Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year

By Charles Brooks

Relive the year's history-making events with Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year: 1986 Edition. Since 1973, this series has showcased the talents of leading editorial cartoonists form the United States and Canada. This year's volume presents more than 350 noteworthy cartoons from 133 cartoonists, including the top prize-winners of 1985.

Congressman Jack Kemp, a frequent target of editorial pens, contributed the forward for this year's edition. He notes that editorial cartooning is vital to a free press and in preserving history, commenting that no one has ever seen a cartoon poking fun at Mikhail Gorbachev in Pravda or Krokodil, and that fact speaks volumes about the Soviet system.

Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year is widely recognized as the definitive compendium of leading cartoonists' views of national and international issues. Acclaimed as a concise yet far-ranging pictorial history, Publishers Weekly calls it a great way to get the gut feeling of a year's history.

The 1986 edition continues the history of excellence established in previous volumes. This year the cartoonists focus their rapier wit on such topics as the Regan administration, international terrorism, crime, the AIDS scare, airline safety, and national defense issues such as Star Wars.

ABOUT THE EDITOR
Editor Charles Brooks is past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and for thirty-eight years was a cartoonist for the Birmingham News. He has been the recipient of thirteen Freedom Foundation Awards, a national VFW Award, two Vigilante Patriot Awards, and a Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial cartooning.

Brooks' cartoons appear in more than eighty books, including textbooks on political science, economics, and history, as well as encyclopedias and yearbooks. His original cartoons are on display in many libraries' archives.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0882896059
• ISBN13: 9780882896052
• Release Date: November 1999
• Publisher: Pelican Publishing Company
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.3" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

A look back at an eventful year using editorial cartoons, one of the best barometers of current even

There is nothing better than a good editorial cartoon to put the current situation in the proper perspective. As someone who is a political junkie and conscious during the 1980's I recognized each of the situations represented by these cartoons. Using images and very simple text, the cartoonists were able to get their message across in a forceful way. If you remember the 1980's, you will enjoy this frolic back to those times. However, if you don't know the history well, then most of them will make no sense to you.

Mikhail Gorbachev joins Ronald Reagan on the world stage

Mikhail Gorbachev is the poster boy for the cover of "Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, 1986" because he was the third leader of the Soviet Union in a two-and-a-half year period and the first to be a member of a younger generation. However, while the world was only beginning to know Gorby, who was only beginning to start his revolutionary change in his country that would see the collapse of the Iron Curtain, the star of this collection of editorial cartoons is still Ronald Reagan, who in 1985 had a comeback from colon cancer surgery, unveiled a tax reform plan, pushed for the Strategic Defense Initiative (a.k.a. "Star Wars"), and had his first summit with Gorbachev. That was the year that a TWA 747 was hijacked on a flight from Athens to Rome, David Stockman resigned as Director of the OMB, the famine in Ethiopia continued, and Lebanon was the hot spot in the Middle East. Apartheid was starting to crumble in South Africa, Reagan placed a wreath at the military cemetery in the German town of Bitburg, and the world was treated to New Coke. Throw into the mix the commonplaces of contemporary political life, from the economy, health care, and crime to Congress, sports and religion. You will be surprised how much of these people and events come back to mind and you enjoy these cartoons. There are five cartoons by my favorite all-time editorial cartoonist, Jeff MacNelly of the "Chicago Tribune," who won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize. You will also find choice efforts from Bill Day, Jim Borgman, Kirk Walters, Mike Luckovich, and Ed Gamble. Besides taking these walks down memory lane flipping through these books always introduces you to some pretty good editorial cartoonists who are published in newspapers other than the one you read.The 350 editorial cartoons by more than 130 of the nation's leading editorial cartoons were collected by editorial Charles Brooks. The book also has a foreword by Congressman Jack Kemp, the former Buffalo Bills quarterback and then Congressman from New York, who noted "No one had ever seen a cartoon poling fun at Mikhail Gorbachev in "Pravda" or "Krokodil," and that fact speaks volumes..."