{"id":47990,"date":"2019-11-06T23:01:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T05:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=47990"},"modified":"2019-12-02T16:05:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T22:05:35","slug":"pat-bagley-the-pen-is-as-mighty-as-the-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/pat-bagley-the-pen-is-as-mighty-as-the-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Bagley: The Pen is as Mighty as the Word"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forty years ago, editorial cartoonist Pat Bagley published his first cartoon with The Salt Lake Tribune. The paper’s event celebrating the anniversary<\/a> (at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Thursday, November 14) is sold-out, but tickets to the after-party at Squatters Pub (8 p.m.) are still available; and Ken Sanders Rare Books<\/a> will be f\u00eating the cartoonist with a book release party Friday, November 8 at 7 p.m.. The following profile of the editorial cartoonist was published earlier this year as part of Artists of Utah’s print publication <\/em>Utah’s 15: The State’s Most Influential Artists (Vol. II).<\/p>\n

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Pat Bagley in his Salt Lake City home, 2018, photo by Simon Blundell<\/p><\/div>\n

Pat Bagley doesn\u2019t just draw, though he does that beyond exceedingly well. His cartoons tell a story; make us think as we smile \u2014 but he also writes, brief words to accompany his sketches, just in case we somehow miss his usually very pointed point. Editorial cartoonist for The Salt Lake Tribune, syndicated in more than 450 newspapers nationwide, illustrator and author of independent political cartoons as well as children\u2019s books, winner of numerous cartooning prizes and a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize, Pat Bagley creates art that reaches tens of thousands of Utahns. Every day.<\/h4>\n

He is a thoughtful sort, measured in his opinions \u2014 forthright but clearly someone who has both given and observed a lot of interviews. Offhand words may often be misinterpreted and he\u2019s just not going there. Bagley opens up cautiously and is a lot more intense (maybe the word is mature) than he was when we were first acquainted 20 years ago.<\/h4>\n

Surprisingly, this cartoonist is not a funny guy \u2014 witty, sure, and charming as hell; kind of quiet, yet easily met. He never was an \u201centertainer,\u201d though he\u2019s great these days in front of a crowd. While it may not reflect his nature at the regular poker evenings he enjoys with his \u2014 mostly \u2014 artist pals, his is a surprisingly head-on-straight persona for a guy whose cartoons have appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian of London and who was awarded the important Herblock Prize for editorial <\/span>cartooning in 2009 (unanimously) by a panel of judges that included the likes of Garry Trudeau and Jules Feiffer. Bagley also has numerous other prizes and a batch of political cartoon books to his name, too, travels widely, and happily still calls Utah home.<\/h4>\n

He was born in Salt Lake City in 1956, but grew up in Oceanside, California, where his father was the Republican<\/span> mayor, his mother a schoolteacher, and he ran track and cross-country in high school. \u201cI was never very good at team sports,\u201d he says, adding, \u201cWell, there was this fear of screwing it up for everybody else, right?\u201d<\/h4>\n

He has several siblings, all accomplished: eldest by six years is the well-respected Western historian Will Bagley, author of numerous books such as the award-winning Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows. <\/i>His sister Lisa Bagley Payne lives in Maui and has a clothing line (and a son,<\/span> the renowned world-class surfer Dusty Payne). Then there\u2019s Kevin, an attorney in San Diego. \u201cA tax<\/i> attorney,\u201d Bagley specifies. \u201cHe\u2019s the black sheep.\u201d<\/span> (Kevin\u2019s son, Nicholas Bagley, clerked for Associate Justice John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court, is now a professor at Michigan, a widely read editorial writer, \u201cone of the top experts in the country about the ACA\u201d \u2014 he tells the cartoonist what to pay attention to, what to watch out for in that area, Bagley says, with evident pride).<\/h4>\n

They grew up surrounded by newspapers and books. His father was a smart guy who led by example. \u201cHe read, so we read a whole lot. I read fantasy, Tolkien, science fiction, Stranger in a Strange Land<\/i> by Robert A. Heinlein, Asimov\u2019s The Foundation Trilogy<\/i> [he still enjoys those genres today as well as some history and biography and listens on tape when he goes to the gym in the <\/span>mornings.]\u201d If in the evening the TV were on, it would be the news. \u201cSo I got political by osmosis.\u201c<\/h4>\n

