The Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, 1988

Rating:
Summary: Will editorial cartoons stick to a Teflon President? (No)
Review: When tripping down memory lane by flipping through the pages of "Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, 1988," or any of its companion volumes in this series, what stands out the most are not the constant topics such as Congress getting nothing done, violence in the Middle East, concerns about the economy and defense spending, but the topics that are specific to 1987. That was the year of the doomed nomination of Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court and a players strike in the NFL, a great opportunity for editorial cartoonists to declare a plague on both houses. Then there was the PTL scandal that brought down Jim Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye Bakker, a woman born to end up in editorial cartoons. Often, I find some of my favorite cartoons have to do with well-known personalities who died during the year: Jim Borgman has Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling in the reception room in heaven and Bob Englehart drew the set from "The Honeymooners" with the figure of Alice weeping over the death of Jackie Gleason.

1987 was a good year for award-winning cartoonists, with Mike Peters picking up the National Headliners Club Award for his Iran-Contra action figures, Berke Breathed shaking the earth by winning the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for "Bloom County," and Dick Locher earning the Fischetti Award for a cartoon of Reagan as Karnak ("The answer is: 'I Don't Know!' Now, what's the question?"). The Iran-Contra hearings provided lots of fodder for satire, with Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North suddenly becoming a national figure, along with National Security Advisor John Poindexter. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan continued along with his "Teflon Presidency" while over on the Democratic side potential candidates Gary Hart and Joe Biden saw their campaigns self-destruct. You look over all the stupid things politicians were doing and no wonder the American public is jaded about scandals involving politicians. Then there was the controversy over promoting condoms as a way of reducing the spread of AIDS, just one of a dozen topics that cuts both ways in inflaming the passions of the American public. Still, all thing considered 1987 was a very good year for the pens dipped in venom by the nation's editorial cartoonists.