One of the nation’s best — right here in Duluth
By: Chuck Frederick, Duluth News Tribune
Pick a year, any year from the past three or four decades, and grab its annual “Best Editorial Cartoons” book. You’ll find a familiar name: Steve Lindstrom, the Duluth native who’s been expressing his views on News Tribune Opinion pages via his unmistakable artwork since about 1975.
He hasn’t been passed over for the national best-of book since at least 1984. He’s an entrenched fixture in the prestigious volumes with four cartoons in the current, 2012 edition. His streak is impressive. And Lindstrom, though he’s not often thought of that way, can be considered a community treasure.
“His work is clearly popular, and we look forward to receiving and evaluating his submissions each year,” said James Calhoun, who’s been supervising the selection of cartoons for the best-of books for 40 years as special projects editor for Pelican Publishing of Gretna, La. Lindstrom’s “is an impressive record indeed.”
When asked about it, though, Lindstrom, a man of few words, offered only a nuts-and-bolts, here’s-the-process answer.
“You’re allowed to submit five” editorial cartoons for consideration each year, he said. “If they choose more than one you feel you’re doing pretty good.”
Pretty good? Just pretty good? C’mon! No matter how many cartoons are picked, Lindstrom and his work are displayed, year after year, alongside Pulitzer winners and among the nation’s most decorated and most talented editorial cartoonists. He’s in some pretty heady company — and deservedly so.
“It is a great honor to be in there,” he acknowledged after a bit of prodding. “It’s a book published nationally and it is called the ‘best editorial cartoons.’ It’s humbling that someone thinks I belong in there.”
Lindstrom’s roots could similarly be considered humbling. He spent five years of his childhood, from 1954 when he was 8 to 1958 when he turned 12, in Alaska . This was before Alaska was even a state. His family moved there to live and to work near relatives.
“Some cousins of mine up in Alaska had a book on cartooning,” he recalled. “I picked it up and loved it. I still have that book.”
He started doodling. And then doing comic strips in his notebooks and flip-page shows on the edges of his school books. Kid stuff. Just for fun.
His family returned to Duluth when he was in junior high. He went to high school in Proctor and was on the Rails’ 1963 state championship basketball team. He drew caricatures of his fellow athletes before getting at all serious about his artwork. He took a course by mail after answering one of those “Draw Me” ads from the back of a magazine. The school was the Art Institute of Minnesota. One of his long-distance instructors was none other than Charles Schulz of Snoopy and “Peanuts” fame.
At the University of Minnesota Duluth
“You’d get enough in pay for those to cover your postage and that was about it,” he said. “But it was fun. It was fun to see your work published.”
After graduating from UMD in 1968, Lindstrom applied for conscientious - objector status. When he was denied, he went to Canada and took a job as a sports cartoonist for the Montreal Gazette. He did portraits and caricatures there for four years before returning home.
He came to work for the News Tribune, in circulation. He drove a truck and dropped off bundles of newspapers for delivery. He also submitted cartoons, something the publisher encouraged. He started producing two editorial cartoons a week, which he still does today, though he’s paid a bit more now than the $5-per he got at first.
“I like doing it,” he said of editorial cartooning. “I don’t have family so I can get by on minimal pay. I always liked being alone. That doesn’t mix well with marriage.”
Lindstrom lives in a log house he built himself in the woods near Alborn. He serves on Alborn’s volunteer fire department.
In addition to the News Tribune, the Saturday Evening Post, Better Homes and Garden, the Washington Post and other nationally distributed newspapers and magazines have purchased and published his cartoons and the biting, usually liberal, commentary they contain.
“I really felt I arrived when I got my first death threat,” he said. He doesn’t recall exactly what he had drawn or when.
But he remembers vividly another editorial cartoon, his most controversial editorial cartoon. In the days after two truck bombers struck French and American barracks in Beirut , Lebanon
“I didn’t think it was offensive at all,” Lindstrom said. “A lot of people disagreed. I don’t mind if people disagree as long as they get the point of the cartoon. Maybe it was too soon after the incident happened; I don’t know. Maybe people thought I was trying to be funny. … The drawing made it clear it was a serious picture, I thought. It was a tragedy, and I combined it with a different take on the Marine slogan. That was all.”
Lindstrom is 65 years old now, but he isn’t thinking of retirement.
“You have to have a job before you retire,” he said with the slightest, slyest grin. “I’ll do this as long as I can or until someone tells me my work isn’t any good anymore — and I believe them.”
That’s not likely to happen as long as Lindstrom is included in the annual roundup of the best of the best editorial cartoonists. It’s an honor in which all News Tribune readers can feel pride.
Chuck Frederick is the News Tribune’s editorial page editor.
