Lately, I’ve been wondering whether journalists could be considered artists. I’ve come to the decision that they were not considered artists until Americans were dumbed-down by cable television, the media oligarchy, and the internet.
All one needs to do is watch Fox News to witness a new absurdist theatre.
In the history of real news, however, editorial cartoonists have always been the ultimate bullshit detectors. They’re still doing the punchy, truth-telling work that today’s journalists avoid, for one reason >cough< media conglomerates >cough< or another.
Thank god cartoonists and other artists have the courage to offend.
By performance, pen, or palette, the democratic power of human-generated art is not to be underestimated.
This is why I send out calls to artists of all disciplines to lean into their collective authority through Res Creativa, a new initiative.
From Thomas Nast popularizing political symbols and taking on “Boss” Tweed, to Herbert Block (a/k/a Herblock) coining the term “McCarthyism,” cartoonists have always done the heavy lifting.
Some political illustrations offend people.
Good.
A version of this post was originally published on Substack, May 17, 2026
Banner image: Cartoonist Joe Hoover’s rendering of conservative U.S. Senator Jesse Helms in BDSM attire as part of his series, “The Open Prairie.” The cartoons that ran in LGBTQ newspapers in the United States in the mid-1990s, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
