Let’s get technical

Last week, cartoonists got together in Denver to hash out the state of the art — on paper, at least. In reality, the members of the Assn. of American Editorial Cartoonists bellyached about the usual: shrinking job opportunities, tangled syndication deals, nettlesome editors. But the show-stealer was a how-to on the step-by-steps.

Four of our members, whose work appears here, took us through their increasingly tech-heavy routines. Nick Anderson crosshatches his devious plans using an electronic stylus directly on a state-of-the-art pressure-sensitive liquid-crystal monitor. The nuanced shading in Clay Bennett’s immigration piece required about six dozen Photoshop layers. And Steve Sack cracked us up with an animated video of his painstakingly complex computer-enhanced creative process. Oh, I almost forgot Matt Davies, who’s doing something increasingly rare: executing a “line drawing” on “paper” with “India ink.” It still works for me, all whiz-kidding aside. — Joel Pett

Joel Pett is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist of the Lexington Herald-Leader. His work also appears in USA Today.