Tom Toles

Prospective cartoonists take note: It's all about perspective. Tom Toles' wisecracking biblical reference may not leave you in stitches, but it's provocative. Dana Summers puts a humanitarian disaster of biblical proportions into sober, humbling context. And Pat Bagley carries on about coach-class warfare. Remember the Good Book quote: "It's easier for a camel on the no-fly list to get a hypodermic needle through a TSA checkpoint than for a Goldman Sachs exec to enter the kingdom of heaven."

When we're positively weary of the negative (terrorism, famine, political polarization and the inevitability of debt and taxes), cartoonists can always fool around with sexual politics, taking strange political bedfellows to task. Tom Toles whipped out a piece punishing Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele for some GOP extracurricular clubbing. I wondered if the right wing would ever get it right on gay rights. And Mike Luckovich discovered links between golf and the Vatican pedophilia scandal.

No politically tainted Nobels for cartooning, but still plenty of prize pieces. Ted Rall's drone-straddling Obama suffers from Dr. Strangelove flashbacks. Give Ted a ribbon for ribbin'. Tom Toles, who never phones it in and always captures the clever subtext, deserves the economics comics honor. And Matt Bors' long, drawn-out offering displays no patience with long, drawn-out solutions. He takes the medal for meddling with the commander in chief's mettle. -- Joel Pett Joel Pett is the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky.

In the cartoon cafeteria, everyone gets their just desserts, and it's usually a pie in the face. Nate Beeler sunk his not-so-sweet teeth into the pastry-chef-in-chief, as President Obama applied the pièce pièce despite all the résistance . Clay Bennett dished out an upside-down take that won't satisfy either side's appetite for blame. And Tom Toles' mint-condition mythical machine served up an out-of-this-world recipe for an unhealthy future political food fight. These guys don't sugarcoat it. Check please!

In the cartoon cafeteria, everyone gets their just desserts, and it's usually a pie in the face. Nate Beeler sunk his not-so-sweet teeth into the pastry-chef-in-chief, as President Obama applied the pièce pièce despite all the résistance . Clay Bennett dished out an upside-down take that won't satisfy either side's appetite for blame. And Tom Toles' mint-condition mythical machine served up an out-of-this-world recipe for an unhealthy future political food fight. These guys don't sugarcoat it. Check please!

As President Obama addressed the bigs (wigs, shots, cheeses, enchiladas), cartoonists communicated to the little people, the rankled and filed, the unwashed and unhappy masses with newsprint on their ever-pointing fingers. Steve Sack hung his art in a largely polarized gallery of the small-minded. Tom Toles' big-budget big-screen patrons opted for less-than-optimal optometrics. And I spoke freely about the injudicious branch and big-dollar elections -- corporate dollars can never get too big to flail against.

When we're positively weary of the negative (terrorism, famine, political polarization and the inevitability of debt and taxes), cartoonists can always fool around with sexual politics, taking strange political bedfellows to task. Tom Toles whipped out a piece punishing Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele for some GOP extracurricular clubbing. I wondered if the right wing would ever get it right on gay rights. And Mike Luckovich discovered links between golf and the Vatican pedophilia scandal.

From the founders' deism to Mitt's message on Mormonism, cartoonists have treated the super-serious subject of the supernatural with superciliousness.

Clashing symbols are sweet music to cartoonists' ears. A twisted picture is worth a thousand twisted words. So George Tenet's silky Medal of Freedom was just waiting for Tom Toles to sling it around a sow's neck. And it was only a matter of time until the late Pat Tillman, erstwhile symbolic war hero, was paint-balled with a broader brush, and until we applied the coup de grace to the prematurely celebratory "Fait Accompli" banner.

It takes something big to steer cartoonists away from a Washington sex scandal. Your run-of-the-mill humanitarian crisis, overheated sectarian strife or ho-hum environmental decline lack the earthshaking climax of, say ... a Kim Jong Il-advised thermonuclear blast! And although the visual epicenter of the North Korean nuke crisis may be the ubiquitous mushroom cloud, the hair-raising dictator himself makes a pretty good axis-of-evil target.

