Throughout this course we will explore editorial cartoons and the cartoonists who produce them. We will investigate how editorial cartoonists give meaning to facts and help construct our political and social reality. We will study the satirical form and its role in political dissent. We will study how editorial cartoons are made and how to interpret them. We will also consider the history of editorial cartooning, and whether there is a future for this journalistic art form.
"Political cartoons invoke not only truth but a higher artistic truth, above the ethical parameters of the printed word. They have the ethical imperative to lift transitory journalism into transcending art." — Roger A. Fischer
“I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles; my constituents don’t know how to read, but they can’t help seeing them damned pictures!" --William "Boss" Tweed
"Outside of basic intelligence, there is nothing more important to a good political cartoonist than ill will. " — Jules Feiffer
"If they couldn't draw, most political cartoonists would probably have become hired assassins." — Jeff MacNelly
"Political cartoons, unlike sundials, do not show the brightest hours. They often show the darkest ones, in the hope of helping us move on to brighter times." — Herbert Block (Herblock)
“I like physics, but I love cartoons." — Stephen Hawking