DARRIN BELL
Author of the acclaimed book The Talk
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for The New Yorker and other publications
Darrin is an award-winning editorial cartoonist and comic strip creator known for the syndicated comic strips Candorville and Rudy Park. He is the first African-American to have two comic strips syndicated nationally.
Darrin Bell, recipient of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, the 2016 Berryman Award for Editorial Cartooning, the 2015 RFK Award for Editorial Cartooning, and UC Berkeley’s 2015 Daily Californian Alumni of the Year Award, began his career in 1995 at the age of twenty. While serving as the Daily Californian’s staff cartoonist, he began freelancing for the Opinion pages of the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Oakland Tribune. In 1997, he cocreated the comic strip Rudy Park and self-syndicated it to technology magazines. United Media launched it into newspapers in 2001. In 2003, Darrin launched his other comic strip, Candorville, in newspapers via the Washington Post Writers Group (WPWG), which also began syndicating his editorial cartoons in 2013. While WPWG still syndicates Candorville and Rudy Park, Darrin moved his editorial cartoons to King Features Syndicate in late 2018. He’s also a contributing cartoonist for the New Yorker. Darrin lives with his wife and four children in California.
Darrin is the author of the acclaimed book The Talk published in 2023.
Speech topics
The TAlk
Darrin Bell was six years old when his mother told him he couldn’t have a realistic water gun. She said she feared for his safety, that police tend to think of little Black boys as older and less innocent than they really are.
Based on his award-winning graphic novel, Bell examines how "The Talk" shaped intimate and public moments from childhood to adulthood. While coming of age in Los Angeles—and finding a voice through cartooning—Bell becomes painfully aware of being regarded as dangerous by white teachers, neighbors, and police officers and thus of his mortality. Drawing attention to the brutal murders of African Americans and showcasing revealing insights and cartoons along the way, he brings us up to the moment of reckoning when people took to the streets protesting the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And now Bell must decide whether he and his own six-year-old son are ready to have The Talk.
Books
The Talk
Through evocative illustrations and sharp humor, Bell examines how The Talk shaped intimate and public moments from childhood to adulthood.
Named The Year's Best Graphic Novel by Publishers Weekly
Named one of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Best Books of 2023
Named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR
Named one of Kirkus' Best 2023 Books
Named one of the Washington Post's 10 best graphic novels of 2023
One of TIME Magazine's Must-Read Books of the Year
Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction 2024
New York Public Library's Best New Comics of 2023 Top Ten Pick
Chicago Public Library's Best Books of 2023 Top Ten Pick
Named one of School Library Journal's Best Graphic Novels of 2023
Substack
Political Cartoons & Comic Strips
Progressive anti-fascist, anti-racist political cartoons and comic strips, by Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Darrin Bell. SUBSCRIBE HERE.