rabbi-tom brought up the subject of "memorial cartoons" in a recent journal. As someone mad-keen on editorial cartoons (like he is), the discussion brought to mind Mauldin's famous cartoon of Lincoln grieving over JFK's murder, as well as Jay "Ding" Darling's cartoon on the death of Theodore Roosevelt.

I refreshed my memory on both cartoons, and now recall that both Mauldin's job and Darling's job were deadline-beaters, that neither artist was totally happy with, but turned out to be both classics and extremely popular with readers. (Vendors sold the Chicago Sun-Times with Mauldin's drawing upside-down, to show the drawing instead of the headline.) In Darling's case, he borrowed from his memorial cartoon for showman Bill Cody to produce a placeholder cartoon. It's notable that the cartoon is much more "sketchy" than the usual run of Darling's finished work, but it hit the chord with his readers.

Side by side comparison of the two cartoons here.