Dark Matter
Joel Pett is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist of the Lexington Herald-Leader. His work also appears in USA Today.
Cartoonists are natural contrarians. To paraphrase John Mellencamp, we smite authority, but authority always wins. Irritatingly, the authority in question often wants a signed copy of the cartoon. Authorities tend to have big egos.
Ours is a world of worst-face scenarios. To Tony Auth, Uncle Sam is a duplicitous sneak, stage-managing the darkest aspects of a disastrous war. And Tom Toles sees the leader of the free world as a patsy in Vladimir V. Putin’s freedom roadkill photo op. To us, it’s a bad, bad, bad world out there, and as we stoop to smell the roses we detect a vague hint of herbicide. But sometimes, like Chip Bok, we snap out of our persistently agitative states and actually defend authority. What a contrarian. Can I get a signed copy?
More to Read
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.