Paul Conrad Is Dead

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the paper's longtime political cartoonist Paul Conrad has died:

Paul Conrad, whose fiercely confrontational editorial cartoons made him one of the leading political provocateurs of the second half of the 20th century and who helped push the Los Angeles Times to national prominence, has died. He was 86.

Conrad died early Saturday of natural causes, surrounded by his family at his home in Rancho Palos Verdes, said his son David.

With an unyielding liberal stance rendered in savage black and white, Conrad both thrilled and infuriated readers for more than 50 years. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, a feat matched by only two other cartoonists in the post- World War II era.

Conrad was vitriolic in his cartooning, but even his work could be occasionally hilarious to a conservative.

During my college days in the 1970s, I worked for the L.A. Times as a phone solicitor for subscriptions. One of the reasons most often cited to me when people declined taking the paper was Paul Conrad (besides the paper being "too liberal").

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