| Thomas F. Darcy | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1932-12-19)December 19, 1932 |
| Died | December 6, 2000(2000-12-06) (aged 67) |
| Nationality | American |
| Area | Editorial cartoonist |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, 1970 |
Thomas Francis Darcy (December 19, 1932[1][2][3] – December 6, 2000[4]) was an Americanpolitical cartoonist. While working atNewsday, he won the 1970Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.
Thomas was born in theBrooklyn borough of New York City and served in theU.S. Navy from 1951 to 1953.[1] He attended theTerry Art Institute in Florida from 1953 to 1954 and graduated from the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (now theSchool of Visual Arts) in New York in 1956,[2] where he studied underJack Markow andBurne Hogarth.[3] He started atNewsday in 1956 in the advertising department and became a cartoonist for the paper the following year.[4] He left for thePhoenix Gazette in 1959, but he was too liberal for that newspaper,[3] so the next year he headed back east to become an art director for the advertising agencyLenhart & Altschuler. He returned to editorial cartooning with brief stints at theHouston Post (1965-1966) and thePhiladelphia Bulletin (1966-1968).[1]
PublisherBill Moyers brought Darcy back toNewsday,[5] where he would remain until his retirement 1997.[4] Moyers gave him the "latitude" he needed to work.[6] According to theNew York Times, he "was the first in a new wave of editorial cartoonists, who abandoned stylized cartooning and went straight for the jugular."[4] He said that his work was "not for the amusement of the comfortable" and that "If it's big and struts through the door, hit it hard."[5] In theWorld Encyclopedia of Cartoons,Rick Marschall compared Darcy toHerblock andPaul Conrad, noting his bold lines and his use of "facial expressions and emotions to advantage in depicting his characters."[3]
His Pulitzer submissions primarily concerned theVietnam War and inner-city problems.[1] He drew a cartoon featuring an L-shaped coffin over which a general exclaims "Good news, we've turned the corner in Vietnam!"[2] In other cartoons, Darcy featured PresidentRichard Nixon grabbing theWhite House columns as if they were jail bars, captioned "Prisoner of War," and another featuring two robed street prophets about to collide, carrying signs reading "Doomsday Is Coming!" and "The Mideast Is Here!"[5] In addition to the Pulitzer, Darcy also won theThomas Nast Award from theOverseas Press Club in 1970 and 1972[7][8] and a National Headliner Award.[3]
In 1977, Darcy left editorial cartooning and created a weekly page of social commentary and reporting called "Tom Darcy on Long Island". He said "After Nixon, Vietnam and civil rights, what's left to attack? I had too much of the sixties and seventies."[3] In 1986, he was one of nine Pulitzer winners and over fifty cartoonists to participate in a collective protest, publishing cartoons against war-oriented toys during theChristmas shopping season.[9][10]
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