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The 1980 edition of the Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year series, which has been banned by government authorities at the 1979 Moscow international Book Fair, contains the best works of some 130 leading editorial cartoonists from the United States and Canada and focuses on the 25 major news stories of the year.
Published each year since 1972, the 1980 edition features a foreword by Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York who analyzes the reluctance of the Soviet Union to allow its citizens to read such works.
If there be no other value to this new compilation of Americaï¿1/2s best editorial cartoons, he writes, let the reader examine it closely to learn precisely what it is that makes the government of a presumed superpower tremble.
He observes that, as the Soviets apparently have discovered, there are few things more subversive than humor.
Included among the news stories covered by the cartoonistsï¿1/2 works are the holding of American hostages in Iran, the oil crisis, inflation, Supreme Court decisions, and the idiosyncracies of politicians everywhere.
About the author
In addition to his lifetime of work as an editorial cartoonist, Charles Brooks has had another rewarding long-time career: that of editor of Pelican's Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year Series. This landmark series, begun in 1972, showcases the work of editorial cartoonists from the United States and Canada. Throughout his life, Brooks has not only seen history unfold before his eyes, but he also has recorded it for posterity in his cartoons. So, too, do the editorial cartoonists that he chooses to appear in each edition of Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year. The cartoons, inevitably more famous than the cartoonists themselves, become a part of the history that they capture. Charles Brooks is past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and was a cartoonist for the Birmingham (Ala.) News for thirty-eight years. He has been the recipient of thirteen Freedom Foundation awards, a national VFW award, two Vigilante Patriot awards, and a Sigma Delta Chi award for editorial cartooning. Brooks' cartoons appear in more than eighty books, including textbooks on political science, economics, and history, as well as encyclopedias and yearbooks. His original cartoons are on display in the archives of many libraries.
