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Power of Cartoons

Tuesday, 18th April, 2006

One of the most depressing times of my life was sitting behind the one way glass observings a skilled researcher talking with swinging voters about their opinions and how they gained them. At the time I was still a newspaper columnist solemnly giving the people my opinion about what was happening in their country. And what I continually heard was that none of the people who were about to decide who governed us ever glanced at a story about politics let alone read the editorial pages of their newspaper.

Ever read. But they did sometimes cast an eye over the editorial cartoon next to all those words. And sometimes their views were influenced by it. Cartoonists, I sadly realised, were far more influential players in the political game than a political journalist like me would ever be.

Which is bad news for President George Bush. In the US those cruel cartoonists are having a field day at his expense as any reader of Doonesbury in The Australian would well know.

Sometimes they make you laugh but sometimes they make you want to cry - like the cartoon above by Mike Lukovich which this week was in the portfolio which won him a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. The letters in the word "Why?" are formed by the names of 2,000 American soldiers who have died in Iraq. You will get the full impact if you look at this larger PDF version.

The full Lukovich winning portfolio can be seen at The Pulitzer Prize website.

Mike Lukovich, editorial cartoonist of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution , won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for cartooning. A native of Seattle, he graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in political science. He worked as a traveling salesman while dreaming of landing a cartooning job on a daily newspaper. At last he did with the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1984. Luckovich joined the Constitution in 1989. His work also appears in Time , the New York Times and other media.