Steve Benson

Missing a friend

Dear Steve,

Few things in life bring a political cartoonist greater joy than hate mail. I know Steve, that you loved provoking rage from the unhinged as much as I did.

As much as you loved the hate, vitriol and sputtering rage your cartoons would provoke there’s none in here for you today my brother. Forgive me for loving you, buddy.

I loved your courage.

I loved your principled character.

I loved your love for the American idea, a passion that compelled you day after day to defend the values you admired. Compassion. Kindness. Charity. Justice. Fairness. Truth.These values were intrinsic.

I loved your art.

Your brushwork rivaled the greatest masters.

Your penmanship was exquisite.

And your concepts! Peerless. You had an “exploding duck theory” about cartooning. Remember? You told me once every cartoon should have a visual surprise, a startling twist or it’s just not a good cartoon.

What?

You know…an exploding duck.

I envied you your drive, Steve. You often worked 12-hours a day to please your own ridiculously high standards.

After pouring your heart and soul into your cartoons every day where did you find the time to be a cop in Gilbert? I think you did it because you believed in respect for the law and you wanted to have a real-world impact beyond your desk.

On the flip side of snarky you could be so wonderfully corny, Steve. Dig deep down and there’s a genuine Sheriff Andy of Mayberry under that biting satirist. My favorite story centers around you on patrol one night in Gilbert a few years back. What did you find exploring the alleys of Gilbert? You came across some juveniles painting graffiti on a resident’s wall. We got trouble right here in river less city. You run the cherries and park, the kids freeze, you hike up your holster and insist the hooligans knock on the homeowner’s door and apologize. You then take them- not to the juvenile lock up- but to purchase white exterior paint, and with enough brushes for all, under the watchful eye of Officer Benson they paint over their graffiti.

When I moved back here in the eighties we bonded over a disaster that had struck our home state, a human calamity named Ev Mecham. When I saw your Book of Moron cartoon, I thought you’d lost your mind.

We became phone friends. We always had the same conversation. What do you think of this cartoon idea?

I walked it around the newsroom, but I'm not so sure.

Steve, it's great. If you don't draw it, I'm stealing the idea.

We’d brag about hate mail death threats and we’d say terrible things about our editors who dared to stifle our first Amendment rights.

When we were young, I thought you were a bit of a big shot who was really full of himself and then you pointed out that I was a bit of a big shot who was really full of myself, and I realized we were brothers joined at the inkwell.

You’re a member of Mormon royalty, the grandson of Ezra Taft Benson, the 13th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I just thought I’d mention it in case you were unaware of that little gem.That was some legacy you turned your back on, my fearless friend. But being a free thinking heathen, you had no choice.

You had no clue how much I admired you. Your Mecham cartoons were magnificent social protest art, each one a classic.

When I was at the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists conference years later in Salt Lake City you and cartoonist Pat Bagley wanted to know if I wanted to tag along and do a group interview on the local radio with the Big Pens.

And so, thanks to Steve’s kindness I found myself in a Salt Lake City NPR radio studio with Pulitzer winner Mike Keefe of the Denver Post, the great Pat Bagley from the Salt Lake Tribune, the great Pulitzer Prize winning Steve Benson and myself. I will never forget that day Steve. I was sitting with the Mt Rushmore of American political cartooning, and you just treated me like one of the family.

I never forgot your mentoring, your kindness.

And like all of you who have been drawn and quartered by Steve I’ll treasure the caricature you drew of my Ellen and I all those years ago because when I look at it I can remember that wonderful day with you, watching you sketch, enjoying the snark, the laughter, the political gossip, the laughter, the righteous indignation and, because it was you, Steve, more laughter.

We became close friends when you were jettisoned by “The Arizona Republic” back in 2019. We invited you into our home here in Tucson to offer you comfort, fellowship, encouragement, and distraction. It was an unforgettable week.

You got your bearings. You rebuilt your life. You met Claire. Dear wonderful amazing Claire. Proof that sometimes good things happen to good people. You would not permit yourself sink. Claire would not permit you to sink. You began freelancing and drawing again. Some of your best work ever.

Last time we saw you was when you and Claire came to Tucson. You were still putting in long days and nights freelancing and getting by. You looked like a lifetime at the drawing board had cost you your health. We fretted and fussed over you because we loved you, Steve.

You and I used to laugh about the obit cartoons we’d draw and the tropes we’d use. Without shame.

The deceased greeted in Heaven at the Pearly gates. Flag flying at half-mast. Our beloved walking into an Arizona sunset. A pen at rest on top of a blank sheet of paper on a drawing board. An empty space on a newspaper’s opinion page where a familiar cartoon would appear day after day. An empty cartoon pinned under a magnet on a refrigerator door. An empty space in Lady Liberty’s heart. An empty space in our hearts.

That’s it, Steve. That’s the one I’m going with. An empty space in our hearts.

Love,

David