New National Cartoonist Society Website

Yesterdays’ deadline for submissions for the NCS divisional Reuben awards has left my studio overflowing with nearly three dozen submissions for the “Editorial Cartoon” category which my North Central Chapter is judging. We’ll be meeting in Lincoln, NE next month to judge the entries.

That reminds me of somehting I have been meaning to tell folks about. It has been some years since the website of the National Cartoonist Society’s website was updated, but recently it’s gotten a facelift. In flew in sort of “under the radar”.

The new site, designed and created by fromer NCS president Steve McGarry‘s sons Joe and Luke McGarry, sports a much more streamlined design that is easily navigable, looks much less cluttered and stays away from the very overused Flash content. The default “News” page is set up in a blog format, and there is discussion that it will eventually have multiple contributors which should allow for much more frequent news and updating. The news/blog page also sports a blogroll with many member blogs listed and other cartoon related links. A lot of the information and features previously on the NCS site have migrated to the new site, including:

• A detailing of the start of the NCS and it’s subsequent History.
• An explanation and a history of the various Awards the NCS has bestowed over the years, including of course “The Reuben” for “Cartoonist of the Year”.
• The Member Directory of active members and the In Memorium list of members that have passed away in the 60 plus years of the organizations existence.
• Listing of the various Regional Chapters and contact info/links for each.
• Information on How to Join the NCS
• A very helpful article on How to Be a Cartoonist by Hagar the Horrible‘s Chris Browne
• Other Links/Contact Info

It will be good to see announcements, news and other things of interest to both NCS members and anyone interested in cartooning posted there on a more regular basis. I’ll have to ask the McGarry boys about adding an RSS feed link to the news page so members can subscribe and get updates as they occur.

Overall the update is a nice job. Visit at www.reuben.org.