Corky Trinidad

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Francisco Flores Trinidad, Jr., born 1939 in the Philippines, is an editorial cartoonist and comics artist better known to the public by his pen name "Corky." He has been drawing editorial cartoons for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin since 1969 and is the author of the comic strips Nguyen Charlie, Aloha Eden, and Zeus.

In 2005 the Society of Professional Journalists honored Trinidad by naming him to the Hawaiʻi Journalism Hall of Fame. A biographical sketch issued by the SPJ's Hawaiʻi chapter recounts that prior to emigrating to Hawaiʻi, Trinidad had "considered joining the Communist Huks fighting in the Philippines, but he remembered that the pen is mightier than the sword." [1]

Over the years, in his cartoons Trinidad has been a sharp critic of Hawaiʻi politicians and of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. A collection of cartoons by Trinidad chronicling the history of Marcos from his declaration of martial law through his exile to Hawaiʻi has been published as a softcover book titled Marcos: The Rise and Fall of a Regime (Arthouse Books, 1986; ISBN 0-935021-08-6).

Trinidad was the first Asian editorial cartoonist to be syndicated in the United States and as of 2007 is still the only Asian American editorial cartoonist at a major U.S. metropolitan newspaper. Via syndication, Trinidad's work has appeared in non-U.S. periodicals such as the International Herald Tribune, Denmark's Politiken daily, the Buenos Aires Herald, the Manila Chronicle, and the now-defunct British magazine Punch.

In 1982 Trinidad received the Allan Saunders Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaiʻi and in 1999 the Fletcher Knebel Award from the Hawaiʻi Community Media Council [2]. Over the years he has also won several honors in the editorial cartoon category of the Hawaiʻi Publishers Association's annual Paʻi Awards for excellence in journalism.