The tell-tale art

Over the past few days, editorial cartoonists from across the United States and Canada gathered at the Poynter Institute (the nonprofit journalism educational institution that owns the St. Petersburg Times) in downtown St. Petersburg for the annual Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention. During four days of meetings, the AAEC looked at new ways to navigate the challenges facing the newspaper industry and find new niches for their visual political commentary in an emerging online media world. Friday evening, the cartoonists mingled with locals at "Cartoonapalooza," a lively one-hour program where a handful of North America's leading practitioners of "the jugular art" presented their work to fans at Poynter. Inspired by the Sunshine City's charms, many visiting cartoonists sketched their impressions of the Tampa Bay area. Here is some of that work.