By James Rainey, Los Angeles Times
Paul Conrad, whose fiercely confrontational editorial cartoons made him one of the leading political provocateurs of the second half of the 20th century and who helped push the Los Angeles Times to national prominence, has died. He was 86.
Conrad died early Saturday of natural causes, surrounded by his family at his home in Rancho Palos Verdes, said his son David.
With an unyielding liberal stance rendered in savage black and white, Conrad both thrilled and infuriated readers for more than 50 years. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, a feat matched by only two other cartoonists in the post- World War II era.
Mayors, governors and presidents cringed at the prospect of being on the business end of Conrad's searing pen, while many Southern Californians made him their first stop as they sifted through The Times, the newspaper that was his principal home for nearly 30 years.
"When it comes to editorial cartooning, I am unabashedly biased: Paul Conrad was simply the best ever," Times Editor Russ Stanton said Saturday. "Whether or not you agreed with his politics, readers waited every morning for his dose of political commentary, guaranteed to make them either angry, to think or to laugh. And his work inspired other cartoonists and writers to speak truth to power. The Los Angeles Times was fortunate to be part of his long and prolific career, and we have missed him since the day he retired".
While many other cartoonists angled for whimsy or the easy one-off, Conrad "specialized in hair shirts and jeremiads and harpoons to the heart," former Times Editor Shelby Coffey III once wrote. The cartoonist, loud and often profane in person, viewed himself as a champion of the common man and relished combat with those he saw as protectors of the rich and privileged.
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