Cartoonist Milt Priggee: Is an opinion wrong?

“I draw cartoons to piss people off. That’s what I do. That’s my job description.”

These were editorial cartoonist Milt Priggee’s opening remarks last Thursday, Sept. 18, when he appeared at the United Methodist Church in Colfax.

Priggee’s presentation was sponsored by the Whitman County Library and Colfax Rotary Club. Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau partnered with the library and Rotary Club to bring Priggee to Colfax. He also appeared at the Neill Library in Pullman that night.

Priggee was born in Alaska and grew up in Chicago. It was there he realized, at a very young age, that his passion was drawing.

The editorial cartoon that triggered his passion was a drawing of the Lincoln Memorial with President Lincoln bent over, his head buried in his hands as he mourned the death of President John F. Kennedy.

Priggee said he was 10 years old at the time.

“It filled the entire back page of the Chicago Sun-Times,” he said.

“As a 10-year-old I understood it,” he commented.

Priggee, 61, said he’s been drawing for about 59 years, displaying a family photo with him holding a drawing.

He said his first real professional cartoon was in 1966 when he was in the eighth grade. He drew two snakes, one coiled and one straight and stiff, with the line reading, “You’ve got to learn to relax.”

“I draw visually-based exaggerations of facts as one person sees it,” he said. “I’m the author.”

“Is an opinion wrong?” he asked.

During the presentation Priggee said we are a visual society and that the first thing people look at on a newspaper’s editorial page are the political cartoons.

“It’s in our DNA to recognize visuals,” he said.

He showed a slide of a drawing of the Boston Massacre that Paul Revere had drawn.

“He drew this to provoke people by saying, ‘They’re killing us,’” Priggee said.

“Editorial cartoonists have done a lot in our culture,” he said.

He then showed drawings of President Theodore Roosevelt with small bears and said that’s where the term teddy bears came from.

Priggee also said that famous children’s book author Dr. Seuss was first an editorial cartoonist.

He said cartoons preceded photography and showed several examples of major newspapers with cartoons above the fold on the front page.

“The best cartoons are the ones with the least amount of words because you don’t want to read,” he said, gesturing toward the audience.

“The reader spends three to five seconds on the editorial page because they don’t see the words, because we’re visual.

“One picture is worth 10,000 words, and 10,000 people will have 10,000 opinions,” he said.

“The editorial page is the conscience of the newspaper,” he said.

When Priggee applied for a cartoonist’s position at the Spokesman-Review, the interviewer said, “I want to hear buzz in the community. I want the editorial page to be more popular than the sports page.”

Priggee worked at the Spokesman from 1987 to 2000.

“Our job is to provoke, debate, discuss and that all adds up to democracy and which direction our country is going,” he said.

“I’m your atom bomb,” he joked.

“I’m not an expert,” he said. “I’m just like a reader.”

“I’ve got the best writers in the world,” he said, referring to people.

“I’m a good observer. I read, watch, read web sites, listen and ask questions.

“Drawing is the easy part,” he said. “The hard part is following the news.”

After working at various newspapers, Priggee is now working as a freelance artist.

“All cartoonists have weird last names,” he said.

Showing his own signature which appears on every drawing, he said, “That’s who I work for now. The worst boss in the world.”