Ten years ago, a judge in the Vermont Press Association’s awards competition singled out Seven Days for top honors in the General Excellence category, calling us “the New Yorker of the North.”

As word nerds, we naturally interpreted that as praise for our long-form journalism and arts and culture commentary. But Seven Days shares something else with our cosmopolitan counterpart: We both publish a lot of cartoons. Sometimes by the same cartoonists.

The late Ed Koren, a Brookfield resident and New Yorker regular, drew the “Our Towns” logo that appears on stories by rural issues reporter Rachel Hellman; it was part of Koren’s brilliant cover illustration for Seven Days‘ 2018 “Our Towns” issue. New Yorker contributor Harry Bliss has drawn many memorable Seven Days covers, too — one illustrated a profile of him, and another announced our first-ever Death Issue last fall. His work also appears weekly in the Fun Stuff section.

Like the New Yorker, Seven Days occasionally runs timely, stand-alone comics among our feature stories, such as Alison Bechdel’s graphic eulogy for Koren on April 19 and Kristen Shull’s “A Cartoonist Grapples With the Implications of AI Art,” which paired well with Chelsea Edgar’s March 8 cover story about art cocreated with artificial intelligence.

Sometimes we ask writers and cartoonists to work together on a piece. These comics-journalism collaborations take top billing in this week’s Cartoon Issue, an annual tradition that also dates back to 2013. Then-coeditor Pamela Polston wrangled that first, ambitious issue, in which nearly every story, including hard news, was told in cartoon form.

We’ve scaled back the scope since then and given more space to the features that work best in this powerful medium. In this issue, Shull’s collab with writer Carolyn Shapiro takes up three full pages, complete with clever visual gags that couldn’t work in a traditional article. 

Why is Vermont home to so many talented cartoonists? In part, it’s thanks to the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction. Founded in 2004, the school offers certificate programs, a master of fine arts degree and workshops. It attracts both students and faculty to the area, and it’s given other cartoonists here a place to find creative community.

Every three years, the school chooses a new cartoonist laureate and works with the Vermont Arts Council to promote the honoree. Vermont is the only state that regularly appoints one; the legislature honors each new titleholder at the Statehouse in Montpelier.

Tillie Walden, the current laureate, is a Center for Cartoon Studies alum. At 27, she’s already published 11 books.

It used to be that cartoonists had to syndicate their work in newspapers to develop an audience — think “Garfield,” “Doonesbury” and “Dykes to Watch Out For.” That’s not the case anymore. The art form is evolving; so are comics fans’ expectations and habits.

Seven Days wants to keep evolving with them. That’s where you come in. We’ve put together a 10-question survey about the comics we feature in the main body of the paper and in the Fun Stuff section.

If you haven’t looked at the Fun Stuff lineup lately, check it out. We’ve recently made some changes. Ryan Riddle’s “Futon Life” ended in June, and Rachel Lindsay’s strip has returned every other week, alternating with cartoons by Schull and Julianna Brazill.

Do you appreciate our efforts to showcase these local artists? Or do you grab the paper every week to read nationally syndicated strips “This Modern World,” “Jen Sorensen” and “The K Chronicles”? We want to know!

So much so that we’re offering a prize: Everyone who completes the survey by the deadline will be entered into a drawing for a set of comics collections and graphic novels by Vermont cartoonists, including Walden’s Eisner Award-winning memoir Spinning; the Bliss-illustrated Number One Is Walking: My Life in the Movies and Other Diversions by Steve Martin; Glynnis Fawkes’ Charlotte Brontë Before Jane Eyre; and The Most Costly Journey: Stories of Migrant Farmworkers in Vermont, Drawn by New England Cartoonists, chosen as Vermont Humanities’ 2022 Vermont Reads selection.

Respond before July 15 to be eligible to win.

Correction, July 10, 2023: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the cartoonist laureate selection process. The Center for Cartoon Studies chooses the state’s cartoonist laureate; the Vermont Arts Council assists with outreach to promote the program.

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This article appears in The Cartoon Issue 2023.

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Seven Days’ deputy publisher and co-owner Cathy Resmer is a writer, editor and advocate for local journalism. She works in the paper’s Burlington office and lives vicariously through the reporters while raising money to pay them. Cathy started at...