Editorial cartoonist Dave Granlund faces challenges he never imagined when started his career 50 years ago.

It was 1967 and Lyndon Johnson was president. Cable news, social media and the World Wide Web were far off on the horizon back then. 

Today, his cartoons are plagiarized and published online with misleading captions. Most days are a race against the 24-hour news cycle. Internet trolls try to jam his website. His caricatures appear on T-shirts in China – without his permission. And he receives hate mail and death threats.

While he used to talk on the phone with unhappy readers, Granlund said in a recent interview, the current volume of emails from all over the country, including many from people who disguise their identities, makes it impossible to answer them all.

And, he added, “It’s just too complex to track down” copyright violators who Photoshop his cartoons, giving them captions to suit extreme political agendas.

“Cartooning has become very, very difficult. The Internet has killed cartooning as it was in the 1950s, '60s and '70s,’’ he said. “I still enjoy it, but it’s become more complicated.”

Since first publishing for the Greenfield Recorder in 1967, Granlund has chronicled public mischief and human decency in more than 18,000 cartoons that entertain, inform and provoke his readers.

Growing up on a farm in central Massachusetts, he used crayons stored in a kitchen coffee can to draw his brothers and sister caring for livestock, tending crops and getting into mischief, such as starting cow dung fights.

Since starting with the South Middlesex News – now the MetroWest Daily News – in 1977, Granlund said his subjects have evolved from parochial issues such as potholes in local streets to national topics, more likely to incite strong reactions.

He is now drawing cartoons that satirize public figures such as President Donald Trump and his former adviser Steve Bannon, and examines hot-button issues, including police violence and gay rights. His cartoons appear on the Daily News Opinion Pages on most days. With the ascendancy of the Internet and prevalence of special interest groups, his often satirical cartoons frequently provoke sharp responses from dissatisfaction to outrage.

“Today, things have become so polarized and caustic,’’ Granlund said. “For every controversial subject, like abortion, gun control or pit bulls, there’s an advocacy group or website. People are more likely to respond if they’re dissatisfied.”

However, Tom Moroney, former MetroWest Daily News columnist and current Boston bureau chief for Bloomberg News, described Granlund as good a caricaturist as there is working today and said he always struck a balance between his roles as political satirist and community booster.

“Dave Granlund’s art is a unique blend of a homespun Midwest sensibility and respect for the Great Middle, the people who work every day just to pay their bills, coupled with a sharp eye for their hypocrisies and shortcomings,” he said.

Granlund now knows where the landmines are that provoke reader anger and thinks things through, often with help from his wife of 44 years, Shirley, before publishing.

Despite often anonymous and venomous emails sent to him, he insisted, “I’m not gun-shy.”

“People are filled with so much misinformation these days, there’s no arguing with them. I’ve been sent biblical passages readers believe tell me why I’m going to hell,” he said.

Granlund recalled at least one controversial cartoon he wishes he could take back because it inadvertently offended veterans, including his father, a former Marine who fought on Iwo Jima.

To satirize support for flying the Confederate Stars and Bars over public buildings, he drew an image reminiscent of the iconic flag-raising on Iwo Jima that sparked angry criticism from veterans.

“I am patriotic. I hold veterans in high esteem,” said Granlund, who served eight years in the U.S. Air Force, rising to the rank of staff sergeant in the Strategic Air Command. “I’ve become more cautious and try to think things through. My wife will sometimes urge me to sleep on it before publishing.”

While Granlund was in the Air Force, his artistic skills led to assignments in the White House, designing floats for President Richard Nixon’s second inaugural parade. Working with eventual Watergate conspirator Jeb Stuart Magruder, Granlund was asked to find a way to decorate the surface of Pennsylvania Avenue like an American flag, but he pointed out that police and military horses in the parade would likely besmirch Old Glory and the plan was scrapped.

Granlund observed that cartooning in the age of the continual 24-hour news cycle presents challenges that never occurred in the old days.

Some already-begun ideas have to be scrapped because the news has changed so rapidly while unexpected breaking news sometimes causes angry reactions to earlier cartoons.

Granlund remembered a cartoon reflecting public concerns about police violence. The drawing depicted an officer asking a pharmacist for salve to treat a rash on his trigger finger. It was published the day a sniper murdered five Dallas police officers and wounded several others.

“That cartoon was done days before the police shootings, but people don’t know when you drew it,” he said. “Timing is everything, but these days you can’t control it.”

Granlund’s muse for cartoon ideas comes from everywhere, from folks chatting about the issues du jour in the grocery store, to conversations with his wife. And he reads a cross-section of newspapers of all political persuasions.

“Some people peg me as ultra-liberal. They judge me based on one cartoon from that day and say that’s me,” he said. “I want to get the attention of readers from all political persuasions. So I try not to be heavy-handed or mean-spirited.”

As more readers, especially the young, get their news from online sources, he has sensed a decline in a shared familiarity with historical and cultural ideas that once unified Americans and could be used in cartoons.

“You have to keep things simple,’’ said Granlund, “but say what you want in ways that can be understood.”

Rick Holmes, former longtime MetroWest Daily News editorial page editor, and editor-in-chief when the paper was called The Middlesex News, described Granlund as an old-style cartoonist in the very best sense of the word.

“Dave is better at drawing recognizable caricatures than any political cartoonist working today,” he said. "But while Dave can skewer the powerful as sharply as anyone, he has a gentle touch when it comes to ordinary people.”

Looking back on his long career, Granlund observed there were 350 editorial cartoonists working in newspapers across the country when he accepted his dream job with the South Middlesex News in 1977.

Forty years later, the number working full time has dropped to 80.

Yet Granlund continues to draw seven cartoons a week in his home studio, sometimes in his pajamas, his Jack Russell terrier Greta snoozing nearby, and listening to classical music and doo-wop for inspiration.

“Some people say cartooning is dead,’’ said Granlund. “But until they demand three-dimensional holograms, I’ll keep on drawing.”