Items23The creator’s order
  1. 1James GillrayJames GillrayBorn Aug 13, 1756Often called the father of editorial cartooning, and the place to start. Gillray's Georgian London prints set the template: grotesque, crowded with funny details, yet built on properly drawn anatomy. His targets were the biggest names of the age. George III squints at a portrait of Cromwell, Fox…0
  2. 2Honoré DaumierHonoré DaumierBorn Feb 26, 1808The proof that a caricature could frighten a king. Daumier drew for Charles Philipon's La Caricature, and his drawing of Louis-Philippe as the gluttonous giant Gargantua so offended the king that Daumier was prosecuted and sentenced to six months in prison, which he began serving in August 1832.…0
  3. 3John TennielJohn TennielBorn Feb 28, 1820Victorian Britain's voice of measured authority. Tenniel drew for Punch for more than half a century and produced over 2,300 political cartoons and illustrations. His style was clean, statuesque and dignified rather than grotesque, which made his rare cruelties land harder. His best-known cartoon,…0
  4. 4Thomas NastThomas NastBorn Sep 26, 1840Often called the father of the American cartoon. Nast drew about 2,200 cartoons for Harper's Weekly between 1859 and 1896, and his Civil War work was so effective for the Union that Lincoln reportedly called him its best recruiter. His biting campaign against New York's Boss Tweed, with Tammany…0
  5. 5David Low (cartoonist)David Low (cartoonist)Born Apr 7, 1891The cartoonist who mocked the dictators of the 1930s from London. Born in Dunedin, New Zealand, and first published at 11, Low joined the Evening Standard in 1927 and drew Hitler and Mussolini so sharply that his work was banned in Italy and Germany, and his name went into the Nazi Black Book of…0
  6. 6John HeartfieldJohn HeartfieldBorn Jun 19, 1891Proof that a political cartoon does not need a pencil. Heartfield, born Helmut Herzfeld, anglicized his name during World War I in protest at anti-British fervor, then turned photomontage into a weapon for the communist weekly Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung. He cut Hitler out of press photographs…0
  7. 7Boris YefimovBoris YefimovThe view from inside the state. Yefimov, also spelled Efimov, drew for Pravda and was known as Stalin's favorite cartoonist, which makes him a very different case from the dissidents elsewhere on this list. His withering portrayals of Hitler and the Nazi leadership shaped how Soviet readers saw the…0
  8. 8HerblockHerblockBorn Oct 13, 1909The conscience of the Washington Post for 58 years. Herblock drew there from 1943 until 2001, after 14 years at the Chicago Daily News, and he gave the English language the word McCarthyism. Richard Nixon was his longest-running target: he drew Vice President Nixon climbing out of a sewer, his…0
  9. 9Victor WeiszVictor WeiszA left-wing cartoonist whose best joke backfired. Born in Berlin to Hungarian-Jewish parents, Victor Weisz reached London in October 1935 and, signing himself Vicky, drew for the News Chronicle, the Daily Mirror from 1954 and the Evening Standard from 1958, with work for the New Statesman…0
  10. 10Bill MauldinBill MauldinBorn Oct 29, 1921The cartoonist of the ordinary soldier. Drawing for the Army paper Stars and Stripes in World War II, Mauldin perfected Willie and Joe, two muddy, weary dogfaces whose tired jokes showed home the drabness of a foot soldier's life. The cartoons won him a Pulitzer in 1945, and he later won a second.…0