It's the end of the line for artist Kevin Necessary at the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Again.
Told that his cartoons would appear every two weeks instead of weekly due to a budget cut, the freelance illustrator decided to focus on other projects.
Necessary announced on social media Friday that he "decided to end my run doing freelance editorial cartoons for The Enquirer. Due to the realities of the newspaper business, my cartoons were being reduced from once a week to once every other week. I made this decision on my own," he wrote on Facebook.
"I had to weigh the options before me, and make a hard decision about my life and my professional goals. The best option for me at this moment is to put my energy elsewhere.
"Good cartoons are timely, topical, sharp. A good cartoonist must be on top of the news and fired up. It’s been difficult to do so when, 6 days out 7, I’m focused on other responsibilities. Doing it once every 14 days would be untenable," he wrote.
The morning after Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest on Monday Night Football, Necessary drew the cartoon about the Bengals and Bills mascots kneeling on the sidelines. It didn't appear in the paper until the following Sunday.
"There was nothing timely about my cartoons," he told me. "Often I'd draw on Wednesday or Thursday for Sunday publication."
This was the second stint at the Enquirer for Necessary, a 1997 Lakota High School graduate who grew up reading Jim Borgman, the Enquirer's Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist (1976-2008). The Enquirer didn't have its own cartoonist until the paper hired Necessary in January 2020 after he had been drawing editorial cartoons for WCPO-TV's website for three-and-a-half years.
Necessary first worked for the Enquirer as a staff illustrator and designer for the CIN Weekly entertainment tabloid from 2006 until 2009, when it was shut down and staff terminated in an Enquirer budget cut.
The Sunday Enquirer last weekend published a color cartoon by R.J. Matson of CQ Roll Call on the Forum section column where readers had seen the weekly "It's Necessary" cartoon.
Necessary has a "new illustration project that I'm tackling, and I want to make sure it's starting off on the right foot," he wrote on Facebook.
"I love editorial cartoons. I will still advocate for the art form and my fellow cartoonists. More than likely I will continue to draw my own cartoons. But the news media landscape has changed, so I’m doing what’s best for me," Necessary wrote.
"I’m grateful for the opportunity to have been part of Cincinnati’s editorial cartoonist lineage. I’m grateful for those who supported my cartoons. And I’m going to find new ways to serve my community through art."
Necessary illustrated the children's book, My Best Friend Fiona, written by WVXU's Cincinnati Edition host Lucy May. On hiskevinnecessary website, he calls himself a "comics journalist and editorial cartoonist ... and a syndicated editorial cartoonist through GoComics.com." He's also worked with the Cincinnati Zoo, University of Cincinnati, Cedar Fair Amusement Parks, Cincinnati Business Courier, Cincy Magazine and Books By The Banks.
