David Baldinger - Cartoonist & Photographer

I learned the news yesterday that my friend, the great Cuban cartoonist known as Tomy, had died suddenly of a heart ailment on Sept. 6, 2010. I was lucky enough to have corresponded with Tomy for many pleasant years. I could always count on a collection of new cartoons or photos in his messages. There are many tributes already written about this great cartoonist by friends and colleagues who knew him face to face. This example: http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2010/09/07/murio-el-caricaturista-cubana-tomas-rodriguez-zayas-tomy/ is available in Spanish only unfortunately. It was a dream of mine to have been able to visit Tomy in Havana one day but that was not to be. Memories of our email discussions will have to suffice now. Farewell, friend. I am better for having known you. The following cartoons by Tomy were the last I received several weeks ago.               My condolences and best wishes for Tomy’s family and c...

REUTERS Yefimov 'survived not because of Stalin's generosity of soul, but because his talents as a cartoonist' Wed Oct 1, 4:38 PM ET MOSCOW - Celebrated political cartoonist Boris Yefimov, who drew brutally satirical images of the Soviet Union's foes in the service of Josef Stalin, died Wednesday. He was 108. Yefimov's death was given wide coverage on Russian state television. No cause was given. His cartoons spanned virtually the entire history of the communist state, from shortly after the 1917 revolution to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Among his most memorable drawings was one showing a wretched-looking Hitler, who is said to have ordered Yefimov shot if the Nazis captured Moscow in World War II. Instead, Yefimov was sent after the war to the Nuremburg trials to draw the Nazis as they faced justice. Yefimov also turned his pen against the United States. His Cold War drawings po...

See you on the dark side of the moon... Richard Wright, founding member, vocalist, and keyboardist of the rock group Pink Floyd, has died. He was 65. Wright met Pink Floyd members Roger Waters and Nick Mason in college and joined their early band, Sigma 6. Along with the late Syd Barrett, the four formed Pink Floyd in 1965.

1916 - 2008 Bill Melendez, best known for bringing the Peanuts characters to life with such classics as "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," died Tuesday at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica. He was 91.

The official Obituary as provided by the family. May 24, 2008 Utah Phillips, a seminal figure in American folk music who performed extensively and tirelessly for audiences on two continents for 38 years, died Friday of congestive heart failure in Nevada City, California a small town in the Sierra Nevada mountains where he lived for the last 21 years with his wife, Joanna Robinson, a freelance editor. Born Bruce Duncan Phillips on May 15, 1935 in Cleveland, Ohio, he was the son of labor organizers. Whether through this early influence or an early life that was not always tranquil or easy, by his twenties Phillips demonstrated a lifelong concern with the living conditions of working people. He was a proud member of the Industrial Workers of the World, popularly known as "the Wobblies," an organizational artifact of early twentieth-century labor struggles that has seen renewed interest and growth in membership in the last decade, not in small part due to his efforts to popu...

4000 by ~ davidbdr on deviant ART 4000 US soldiers  (officially) dead in GW Bush's pathological war for resources and a permanent foothold in the Middle East. 4000 is not nearly the monumental numbers of Iraqi dead but these deaths are just as needless.

Image by Carlos Latuff by Gabriel Freeman Eat The State Last week (October 27, 2006) , Brad Will , a founding reporter of the New York Independent Media Center and an old friend, was killed while videotaping the mass crackdown by state police against the people's movement in Oaxaca. His killers were quickly identified by residents of the neighborhood as local officials and off-duty police, working (presumably) for the governor of Oaxaca, Ulysses Ruiz. The governor's office immediately announced that the four had been arrested, but several days later this report turned out to be false and their whereabouts remain unknown. Brad was a videographer who covered everything from tree-sits in the northwest, housing squats, the WTO and IMF protests, and for the last two years, mass movements throughout Latin America. Brad lived the last seven years of his life at the crossroads between activism and journalism. When we both witnessed the birth of the Indymedia movement here in Seattle in...

News from Don Quichotte magazine: Turkish cartoon master Semih Balcioglu has died.

Walt Harper early 1990's by David Baldinger The above photograph is a scan of an old photo I shot when Mr. Harper performed at the local community college. Unfortunately, I can't find my only print to do a rescan and I don't have possession of the negative. I remember how pleasant he was to shoot that day. I am sorry to read that he passed away with a sudden heart attack. I'm sure Pittsburgh will miss you, Walt! Here are two articles that relate better than I could a little about Walt Harper: -- A Life In Tune: Walt Harper Enjoys Holding On To "Satin Doll" from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette Dec. 21, 2003 -- Local Jazz Legend Dies Of Heart Attack from WTAE TV News on Yahoo Walt Harper And All That Jazz Official Website