Communication Distinguished Alumnus for 2008

By Meghan Peters

After graduating from the UW in 1976, David Horsey headed on an East Coast road trip with some friends.

Now he finds himself traversing the country again – this time following the campaign trail.

As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s award-winning editorial cartoonist, Horsey has been driving and drawing throughout the United States as candidates for the 2008 presidential elections work for voters’ support. He also writes an occasional column and blogs for davidhorsey.com, a Web site dedicated to his cartoons and commentary, launched in January by the P-I.

Horsey has won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning twice. First in 1999, after many of his cartoons focused on the Monica Lewinsky scandal; and again in 2003, when much of his work featured the Bush administration.

Besides a two-year stint reporting on state legislature at the Bellevue Journal American, Horsey has spent his professional years at the P-I, where he began working as a cartoonist in 1979. Unlike reporters, who often change beats or take editing positions, drawing for the paper has stayed the same.

“What I do day by day now is exactly what I did when I started at the P-I,” Horsey said. “The trick for me is I know this is a great, fun job and so I don’t want to get bored with it. That’s why I’ve tried to do things like I’m doing now, like traveling through states and writing about it.”

In the technology sense, however, cartooning has changed greatly. Though he still draws everything by hand, scanning his art into the computer allows Horsey to add gray tones and color. Previously, all color was painted with watercolors.

Computers have also helped to transport his work. When traveling with campaign trails in the past, Horsey would send cartoons through the AP wire photo, which gave the art a poor quality. Later he would send them via Fed Ex, but that had a one-day delay.

Now the cartoonist has a laptop with a wireless card and a portable scanner. It’s made following the presidential candidates easier and allowed him to take a one-month vacation in Paris.

“I can be anywhere and do my job and get the cartoon in tomorrow’s paper,” Horsey said. “It’s really made my job portable, which is a great advantage for keeping things fun.”

Horsey spent much of his time as an undergraduate at The Daily, where he wrote, cartooned and edited. Though he started as a graphic design major, working at the paper convinced him to switch to journalism.

Soon after graduation, the cartoonist was offered a job at the Tacoma News-Tribune as a features writer. He turned it down to continue his road trip with friends, but his plan was to become a reporter

“I didn’t really expect to be a cartoonist for one thing,” Horsey said. “I didn’t expect to be winning a couple of Pulitzers – I don’t think it’s the sort of thing you can plan on. I just knew I liked journalism.”

When his former advisor at The Daily became an editor at the P-I, he sought Horsey out for the job. At the time, Horsey didn’t realize how rare editorial cartooning positions were, but he said he’s glad he was in the right place at the right time.

Horsey said he’s sometimes surprised to hear his cartoons are doing so well because he doesn’t always get response from readers. But that’s beginning to change with technology, as he sees immediate feedback on his blog.

Though the cartoonist doesn’t have a favorite of his own drawings, he considers “The World According to Ronald Reagan” one of his most successful. It’s a map featuring an oversized California and a Toyota-shaped Japan, among other international quips. It sold tens of thousands of copies throughout the world.

Horsey still lives in Seattle, about a mile from UW. He said buildings on campus have changed a lot but student life is mostly the same, according to his son and daughter, who have recently attended the university, and his wife, who works there.

The cartoonist left the area in the mid-1980s to obtain a master’s degree from the University of Kent in England and again to work at the P-I’s Washington bureau for a year. At this point, he has no plans to leave Seattle.

“Part of that is I love Seattle,” Horsey said. “Another part is there’s not many editorial cartooning jobs – there’s very few of those I would trade for.”