courtesy The R. F. Outcault Society

The Big Type War of the Yellow Kids New York Journal publisher William Randolph Hearst and rival Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World duke it out in this cartoon, originally published ca. 1898 in VIM Magazine. Their "yellow" journalism instigated the Spanish-American War. The term "yellow" journalism itself came from a popular – and controversy-causing – cartoon ("The Yellow Kid") that appeared in the newspapers.

Cartoons do more than break up the gray areas of a newspaper. They add commentary and challenge values. They are appropriate for all publications. Check out The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly, if you doubt that.

Cartoonists have influenced our language, our politics and our conscience. They have given a voice and body to a variety of ideas.

What are the associations we have with Linus, Charlie Brown, Cathy and Dagwood? What views of life today are presented in "Non Sequitur," "Dilbert" and "For Better or For Worse" that cannot be found in "Apartment 3-G" and "Rex Morgan, M.D."?

Rube Goldberg satirized 20th century technology in his most well-known cartoons. McNutt, Lala Palooza and Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, inventor of many contraptions, were his creations.

In his comic books Maus, Art Spiegelman used cats and mice to comment on the Holocaust. He won a Pulitzer Prize. The political satire of Garry Trudeau was so searing many papers moved "Doonesbury" to the commentary page.

Herb Block (Herblock) began his career as an editorial cartoonist in 1946 at The Washington Post. It was he who coined the term "McCarthyism." Fifty years later he continues to comment on politics and culture.

Cartoonists even changed the industry. In 1940, Chicago Tribune's Joseph Medill Patterson is said to have told Dalia Messick that he would never hire a woman artist, so Messick redrew her series under the name "Dale Messick" and her new comic strip, Brenda Starr, was in print.

With advice from professionals in the field, the editorial cartoons section of this Web site will show budding artists how to use drawings to express an opinion.