Cartoons that pack a punch
"People read thousands of words every day," says Jack Higgins, the Chicago Sun-Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, "but they remember pictures more than anything."
And therein lies the power of the editorial cartoon.
One frame can reveal, explain, poke, prod, provoke, embarrass, amuse, enrage and expose. It can become a simple but lasting image that reflects the mood of a city or a nation. Often without even a word.
Over the years, the Sun-Times has had some of the world's best cartoonists. We are celebrating our 60th birthday this month. To mark it, today we are republishing some of our best cartoons. Even more can be found at www.suntimes.com.
Higgins, who joined the Sun-Times in 1981 and won the Pulitzer in 1989, made the selections.
"I'd say with people like Bill Mauldin, John Fischetti and Jacob Burck, you've got three of maybe the 10 greatest from the 20th century," Higgins says. "Bill Mauldin being perhaps the greatest. He has left an indelible print on journalism. People will look at his cartoons 200 years from now, and they'll know who is he. He defined his time."
Mauldin's most famous cartoon for the Sun-Times -- and among the most famous editorial cartoons of all time -- was drawn the day John F. Kennedy was killed. It shows the Abraham Lincoln statue from the Lincoln Memorial -- with Lincoln's face buried in his hands in grief.
Jackie Kennedy asked for the original and placed it in the Kennedy Library at Harvard.
Higgins, who used to deliver the Sun-Times as a kid, grew up on Mauldin's work and considers him an early influence.
"All politics is local," Higgins says. "It's also loco -- which is where the cartoonist can come in and have some fun with it."
Coming up with a final product can be a 10-hour project for him. He wakes early, pores through the news of the day, then brainstorms ideas.
"Usually, it's something that gets me angry because, like anybody else, when you're angry, you think," he says, "I get very passionate about it. And when something really disturbs me, it gets my juices flowing.
"I'll figure out what bothers me most about something, and how I can take the issue, turn it around, stand it on its head and stick my tongue out at it, so to speak."