\u201cMy parents were children of the Depression and wanted us to do practical things for a career,\u201d he says. \u201cGoing into law was a possibility. My grandfather was a lawyer here in Salt Lake City [the Bagleys were a Utah pioneer family]. So that was something that was open to me.\u201d And that, in fact, was the trajectory he initially <\/span>pursued at Brigham Young University, after serving for two years in the Bolivia La Paz Mission. He eventually would \u201cretire\u201d from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he never quite got started in law. \u201cI was on track to becoming a lawyer until I fell into cartooning.\u201d
\nHe was a political science major with a history minor. <\/span>Cartooning, he says, \u201cwas kind of by accident.\u201d<\/h4>\n
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An 8 x 16 foot pastel drawing featuring \u201c10 Notable & Notorious Utahns\u201d Bagley completed during a residency in 2014 at The Leonardo<\/p><\/div>\n

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, of which Bagley now serves as president, tells the story this way: \u201cIn 1977, during a finance class at BYU, Bagley doodled a political cartoon, which he submitted to the student newspaper, The Daily Universe. This became his first published cartoon, which was reprinted in Time magazine just weeks later. [Six years after that, People magazine would feature him as one of America\u2019s leading editorial cartoonists.] Following graduation in 1978, Bagley briefly worked as a caricaturist in the nearby Orem Mall, before being hired as the editorial cartoonist at The Salt Lake Tribune.\u201d He still works there today \u2014 the paper\u2019s first and, so far, only political cartoonist.<\/h4>\n

And how does a cartoon come about? Bagley arrives at the Tribune \u201ckind of late,\u201d he says, \u201c10, 10:30.\u201d There\u2019s an editorial staff meeting \u2014 just two people now, \u201cHi, George,\u201d Bagley says in a nod to editorial page editor George Pyle. \u201cPeople say, \u2018You don\u2019t spend that much time in the office.\u2019 \u2018You don\u2019t work that much.\u2019 But I\u2019m always working. In the morning I\u2019ll be going through the different stories and just feeding the fire. When I go in I\u2019ll start whittling at an idea and see what we come up with.\u201d<\/h4>\n

He doesn\u2019t watch the news. \u201cTV takes you by the hand and leads you through a story and tells you what to think about it. You don\u2019t have to use your brain at all. But if you\u2019re reading, you can take a longer time to internalize it and think about it,\u201d Bagley believes. He\u2019ll listen to NPR, read The New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Examiner. He\u2019s on Facebook and Twitter, but is wary of how social media tailors your feeds to what you are looking for. He says he asks himself, \u201cWhat is it that outrages you the most today? And you hone in on the topic and settle in on what you want to say and how you want to approach it. Sometimes the whole creative process works and sometimes it doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/b><\/h4>\n

Bagley makes his lunch and eats at his desk. \u201cLiving alone, you tend to make something that there\u2019s a lot of, chili, spaghetti, that sort of thing. So I take something out of the freezer. I like it better. I work on the cartoon and it\u2019s always different every day. Sometimes I\u2019ll have the idea really quickly and then it\u2019s just a matter of drawing it. Other days, I\u2019ll really be pushing the deadline after thinking about it for five or six hours and then I\u2019ll have a really short window to draw the thing.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Is it possible for the noted Pat Bagley to do a less-than-pleasing cartoon? \u201cI have a genre of least-favorite cartoons \u2014 when you overthink it,\u201d he replies. \u201cI\u2019ve been doing this for 40 years and I talk to my peers who are about the same age and they say the same thing.\u201d<\/h4>\n

On the flip side, the theory of the great cartoon keeps him motivated: \u201cThere is the Platonic ideal of a cartoon out there and if I could just grab it, the right cartoon and the right moment, it would destroy the Trump presidency. And it\u2019s out there,\u201d says Bagley intently. <\/b>\u201cThe closest I\u2019ve come to that is the Malala cartoon, Malala and the Book,\u201d he says of his image of Pakistani female education advocate and Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai in sandals and a headscarf, and the text: \u201cWhat Terrifies Religious Extremists like the Taliban are not American Tanks or Bombs … It\u2019s a Girl With a Book.\u201d \u201cI thought when I got the idea it was a pretty good idea, a dang good idea,\u201d he says. \u201cI had no idea it was going to get the response that it got.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He readily recalls his decision to stop fooling around and make certain his work would be provocative, would matter. Bagley was a moderate Republican until the presidency of George W. Bush \u201cradicalized\u201d him into what he terms a \u201cliberal independent.\u201d As he explained in his Herblock acceptance speech, when The Salt Lake Tribune endorsed George W. Bush for a second term it put him in a quandary. \u201cI didn\u2019t share my paper\u2019s view on the matter. My first impulse was to do a cartoon saying \u2018We\u2019re With Stupid\u2019 with an arrow pointing to the adjacent editorial. But I knew that wouldn\u2019t fly.\u201d His second impulse was subtler. He did a cartoon of Bush with his \u201ctrademark vacant look\u201d staring out from the panel with the words \u201cThe Choice is Simple\u201d blocked in beside him. \u201cYou could take it however you wanted,\u201d Bagley recalls.<\/h4>\n

