<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Jimmy Carter makes 1976 a great year for editorial cartoons
Review: "Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, 1977" captures the events of 1976, which was a banner year for editorial cartoonists. The reason why is aptly captured by the cartoon on the cover of this collection, which shows the iconically toothy smile of Jimmy Carter, who came out of nowhere (a.k.a. Plains, Georgia) to be elected President of the United States. 1976 had it all: the nation's bicentennial, political scandals, a heated Presidential campaign, an election that went down to the wire and divided the nation along geographical lines, all wrapped up the distinctive facial features of Jimmy Carter (and an infamous interview "Playboy" magazine). The editorial cartoonist of the year was clearly Tony Auth of the Philadelphia "Inquirer," who won both the Pulitzer Prize, for a carton of Leonid Breshnev singing "American the Beautiful" in an American wheat field, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award, for a cartoon of Muslims and Christians killing each other in the name of their religions in Beirut. There are also several cartoons by my all-time favorite, Jeff MacNelly, along with choice cartoons by Robert Graysmith, Ed Gamble, Mike Peters, and Dick Locher. You will certainly get a sense of the new school and old school approaches to editorial cartooning. Cartoons about the 1976 Election provide the single largest chapter in the collection, with the vast majority of those being about the challenger Carter. The challenge to President Gerald Ford by Ronald Reagan in the Republican Party receives treatment as well, along with the Wayne Hays Scandal (does the name Elizabeth Ray ring a bell?). In terms of international affairs there was turmoil in Southern Africa, OPEC raising the price of oil, tension in the Middle East in general and Lebanon in particular, and the death of Mao Tse-Tung (that was the spelling used back then). There were, of course, cartoons on perennial topics like Crime, Defense, Education, and the Economy, as well as one time subjects such as the Swine Flu, Earl Butz, and the mystery of Howard Hughes' will. This is the fifth collection of the annual series that brings together hundreds of examples of the high art of editorial cartoonists by more than 130 of its practitioners compiled by Charles Brooks, award-winning editorial cartoonist for the Birmingham "News" and former president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. The introduction is written by Draper Hill, an editorial cartoonists for the Detroit "News" who comments on the change in this satirical art form, arguing: "Dignity is out of fashion. For the younger cartoonists, sentiment is so suspect as to be virtually taboo." Given that we are now talking about an American living in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era, this is not surprising.
Rating:
Summary: Jimmy Carter makes 1976 a great year for editorial cartoons
Review: "Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, 1977" captures the events of 1976, which was a banner year for editorial cartoonists. The reason why is aptly captured by the cartoon on the cover of this collection, which shows the iconically toothy smile of Jimmy Carter, who came out of nowhere (a.k.a. Plains, Georgia) to be elected President of the United States. 1976 had it all: the nation's bicentennial, political scandals, a heated Presidential campaign, an election that went down to the wire and divided the nation along geographical lines, all wrapped up the distinctive facial features of Jimmy Carter (and an infamous interview "Playboy" magazine). The editorial cartoonist of the year was clearly Tony Auth of the Philadelphia "Inquirer," who won both the Pulitzer Prize, for a carton of Leonid Breshnev singing "American the Beautiful" in an American wheat field, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award, for a cartoon of Muslims and Christians killing each other in the name of their religions in Beirut. There are also several cartoons by my all-time favorite, Jeff MacNelly, along with choice cartoons by Robert Graysmith, Ed Gamble, Mike Peters, and Dick Locher. You will certainly get a sense of the new school and old school approaches to editorial cartooning. Cartoons about the 1976 Election provide the single largest chapter in the collection, with the vast majority of those being about the challenger Carter. The challenge to President Gerald Ford by Ronald Reagan in the Republican Party receives treatment as well, along with the Wayne Hays Scandal (does the name Elizabeth Ray ring a bell?). In terms of international affairs there was turmoil in Southern Africa, OPEC raising the price of oil, tension in the Middle East in general and Lebanon in particular, and the death of Mao Tse-Tung (that was the spelling used back then). There were, of course, cartoons on perennial topics like Crime, Defense, Education, and the Economy, as well as one time subjects such as the Swine Flu, Earl Butz, and the mystery of Howard Hughes' will. This is the fifth collection of the annual series that brings together hundreds of examples of the high art of editorial cartoonists by more than 130 of its practitioners compiled by Charles Brooks, award-winning editorial cartoonist for the Birmingham "News" and former president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. The introduction is written by Draper Hill, an editorial cartoonists for the Detroit "News" who comments on the change in this satirical art form, arguing: "Dignity is out of fashion. For the younger cartoonists, sentiment is so suspect as to be virtually taboo." Given that we are now talking about an American living in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era, this is not surprising.
<< 1 >>
|
