Darrin Bell

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Darrin Bell
Born (1975-01-27) January 27, 1975 (age 50)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Area(s)Editorial cartoonist, comic strip writer/artist
Notable works
 Candorville
Rudy Park
Spouse(s)Makeda Rashidi

Darrin Lawrence Bell (born January 27, 1975) [1] is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American editorial cartoonist and comic strip creator known for the syndicated satirical comic strips Candorville and Rudy Park . He is a syndicated editorial cartoonist with King Features. [2] (His editorial cartoons were formerly syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group.) [3] [4]

Contents

Bell is the first African American to have two comic strips syndicated nationally [5] and to win a Pulitzer prize for editorial cartooning. [6] He is also a storyboard artist. Bell engages in issues such as civil rights, pop culture, family, science fiction, scriptural wisdom, and nihilist philosophy, while often casting his characters in roles that are traditionally denied to them. [7]

Bell was arrested in 2025 under suspicion of having uploaded and possessed child pornography, including of real children and AI-generated children. He is the first person to be charged under a California law criminalizing AI-generated child sexual abuse material. [8] [6]

Biography

Bell, who is black and Jewish, was born in Los Angeles, California. [9] He started drawing when he was three. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a BA in political science in 1999. While at Cal, Bell became the editorial cartoonist for The Daily Californian . Bell's freelance editorial cartooning career began in 1995 at age 20. His first sale was to the Los Angeles Times , which subsequently assigned him a cartoon every other week. Bell also sold his cartoons to the San Francisco Chronicle and the former BANG (Bay Area News Group) papers, which included the Oakland Tribune .

Bell's strip Candorville , launched in September 2003 by The Washington Post Writers Group (WPWG), features young black and Latino characters living in the inner city. Using the vehicle of humor, Candorville presents social and political commentary as well as the stories of its protagonists. Candorville grew out of a comic strip called Lemont Brown, which appeared in the student newspaper of UC Berkeley, The Daily Californian , from 1993 to 2003. It was that newspaper's longest-running comic strip. Candorville appears in more than 100 of America's newspapers. [9]

Bell also drew Rudy Park , a syndicated comic strip created by Theron Heir and Bell that was distributed by United Feature Syndicate and then the WPWG. Heir, a.k.a. Matt Richtel, wrote the strip from 2001 to 2012, when he announced he would be taking a year-long sabbatical to focus on other projects. [10] Bell at that point took over the writing duties as well as illustrating the strip, which ended print syndication in June 2018, [11] although it continues to appear sporadically (now distributed by Counterpoint Media). [12] In 2023, Bell wrote and drew the autobiographical hardback graphic novel The Talk, which combined his life story with some common tropes of the American civil rights narrative ISBN   978-1-250-80514-0.

Personal life

Bell currently resides in Sacramento County, California.

Child pornography investigation and arrest

On January 15, 2025, Bell was arrested by the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office under suspicion of having possessed child pornography, according to Internet Crimes Against Children detectives tipped off by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In a search of Bell's home, investigators stated that they found 134 videos of child pornography linked to an account owned and controlled by Bell, some of which was computer generated. Bell is being held with a $1,000,000 bail. [13] He was booked into a Sacramento County jail. [13] After his arrest, Bell's Candorville strip was suspended by The Washington Post and other outlets. Bell was also suspended from Counterpoint Media's daily newsletter. [8]

Awards

Bell was given the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. [14] In addition to the awards listed below, Bell's work won several California Intercollegiate Press Association awards and an SPJ Mark of Excellence Award, and he was a two-time runner-up for the Charles M. Schulz Award, as well as a runner-up for the Locher Award.[ citation needed ]

Publications

Interviews

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References

  1. ↑ California Births, 1905 – 1995, Darrin L. Bell
  2. ↑ "King Features Announces Darrin Bell to Join Editorial Cartoon Roster". The Daily Cartoonist (August 21, 2018).
  3. ↑ "Darrin Bell". Comics Kingdom. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
  4. ↑ "Darrin Bell Syndication The Washington Post". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Who is Darrin Bell? Cartoonist now facing child porn charges built groundbreaking body of work". The Sacramento Bee. January 16, 2025.
  6. 1 2 "Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist arrested on child pornography charges". The Independent. January 16, 2025.
  7. ↑ "Darrin Bell". National Cartoonists Society. Retrieved January 16, 2025.
  8. 1 2 Scribner, Herb (January 16, 2025). "Cartoonist Darrin Bell arrested on child pornography charges". The Washington Post . Retrieved January 17, 2025.
  9. 1 2 "Darrin Bell's 'Candorville' a Comics-Page Commentary on Trump Policies". KQED Arts. February 8, 2017. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
  10. ↑ Gardner, Alan. "Matt Richtel Takes Year Sabbatical from Rudy Park". The Daily Cartoonist (April 13, 2012).
  11. ↑ Degg, D. D. "Candorville/Rudy Park Amalgamation Explained". The Daily Cartoonist (October 21, 2018).
  12. ↑ Degg, D. D. (April 23, 2023). "The Funnies This Past Week – updated". The Daily Cartoonist. Well it seems that Counterpoint is syndicating the Rudy Park comic strip now, and has been for quite some time! I traced the switch from Washington Post Writer's Group to Counterpoint Media to September 1, 2022.
  13. 1 2 Saab, Ginger Conejero (January 16, 2025). "Famed cartoonist with Bay Area ties arrested on child porn charges". NBC Bay Area. Retrieved January 16, 2025.
  14. ↑ "Editorial Cartooning". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
  15. ↑ "Darrin Bell wins the 2015 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for Editorial Cartooning". Darrin Bell. May 8, 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  16. ↑ Cavna, Michael; Cavna, Michael (November 4, 2016). "Darrin Bell wins Berryman Award for cartoons that tackle xenophobia and gun violence". The Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  17. ↑ Rosean, Grace (November 14, 2023). "ALA unveils shortlist for 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction". American Library Association (ALA). Retrieved November 16, 2023.
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