WHAT THOSE PEOPLE NEED IS A PUPPY! <i> by Pat Oliphant (Andrews & McMeel: $8.95)</i> : GIVE THOSE NYMPHS SOME HOOTERS! <i> by G. B. Trudeau (Andrews & McMeel: $6.95)</i>

Mordant commentary on the first year of the Bush Administration from two Pulitzer Prize-winners. Australian-born Pat Oliphant probably is the most influential political cartoonist working in America today. His simplified drawing style and use of a tiny character (Punk, the penguin) who offers a second punch line to his cartoons have been widely imitated, but not improved. With merciless wit, he caricatures Jim Wright as a fire hydrant fleeing a pack of Republican dogs and Oliver North as a mouse (or rat) caught in the trap of justice.

For Garry Trudeau, George Bush remains a cipher wrapped in an American flag. Trudeau uses the regular cast of “Doonesbury” to satirize contemporary politics and mores. J. J.’s bathroom murals lampoon the boundless vulgarity of Donald Trump, Boopsie and Zonker turn up in Andy Warhol’s diaries and journalist Roland Hedley Jr. reports on the reviews of the “Islamic Critics Circle.” Trudeau remains the only major comic-strip artist to confront the AIDS crisis, and his cartoons of Andy Lippincott’s struggle with the disease blend sensitivity and humor, affirming the artist’s belief that satire requires a moral underpinning.