says, "When I started the trade was on an upswing. It reached a peak in the United States at 250 jobs in the early 1980s. With tighter budgets and a lot of newspapers going out of business, there are really only 90 jobs out there. The best thing to do is be persistent, and look for other ways to express your talent, like on a Web site." Sargent also recommends that cartoonists draw every day and keep their work in front of editors.

Another requirement of his job is to work within a budget and decide which other cartoons should be published on the pages of the Statesman. While his own drawings tend to reflect a liberal point of view, Sargent is careful to choose cartoons that reflect a variety of political positions in order to maintain a sense of balance. "If you're going to dish it out," he says, "You have to be ready to take it."