“Everyone thinks a cartoon is just a goofy expression, and it’s not,” he says. “The good ones have a lot of thought [put into them].”

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One of Stantis’ proudest moments as a cartoonist came when he worked at the Birmingham News in Alabama. He had drawn cartoons criticizing an incumbent Alabama governor, and was partially credited for tipping the election in the challenger’s favor, he recalls.

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Stantis has been captivated by politics since childhood, living in a house filled to the brim with newspapers and “stringent conversation” that demanded thoughtful opinions. His father was a general manager of several television news stations, so Stantis practically grew up in a newsroom.

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Stantis attended Los Angeles Harbor College as a pre-law major, aspiring to work in politics like former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, but “with a soul.” However, he noticed the editorial cartoonist at Harbor College’s school newspaper left something to be desired. Having been a lifelong doodler, he submitted an editorial cartoon on a whim, which ended up running the following week.

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“I was literally in love,” Stantis says. “That’s not an exaggeration, it really isn’t.”

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Cartoons courtesy: Scott Stantis

 

 

 

 

After drawing for Harbor College’s paper for a while, Stantis was accepted at California State University, Long Beach on academic probation. At Long Beach State, he landed in hot water for his comics. He created cartoons criticizing the school’s president and student council. When the student council president and university president caught wind of his work, he received a letter informing him he was expelled.

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When Stantis was hired at the Tribune, Long Beach State’s alumni association contacted him to see if the school could list him as a distinguished alumnus, a request he found “preposterous.” Needless to say, he turned down the offer.

Stantis says some editors consider cartoonists to be superfluous additions to a newsroom; more trouble than they’re worth. But John McCormick, the editorial page editor at the Tribune, does not hold that belief. McCormick views Stantis as an integral part of the organization.

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“We had gone years without a cartoonist,” McCormick says. “It was like a football team that had no wide receivers. There’s this whole other dimension that [Stantis] brings.”

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Stantis sits on the Tribune editorial board, where he pushes the other members to view every potential editorial subject with a hypercritical lens. McCormick says the only predictable thing about Stantis is that his opinions are reliably unpredictable, a quality that only reinforces his natural devil’s advocate position.

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“Scott is an equal opportunity tormentor,” McCormick says. “If you’re a liberal, or if you’re a conservative, there are days when Scott is just going to get under your skin.”

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Though Stantis has been ruffling feathers his entire career, he says the backlash can be hard to ignore sometimes. He recalls supporting military action in Iraq in the wake of 9/11—a stance he now regrets taking—and coming home to his wife, Janien Stantis, who was crying. She had read a post from an angry internet commenter who said they wished the couple’s two sons would be drafted and killed in Iraq.

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“Who the hell says that to somebody?” Stantis says with an edge. “I talk about manners, and maybe I don’t have them, [but] I would never wish death on someone’s children.”

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Janien says instances like that can be tough on both of them, but it has been happening for so long they have learned to roll with the punches day-to-day. Accusations come in that Stantis is a fascist or a liberal; the insults vary based on who or what he lampoons.

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Though Stantis is able to ignore daily harassment, he is not sure how much more he can take in the long term. People constantly question each other’s motives and think of all political opposition as unpatriotic or evil, he says. The incivility Stantis encounters in politics has driven him to start writing children’s books during his free time. The constant animosity could eventually drive Stantis away from cartooning.

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“It’s really starting to get to me,” he says wearily. “I would be lying if I said I was enjoying this job nearly as much as I used to.”

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However, Stantis keeps at it. His office is cluttered with prints from his favorite cartoonists, a life-sized John Wayne cardboard cutout, a Muslim niqab a friend brought him from the Middle East and countless knick-knacks. Though he recently switched to a digital-only drawing setup, he keeps a large drawing desk in the corner for good measure.

 

After spending an entire editorial board meeting doodling cats, Stantis gets to work. The cartoon for the day ends up being a commentary on Democrats’ defense of Obamacare, something Stantis views as a broken, dying system. It shows a donkey over a demolished wheelchair labeled “O-Care,” inquiring to an elephant onlooker, “If it ain’t broke, why replace it?!?!” The elephant looks disgruntled as it holds a toolbox, ready to work.