Mel and the Middle East

From Beirut to Malibu, last week’s top story was about a world at war. Political cartoons from World War II through the Cold War tended to be menacing and stark. Hulking representations of Nazism, communism and totalitarianism loomed darkly over fragile populations, threatening women, alarming children and spooking dogs. Today, as alarmists sound a World War III warning in the Middle East, the throwback imagery of Pat Oliphant and Jeff Danziger retrofits perfectly. Clay Bennett’s peace signs bring us graphically into the 1960s, while Kevin Siers’ tongue-lashing of Mel Gibson is so au courant. And if Mel’s traffic-stop mouth-off inflames global anti-Semitism, well, we all know who’s to blame. — Joel Pett

Joel Pett is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist of the Lexington Herald-Leader. His work also appears in USA Today.