Toledo native draws a Pulitzer - for editorial cartoons

4/5/2005

Toledo native Nick Anderson, an editorial cartoonist for the Louisville Courier-Journal, captured journalism's highest honor yesterday as the winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.

Mr. Anderson is a 1985 graduate of St. John's Jesuit High School and a 1991 graduate of Ohio State University. He is the son of Donald Anderson, who is a retired partner and head of research and development at The Andersons Inc., and the late Adrienne Cote Anderson, a registered nurse who died in 1971.

The annual Pulitzer Prize winners in journalism and letters, drama, and music were announced yesterday at Columbia University in New York.

"The first person I called was my wife, and the second person I called was my Dad," Mr. Anderson, 38, said in a telephone interview yesterday. "I'm glad this happened while he was still around. This one's for him.

"[An editor's assistant] was screaming at me to come to the editor's office. I figured I must have done something really good or really bad."

The elder Mr. Anderson said he was pleased with the news about the Pulitzer Prize.

"I couldn't believe it," the elder Mr. Anderson said. "That's about as high as you can get. We're very proud of him. He's always had a talent for drawing and political savvy."

Mr. Anderson's political cartoons have won him numerous awards in the past, including the John Fischetti Award for editorial cartoonists in 1999 and the Sigma Delta Chi Mark of Excellence Award in 2001.

Mr. Anderson said, though many of his most recent cartoons have been on Iraq, he tried to diversify his portfolio for the Pulitzer judges.

He joined the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1991, a month after graduating from Ohio State University. He was promoted to chief editorial cartoonist in 1995 and the following year began syndication with the Washington Post Writers Group.

His work has appeared in Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune.

Jim Schaefer, an enterprise reporter for the Detroit Free Press and a former reporter for The Blade, worked with Mr. Anderson at Ohio State's college newspaper, The Lantern. Mr. Schaefer said Mr. Anderson's talent was obvious as a freshman.

In 1989 Mr. Anderson won the Charles M. Schulz Award for the best college cartoonist in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

"He was a standout," Mr. Schaefer said. "He was bright, smart, and was really on top of the issues. He always had a unique style. His humor was the thing that always stood out. He had a keen eye for satire."

The elder Mr. Anderson said he always supported his son in his quest as a cartoonist.

"He was always so good at it," he said. "He's done extremely well, and we were always extremely proud."

Contact Clyde Hughes at:

chughes@theblade.com

or 419-724-6095.