Chip Bok

Chip Bok’s editorial cartoons appear worldwide through Los Angeles based Creators Syndicate.

He was the staff editorial cartoonist at the Akron Beacon Journal from 1987 to 2009. Before that Chip drew about bugs, strangler figs and other pressing issues for the Miami Herald’s Sunday magazine, “Topic”. The University of Dayton graduate began his career with the Clearwater, FL Sun in 1980.

Honors include The National Press Foundation Berryman Award and the Free Press Association H.L. Mencken Award. Some of his most memorable moments, however, occurred while drawing about the Katrina-stricken people of Biloxi, Miss., and American troops in Iraq while on a USO tour.

Warm feelings aside, it was the First Amendment that drew Bok to editorial cartooning. He admires former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who struck a blow for robust debate and emotional distress in the 1988 Flynt v. Falwell case. Writing for the majority, Rehnquist noted, “the appeal of the political cartoon is often based on exploration of unfortunate physical traits or politically embarrassing events — an exploration often calculated to injure the feelings of the subject of the portrayal.”