And it's a tough life even at the top, even as Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Fiore (right self portrait) the first online-only cartoonist to win the prize for animated videos published on the San Francico Chronicle web site, has discovered.

In an interview with the Nieman Journalism Lab  he recalls that Apple (left can bite back) had rejected his iPhone application in December, since it included cartoons that mocked public figures.

Political cartoons, can violate Apple’s license agreement with developers, which states that applications, or “apps,” can be rejected if the content “may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic or defamatory.”

In its message to Fiore in December, the company cited his cartoon’s allusions to torture and to last year’s White House party crashers as examples.

But having received his (left) Pulitzer Prize, and having mentioned his app's rejections, Apple has encouraged him to resubmit, and he is awaiting the response.

When his NewsToons app, which displays his weekly animated cartoons, was developed last year, Fiore said, he had not heard of “The whole concept of getting rejected for ridiculing public figures.

"That’s what I do. That’s my life!” he said in a telephone interview with the New York Times from San Francisco.

“That’s a tough one to get around if you’re a political cartoonist.”