I think he’s the wittiest, pithiest political cartoonist working today. What do you think?
I totally agree. I have his daily cartoon set up to show up on my PC every morning. I addition to his ability to cut through bullshit and connect dots, he has a strong environmentalist streak.
I think that he’s a partisan hack. Sometimes he hits the mark, but more often he seems to be running the “Republicans are evil, and the Democrats need to grow a set of balls (meaning they need to do what I think they should be doing”. Toles is a blight on an otherwise excellent and balanced newspaper.
So what? Every political cartoonist has a political position. What would be the point otherwise? It’s wit and talent that make one better than another, and Toles has got them.
Curiously, however . . . I can’t think of any really good, funny editorial cartoonists whose politics are conservative. And neither could anyone else when I ran this thread.
I’m not criticizing his having a political position; I’m criticizing his having a bias, in this instance meaning being blind to the advantages of one group and at least partially blind to another’s faults. I think the way he treats Republicans in general and Bush in specific goes beyond having a political position and into having a personal vendetta.
I’m not against cartoonists having political positions. I like Boondocks, although I think Mcgruder is on occasion guilty of the same bias as Toles. I also like Doonesbury, which I often find thought provoking, if not especially funny.
I seem to remember Toles doing a different single-panel cartoon in the 90’s; not a political cartoon, but a series about a guy’s nightmares, sort of Far Side in overall feel. That cartoon also had the motif of a small character in the bottom corner commenting on the action in the main part of the panel. Of course, I can’t remember the name of the cartoon, nor can I find any reference to it since most of the Google references center around Toles’ political cartooning. Does anyone else remember this? I suppose it’s possible that it wasn’t Toles’ work, but from what I remember the drawing style was basically identical. Any help?
Toles was the cartoonist for the *Buffalo News * before he went to Washngton. I’ve been reading his stuff for years. He ran Clinton pretty hard too.
He won the pulitzer in 1990. My google-fu finds a ton of references, but I can’t find the cartoon itself.
brossa, He did a comic strip for a while called Randolf Itch 2am. It was part of his deal at the Post. It wasn’t that good and didn’t last very long.
I was going to say this too. I haven’t read much of his stuff lately but he mocked Clinton mercilessly. I even remember him making fun of Walter Mondale back in the day.
I have to defend the guy to some extent, he is one of the more famous graduates of the State University of New York at Buffalo, my alma mater.
Maybe I’m wrong in saying he has a political bias. His cartoons still fail to resonate with me. Too many cheap shots, IMO. But I’ll try to keep a more open mind in the future when I look at them.
And he certainly has a SUNY disposition! 
(OK, you were probably sick of that one a month into your freshmen year, but it’s fresh to the rest of us!)
Position = bias.
I can see why you think that.
The New Republic ran hm back then as well. That’s where I first encountered his work.
Gotta tell you, I never heard that one before.
I grew up in New York and there has to be a couple dozen SUNY (pronounced “SOON-ee”) schools statewide. Everyone knows what you mean when you say SUNY this or SUNY that.
Having said that though I did once get a package that my parents had sent me from some catalog outift, Harry and David, or something like that.
It was addressed to me at my dorm in “Sunny Buffalo”. Amazingly I got it.
I like Toles, I usually get a chuckle out of his take on the news. Is he the best? Nah. My top 3 are Mike Lukovich, Doug Marlette (though he really should drop “Kudzu”, it sucks on ice) and Jim Borgman.
I think he’s still pretty good, but in the late 80s and early 90s he was the best in the business. His “flag desecration” cartoon form aboutt en years ago was the best I’ve seen on the subject.