Jack Ohman is the editorial cartoonist at The Sacramento Bee, in Sacramento, California. His work is syndicated nationwide to over 300 newspapers by Tribune Media Services. He was the cartoonist at The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon, but left after being offered the job of editorial cartoonist by The Sacramento Bee. He succeeded his late friend, Rex Babin. In 2016, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.
Biography
Ohman worked as a political aide for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party during his high school years in Minnesota. At age 17, Ohman worked at the Minnesota Daily, the student newspaper of the University of Minnesota. At age 19, Ohman was the youngest cartoonist ever to be nationally syndicated. His first daily newspaper job was at The Columbus Dispatch, where he was hired in 1981. He then moved to the Detroit Free Press in 1982 and went to The Oregonian in 1983. Ohman was a regular art contributor to ABC NewsNightline between 1984 and 1986. In 1986, through sales of copies of his cartoons about the space shuttle Challenger accident, Ohman raised over $30,000 for the families of the astronauts. It was the fifth largest private donation in the United States. In 2001, he raised over $30,000 for the United Way September 11 Fund. Ohman has an honors degree in U.S. history from Portland State University. He is an adjunct associate professor of political science at the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. He was a regular contributor to Foreign Policy and Money magazines. Ohman is also the creator of the syndicated comic stripMixed Media, which he drew from 1994 to 1999 and which appeared in over 170 newspapers. In 2006, Ohman was voted one of the top five cartoonists in the United States by the readers of The Week magazine.. On October 29, 2012, it was announced that Ohman was stepping down as The Oregonian's editorial cartoonist. He has been hired by The Sacramento Bee, in Sacramento, California.
Work
His work regularly appears in most major U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Seattle Times. He has also been featured in many magazines and high-profile websites. Ohman is also a noted fly fishing humorist, and has published four books on the subject, including the best-selling Fear of Fly Fishing, Get The Net, An Inconvenient Trout, and Angler Management, a book of essays. He has published 10 books overall.
Awards
Ohman has won the 1980 Sigma Delta ChiMark of Excellence Award, the 1995 Thomas Nast Award from the Overseas Press Club, the 2001 Harrison E. Salisbury Award from the University of Minnesota, the 2002 National Headliner Award, the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the 2010 Society of Professional Journalists Award, and the 2012 Scripps Howard Journalism Award. Ohman was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, where the judges cited his entry for his "clever daily cartoons and a distinctive Sunday panel on local issues in which his reporting was as important as his artistic execution." He was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for "cartoons that convey wry, rueful perspectives through sophisticated style that combines bold line work with subtle colors and textures."
