The Salt Lake Tribune’s Pat Bagley has been named the editorial cartoonist of the year by the National Cartoonists Society.
It is the first time Bagley has won the award, though he has been bestowed other honors multiple times during his 41-year career at The Tribune.
Bagley won the Herblock Prize in 2009, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning in 2014.
“I want to thank you for giving me this award,” Bagley said of the National Society of Cartoonists honor. “I am deeply, deeply flattered to be honored in this way by my peers.”
Bagley has been The Tribune’s editorial cartoonist since 1979, and his sharp, incisive pen has created a huge following — and, at times, critics.
A cartoon last month depicting the X-ray profile of a law enforcement officer which showed the silhouette of a hooded Ku Klux Klan member drew rebukes from law enforcement officials and readers.
Bagley said the cartoon was misinterpreted; it was intended to show that law enforcement had a white supremacy problem, not that all law enforcement officers were white supremacists.