Newspapers no longer present an appealing prospect for the freelance cartoonist. There are a few art directors who hold on to a miniscule budget for freelance artists, but not many. For the most part, newspapers get most of their illustrations from a small group of full-time artists. For the rest of their needs — daily comics and a few spot illustrations — newspapers subscribe to syndicates.

Editorial Pages

You may be able to use the current state of the newspaper industry to your advantage. Larger newspapers may have an editorial cartoonist on staff, but the majority of them get editorial cartoons from a syndicate. That leaves a demand for cartoons on local and regional subjects. You may be able to negotiate a regular freelance engagement with the editorial page editor of midsize and smaller newspapers. They will love the opportunity to print high-quality editorial cartoons on local issues.

Features Section

Similarly, you may be able to arrange a similar deal with the features editor if you can produce a cartoon feature that addresses local topics. It's unlikely that you'd be able to convince him to publish a daily feature, but you might be able to negotiate a less frequent schedule. Study your newspaper's Features section. It probably addresses different topics in rotation every day: Monday is food, Tuesday is fashion, Wednesday is entertainment, and so on. Perhaps you can develop a weekly cartoon that would work well within the parameters of one of these themes.