As President Obama addressed the bigs (wigs, shots, cheeses, enchiladas), cartoonists communicated to the little people, the rankled and filed, the unwashed and unhappy masses with newsprint on their ever-pointing fingers. Steve Sack hung his art in a largely polarized gallery of the small-minded. Tom Toles' big-budget big-screen patrons opted for less-than-optimal optometrics. And I spoke freely about the injudicious branch and big-dollar elections -- corporate dollars can never get too big to flail against.

Prospective cartoonists take note: It's all about perspective. Tom Toles' wisecracking biblical reference may not leave you in stitches, but it's provocative. Dana Summers puts a humanitarian disaster of biblical proportions into sober, humbling context. And Pat Bagley carries on about coach-class warfare. Remember the Good Book quote: "It's easier for a camel on the no-fly list to get a hypodermic needle through a TSA checkpoint than for a Goldman Sachs exec to enter the kingdom of heaven."

No politically tainted Nobels for cartooning, but still plenty of prize pieces. Ted Rall's drone-straddling Obama suffers from Dr. Strangelove flashbacks. Give Ted a ribbon for ribbin'. Tom Toles, who never phones it in and always captures the clever subtext, deserves the economics comics honor. And Matt Bors' long, drawn-out offering displays no patience with long, drawn-out solutions. He takes the medal for meddling with the commander in chief's mettle. -- Joel Pett Joel Pett is the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky.

Sometimes it's good not to be center ring in the media circus. While the kings of pop-culture journalism scramble to meet round-the-clock deadlines, and the Web denizens deify and denigrate, cartoonists can reflect a bit, even blend tribute and peripheral commentary. Matt Davies handed in an iron-fisted Iran-focused gem. Tom Toles slid by with a topical optical illusion. And I hungered for the memory of one of music's truly altruistic (if ultimately all-too-unrealistic) events.

Cartoonists are unabashedly pro-free speech, and they'll bash anyone who would prohibit it. Dan Wasserman's networking reporters demonstrate that highhanded electronic surveillance works both ways. Tony Auth's authoritarian exposes the naked truth about a tangled web. And Tom Toles impressively free-hands about freelancers and press freedom -- we like free speech, but not so much those long sentences. -- Joel Pett

Cartoonists, wielding our mightier-than-the-sword weapon of choice, went after WMD this week. Yet another mass shooting in a tragic season of spree fever had Matt Davies fingering the gun lobby. Tom Toles went ballistic, lamenting the lame international response to Kim Jong Il's ill-fated satellite (or was it?) launch. And I took aim at targeted military cuts with an in-your-face rendition of the president's just deserts. I gotta stop being so cynical -- or at least slow the rate of increase.

Cartoonists will hijack anything visual, including, but not limited to classic art (one more Munch and I'll scream), photographic standards (stick a flag in the Iwo Jima toons -- they're done), pop-culture tube boobs (next one to do Trump should be fired), even the grandest-scale sculptures (Mt. Rushmore. Now there's a cartoon cliche carved in stone.). We'll appropriate the molehills too, when appropriate.

I would like to thank Hilburn for the inside truth on Spector. After reading the story, I felt so sorry for him. He claims to have changed and that he wants to make a comeback; he's pushing a greatest-hits collection to get back in the public eye. I for one think Spector is still living in his own little world. He still thinks he is better than anyone else. Comments he made--"Their future is all in the past.

From the founders' deism to Mitt's message on Mormonism, cartoonists have treated the super-serious subject of the supernatural with superciliousness.

Clashing symbols are sweet music to cartoonists' ears. A twisted picture is worth a thousand twisted words. So George Tenet's silky Medal of Freedom was just waiting for Tom Toles to sling it around a sow's neck. And it was only a matter of time until the late Pat Tillman, erstwhile symbolic war hero, was paint-balled with a broader brush, and until we applied the coup de grace to the prematurely celebratory "Fait Accompli" banner.