Editorial Cartoons

Tom Toles, the editorial cartoonist at the Washington Post, has drawn Pultizer Prize winning cartoons, so it's not surprising that his cartoons are both witty and intellectual. The topics vary from campaign issues to the environment and the economy. Basically anything news worthy is fair game. 

It seems his cartoon with a polar bear balancing on a ball  in a circus, with a man commenting that they should let him go, and then a split frame of the polar bear balancing on a piece of melting polar ice, is very entertaining. At the same time, it is also informative, and a bit satirical of the pandemic global warming crisis. 

Ted Rall is another cartoonist whose work should be acknowledged. His comics seem a bit more scandalous, in that they seem less conscious of who they could offend than Toles'. A cartoon of his landed him on the O'Reilly Factor, to be questioned weather he disrespected Pat Tillman, an American soldier and ex- NFL player who was killed. Rall stated that he was merely showing that the "people who volunteered to go fight in Iraq and Afghanistan were used, were mislead, and possibly even had ill intent in going over there to fight." His cartoons have alos been pulled from web sites as he did not meet the standards of taste, as in MCNBC's site. Personally, though it seems he does border and sometimes cross into offensive, it is great to see a journalist unafraid of displeasing the government, or making it uncomofortable.

Yet another cartoonist, Ben Sargent, is notable. His cartoons are a bit more straightforward than Toles' and not as offensive, yet equally provocative as Rall's. They question governmental policy and add a bit of humor to the usually dry political news. 

Editorial cartoons are a great way to get news, insight, and intellectual stimulation in just one picture.