The other day, I listened to a fascinating podcast, “Editorial Cartoons: Art as Satire,” from Stuff You Should Know. Although it was from way back in April 2025, which is like a hundred years ago, it gave a worthy summary of the artform, taking us all the way back to Benjamin Franklin’s seminal “JOIN, or DIE” cartoon of the colonies depicted as a cut-up snake, through Thomas Nast’s famous work (did you know he popularized Santa Claus, Uncle Sam, the GOP elephant, and the Democrat donkey?), through to the memes and cartoons of today.

The work continues, although economic pressures on journalism have forced the artform to evolve. Awards are regularly given out to recognize great cartoonists. These include the Herblock Prize, Clifford K. & James T. Berryman Award, and even the Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary.

Editorial cartoons continue to be a critical part of journalism, and they play a huge role in influencing political discourse by making complex subjects accessible in symbolic form. The art is especially important today as American democracy is stress-tested. Particularly with the advent of the powerful tools of generative artificial intelligence, I’ll be eager to watch editorial cartooning evolve.

In no particular order, here’s a sampling of some of the cool things I’ve seen in the past week: