TONY AUTH wants to be clear about one thing:
He is not being forced out of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Auth, the Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist who has been at the Inquirer since 1971, tells Comic Riffs today that he is stepping down from his four-decade perch to pursue new and invigorating forms of cartooning. Auth — also a Pulitzer finalist in 2010 — feels it’s the right time to take the buyout offer from the paper, which reportedly is looking to cut about three-dozen jobs.