{"id":2653,"date":"2010-08-20T09:48:55","date_gmt":"2010-08-20T15:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=2653"},"modified":"2010-08-20T09:48:55","modified_gmt":"2010-08-20T15:48:55","slug":"peak-profile-mark-fiore-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2010\/08\/peak-profile-mark-fiore-91\/","title":{"rendered":"Peak Profile: Mark Fiore '91"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark Fiore<\/strong> is living his dream. But even in his wildest dreams, he didn\u2019t expect to win a Pulitzer Prize.<\/p>\n

The 1991 CC graduate made history when, in April 2010, he became the first online-only editorial cartoonist to win journalism\u2019s greatest accolade. His animated cartoons boosted him to a pantheon including Berke Breathed, Jeff MacNelly, Garry Trudeau, and Bill Mauldin.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be in that company is a huge honor,\u201d he said by phone while traveling from his California home.<\/p>\n

After hearing of his win \u2014 and jumping up and down while yelling \u2014 Fiore and his wife, Chelsea, \u201chit the ground running.\u201d<\/p>\n

He hadn\u2019t let himself think too much about beating the other finalists, but he did fantasize a little about how it would feel. \u201cIn my mind, I would take the day off and go surfing, but it\u2019s been constant work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The $10,000 Pulitzer award is earmarked for their DIY bathroom upgrade.<\/p>\n

Fiore is also the first self-syndicated, animated-only cartoonist to win a Pulitzer. \u201cI hope I\u2019m a pioneer, not an anomaly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His cartoons, which appear on the San Francisco Chronicle\u2019s SFGate.com<\/span><\/a> site, are short works of art and satire, born of the Flintstones by way of Monty Python.<\/p>\n

Looking back at the cartoons he did at CC, Fiore dismisses them as \u201cso worked-up and serious.\u201d Eventually, he learned to wrap his messages in less-confrontational packages. \u201cI had to flip that humor switch.\u201d<\/p>\n

He came to CC knowing he wanted to be a cartoonist and \u201cfocused on that like a laser beam.\u201d He took art classes but majored in political science, thinking it was a better back-up plan.<\/p>\n

Fiore followed his brother, Chris, who attended CC before transferring to Berkeley, and his sister, Suzi Fiore \u201986. He came for visits and decided it was a good fit. The school still influences his work habits.<\/p>\n

He makes notes about current issues on Mondays and begins drawing with ink on paper. On Tuesdays he scans his finished pieces into the computer and animates them using Adobe Flash. Voice actors add their talent on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, and Fiore spends Wednesdays scrambling to meet his deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like I\u2019ve got a mini-Block Plan in my head,\u201d he said. \u201cI digest a large amount of information in a short time. I dive right into it for three solid days.\u201d<\/p>\n

CC also left him with a taste for public service. His website, www.markfiore.com<\/span><\/a>, includes a page called Do Something, an outlet for people to turn their frustrations into action for causes including Haiti earthquake relief, the Humane Society, and the Red Cross.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got into journalism to make difference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Has he thought about the fact that his obituary will start with \u201cPulitzer Prize winner\u201d? \u201cBetter than escaped convict,\u2019 \u201d Fiore said, laughing.<\/p>\n

He takes his work seriously, but not himself. That is another legacy from CC, where \u201cthe message was, \u2018It\u2019s OK to try something weird and out there.\u2019 I was fortunate to make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Fiore is living his dream. But even in his wildest dreams, he didn\u2019t expect to win a Pulitzer Prize. The 1991 CC graduate made history when, in April 2010, he became the first online-only editorial cartoonist to win journalism\u2019s greatest accolade. His animated cartoons boosted him to a pantheon including Berke Breathed, Jeff MacNelly,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-2653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-august-2010","tag-alumni-profiles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}