John Heartfield

Proof 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 and rebuilt him: in Adolf the Superman, from July 1932, an X-ray shows gold coins running down the Nazi leader's throat, the caption adding that he swallows gold and spouts junk. The covers were funny, frightening and instantly readable on a newsstand. He reached number five on the Gestapo's most-wanted list and fled over the mountains to Czechoslovakia.