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Comic History Editorial cartooning

A List: “11 of the Most Famous Political Cartoons in US History” (Our Mileage Varies)

Published: May 25, 2026 1 minute 12 comments

For whatever reason this list from the Freedom Forum of seven months ago popped up in my feed recently. The headline says “most famous” while the body of the article merely says “famous political cartoons.”

Scott A Leadingham puts his list in chronological order and it is hard to argue with his first and last choices.

The Benjamin Franklin‘s call for the colonies to coordinate their actions has certainly stood the test of time and Ann Telnaes‘ 2025 Paying Tribute to Trump has been seen around the world and, while not a part of her submitted portfolio, was surely a major reason that won her the only “Illustrated Reporting and Commentary Pulitzer Prize” awarded to a single panel cartoonist later that same year.

I won’t argue about the inclusion of Garry Trudeau‘s Doonesbury but I do take issue with it just being a generic naming – not listing any individual comic strip. C’mon, we all know the most famous Doonesbury.

Having said that I will now evasively put F. Opper‘s The Common Man on my list without specifying any individual cartoon. Opper’s fight against The Trusts’ control of the United States at the opening of the 20th Century included his put-upon Persona of the Public at Large. Tagged “The Common Man” in the drawing, the captions called him “The Little Boy” for a while before The Common Man replaced The Little Boy in the captions below. Vaughan Shoemaker would re-imagine Opper’s The Common Man as his “John Q. Public.” But I give Opper the credit for creating an image of the exploited American Taxpayer.

Walt McDougall and Valeriean Gribayedoff “The Royal Feast of Belshazzar Blaine”

“The Royal Feast of Belshazzar Blaine and The Money Kings” on the front page of The New York World above the fold by Walt McDougall and Valeriean Gribayedoff in 1884 put newspaper political cartoons front and center both figuratively and literally. Some claimed this editorial cartoon, that has an atmosphere of today’s politics, threw the election from Blaine to Cleveland.

Boss Tweed by Thomas Nast

And how can any list of “Most Famous Political Cartoons in US History” not include the most famous Thomas Nast image of Boss Tweed??!!

“A Perfect Soldier” by Robert Minor

110 years after Robert Minor‘s 1915 depiction of “A Perfect Soldier” for The Masses it is still brought back on a regular basis.

My list. And my rules say only one cartoon per cartoonist on the list. So as much as I love Bill Mauldin‘s “I’ve decided I want my seat back” from 1963 I have to go with the Lincoln Memorial mourning the assassination of John F. Kennedy as “the most famous.”

“Fire!” by Herblock

Like Mauldin there are so many great Herblock cartoons (between the two of them I have over a dozen of their books). I choose from 1949 what seems to be, sadly, an evergreen.

That’s nine cartoons on my list. Leaving two spots open. Any suggestions?

Should more from the original list make it onto mine?

Bonus List from Spring 2025: “The Most Infamous Political Cartoons in History.”

An international list that doesn’t include David Low‘s Rendezvous!

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Comments 12

  1. Ding Darling belongs on the list, either for his Teddy Roosevelt riding up to heaven or the Prussian snake swallowing the world. Honorable mention to Daniel Fitzpatrick’s Nazi swastika rolling over Czechoslovakia.

  2. I think Tom Toles’ “battle hardened” is worthy of mention.

  3. Anything about the Chicken-Hawk Battalion being led by Captain Bonespurs.

    “Let’s you and him fight.”
    Wimpy

  5. There’s a few other political cartoonists to consider, though finding samples of their work is tricky. Oscar Cesare (only one book from 1916, as far as I know), Burt Thomas (hanged if I can find a selection, though often in “The Literary Digest”), Clifford Berryman (at least his earlier stuff; collections of his work are scattershot, and “Drawing the Line in Mississippi” might be an individual candidate), Luther Bradley (one book from 1917, as far as I know, but often published in “The Literary Digest”), Billy Ireland (one book in his lifetime, some good collections, “Literary Digest”), maybe Winsor McCay, though most of his editorial cartoons had to back insipid editorials. Some of Jay Darling’s environmentally-based cartoons might be individual candidates. Mildly surprised no one has spoken up for either Paul Conrad or Pat Oliphant, here.

    1. A fine list of great political cartoonists, Conrad is a particular favorite (https://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2010/09/brilliance-of-paul-conrad.html), but you only list one individual cartoon as famous and that maybe only to cartoon and teddy bear fans. I don’t think of any particular cartoon when Oliphant comes to mind like I did with McCutcheon or Trudeau. Is there a famous cartoon comparable to the Robert Minor classic in the Oscar Cesare book? https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66242/pg66242-images.html
      The list is not for a body of work but for a single memorable, famous cartoon.

      1. In terms of Conrad, there’s a well-known cartoon with the face of Richard Nixon made out of a spider web, and one where Conrad depicts Nixon as a Shakespearean king (which is on the cover of “The King and Us”). In terms of Darling, I would suggest “As Land Goes So Goes Man” (10/22/1944), one of the best of his environment-themed cartoons. I admit you might be right with Oliphant, in that he has a vast number of very good cartoons, but not many that stick out historically. Luther Bradley’s 8/4/1914 cartoon, showing “heathen and half-civilized” people in a decidedly ironic context, sardonically watching the outbreak of World War I, is a cartoon that might make many wince today, but the basic point survives, especially when you consider the arrogance of colonial empires at the time. Not a well known cartoon, but one that stick out for students of World War I. I might add Rollin Kirby’s 1920 cartoon showing “Mr. Dry” saying “Now then, all together: My Country Tis of Thee” as being highly influential at the time, and was in many history books. Cesare’s cartoon “Out of the Depths,” commenting on the sinking of the Lusitania, is a pungent (and superbly executed) cartoon, one that I’ve seen reproduced in some history books.

  6. I would include “Here lies Richard Nixon”, epitaph on his tombstone, by Paul Conrad.

  7. Rick McKees’ cartoon showing the “Founders”. I don’t know the name of the cartoon but it is shown on the homepage of this website: The Daily Cartoonist.

  8. There’s something off about that ALOT article. After the first couple, the descriptions really feel like AI text. And one of the cartoons is attributed to “G. Frederick Keller,” but clearly signed by G. E. Ciani. Also, the purported writer has several disparate articles attributed to him. Whatever the reason for this questionable work, I’ll take your list over that one any day.

  9. How did Walt Kelly and Pogo not make your list. At a minimum “We have meant the enemy, and he is us.” should have made your list.

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