He used to do more editorial cartoons about the Utah culture, back when<\/span> \u201cwith George H.W. Bush and Clinton \u2026 it almost didn\u2019t matter who was running the show. There wasn\u2019t that much difference. I was almost apolitical. I just did the cartoons and made hay of people in power. I didn\u2019t really get radicalized until George W. Bush. And then it was like, \u2018Oh, my god. This is serious stuff. What I\u2019m trying to do, it matters<\/i>.\u201d<\/h4>\n

He wrote 101 Ways to Survive Four More Years of George W. Bush<\/i> and the various Clueless George<\/i> parodies of the children\u2019s Curious George<\/i> books. In retrospect, he says, \u201cI had reason to loathe George Bush and Cheney. They set the table for Trump.\u201d He hasn\u2019t created a tome on Trump \u2014 at least not yet. His caricatures of the man now in office are so frequent, telling, and evocative you can\u2019t imagine Bagley passing up the opportunity for long. He tells us he will probably put out a book next year of important cartoons from his 40 years at the Tribune. \u201cI\u2019m sure Trump will figure in it.\u201d He says he cannot imagine another worse person in America to be president. \u201cTrump is who he is but what is really distressing is that 30 or 35 percent of the people out there think he\u2019s just fine. That\u2019s frightening. He is everything I taught my boys not to be.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Bagley\u2019s the father of two sons, Miles and Alec. His feelings for them still seem to catch him off guard. \u201cI thought I would be a dutiful father and found I couldn\u2019t turn my eyes away, and I became a doting father and I didn\u2019t think I had it in me. I remember my father occasionally reading books to us, so I did that \u2014 only more of it. I did a lot of reading to the kids and wish my father had done more things with us like camping and outdoors stuff so I tried to do more of that with them.\u201d Bagley thinks the goal should be to do a little more than your own parent did. \u201cI\u2019ve got regrets and I made mistakes but I was better than my own parents were and hopefully they will be better than I was,\u201d says the soon-to-be-grandfather who is all about trying to leave the world a better place. For his kids and theirs. And for yours, too. For the homeless, the poor, the refugees, the DACA kids, the Syrians \u2014 the list goes on and on.<\/h4>\n

Looking back 40 years to the day he was hired at The Salt Lake Tribune, Bagley says, \u201cLuck has so much to do with how things turn out. My mother always said, \u2018The only kind of artist is a starving artist.\u2018 But I just happened to be at the right place at the right time and got the bug. The Tribune was the only paper of its size that didn\u2019t have its own cartoonist; I was hired full time. I wasn\u2019t paid much, but on the other hand it was more than I\u2019d ever made before. I loved the job. I remember the first time I walked into the newsroom I couldn\u2019t see the other side because of the cigarette smoke. It was like \u2018Madmen\u2019 era. It was<\/i> \u2018Madmen\u2019 era. Coming from BYU that was a shock. I was attached to the editorial department. One of my great regrets was that I didn\u2019t keep a diary. And I wish I had the luxury of holding the cartoon and looking at it for a day and then letting it go out. But I don\u2019t. It has to go out. It\u2019s a high-wire act. I go into work every morning \u2014 I\u2019m so grateful that I do what I do \u2014 but I don\u2019t have any idea what I\u2019ll do that day.\u201d<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forty years ago, editorial cartoonist Pat Bagley published his first cartoon with The Salt Lake Tribune. The paper’s event celebrating the anniversary (at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Thursday, November 14) is sold-out, but tickets to the after-party at Squatters Pub (8 p.m.) are still available; and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":844,"featured_media":47992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,14],"tags":[1543],"class_list":["post-47990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist_profiles","category-visual_arts","tag-pat-bagley"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Pat_Bagley-87.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-28 11:17:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47990"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48000,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47990\/revisions\/48000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}