Unlike objective analysis of events or issues, editorial or political cartoons provide perspective, and a knitting together of complexities. They do not suffer from the same diminished intellectual status as comic strips and cartoon books. Indeed they—or rather the artists who draw them—are esteemed as "functioning subversives, waging war on the powerful, the exploiters, and the privileged. The political cartoons of Thomas Nast, published in Harper's Weekly, are credited with bringing down the corrupt "Boss" Tweed administration of Tammany Hall in the 1870s in New York. Moreover, editorial cartoons are hailed by some as what keep us free. "There is nothing that tyrants and rascals fear more than satire and ridicule, and the graphic form has always proved to be uniquely painfu. Freedom of expression for the political cartoonists is a litmus test for democracy.
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