Interview: Signe Wilkinson
Date
of Interview:
June 28, 2022
Place of Interview:
Philadelphia
Interviewer:
Ford Risley
Biographical
Summary
Signe Wilkinson was born in Wichita, Texas. She attended school in Philadelphia
and after college worked as a stringer at the Daily Local News in West
Chester. She had always liked to draw and began drawing editorial cartoons. She
also drew cartoons for the Daily News in Philadelphia and while doing
that attended Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She joined the San Jose
Mercury News as a full-time editorial cartoonist in 1982 and spent three
years there. She returned to the Daily News in 1985. She won the Pulitzer Prize
for editorial cartooning in 1992, becoming the first woman to win the prize for
editorial cartooning. In 2007, she launched a syndicated comic strip, Family
Tree, that was published in newspapers until 2011. She is retired but
continues drawing cartoons that she shares on social media and her website,
signetoons.com.
Interview
Highlights
Wilkinson speaks about her family and education; about her first job and
starting to draw editorial cartoons; about joining the San Jose Mercury News as
a full-time editorial cartoonist and later the Daily News; about the Daily News
as a place to work; about the process of drawing a daily cartoon; about being
one of the few cartoonists who is woman; about some of her best-known cartoons;
about winning the 1994 Pulitzer Prize; about the role of editorial cartoonists;
and about drawing a comic strip.