World Press Cartoon Awards and Alaska Press Club Honor Blogger Friends**

As I write, a lot of cartoonists and people interested in cartoonists are gathered in Sintra, Portugal for the World Press Cartoon Awards ceremony.   Spanish cartoonist Tomás Serrano is there.*  He hiked the Harding Icefield trail at Exit Glacier last summer and then left a comment on my blog post of that hike.  And so we got together when he came through Anchorage.  He's a really gifted cartoonist and has two children's books and he's up for an award.  I have a link to his website on the right - Waldo Walkiria.  

The World Press Cartoon website says the prizes will be announced today.  And it's already tomorrow in Portugal.  They had too good a time to post the winners on their website. 

Also, last week, after my blogging class, I saw that the Alaska Press Club had its annual conference in the same building at UAA.  I got their schedule and saw they had awards too last week.

Two Alaska cartoonists (and bloggers) - Peter Dunlap-Shohl and Jamie Smith won prizes.  (I like Peter's stuff so much I have links to both his blogs here on the right - Frozen Grin and Off and On:  The Alaska Parkinson's Blog., which won Best Commentary Blog from the Alaska Press Club.   I thought I had Jamie's Ink & Snow linked here but I didn't, so I added it.) 

(Jeanne Devon at Mudflats got second in that category and the Alaska Dispatch's Jamie Woodham's blog The Concerned got third.)





Jamie Smith got best Editorial Cartoon (Large print Small print) for his work at the Fairbanks News Miner.

You can get a pdf with all of the Alaska Press Awards here.


Congratulations to Tomás*, Peter, and Jamie, as well as Jeanne and Scott.

* I know Tomás won something, because he emailed me several weeks ago that he was invited to the award ceremony.  He has to of his cartoons submitted and at the time he didn't know which had won or what it had won.  They're both neat and I'll post them when the word comes in. 


** What's a Friend These Days?
In the age of Facebook, what is a friend?   I was hesitant to put 'friends' in the title.  I would say that a couple of the people named in the post qualify, others I like and/or respect a lot, but I just haven't spent much time with.   Jamie, for instance,  I've only exchanged emails with.  Scott, not even that.   Not exactly friends in the old definition, but probably in the FB sense. 

In case anyone is asking this question: 
Answer:  No, I didn't submit anything to the Alaska Press Club Awards.  I didn't even know they had a category for blogs until I saw the list. 

Have a good weekend!