The Art of Ill Will - The Story of American Political Cartoons (Paperback)

Winner of the 2008 AAUP Book, Jacket, and Journal Show in the Trade Illustrated Book Design category.

View author interview on Brian Lehrer Live

"Not just a story of cartoons but a history of America through cartoons. Agreat gift book."
--"Brian Lehrer Live"

"An afternoon with The Art of Ill Will is time well spent, especially when followed by Funny Times, the cartoon monthly, and The Colbert Report."
--"New York Times Book Review"

"The true stars of this book are the cartoons themselves. During a period when an entire government seems drawn by a sartirist, its instructive to look back at a history of politics reduced to two dimensions. "
--"Village Voice"

"Dewey makes a strong case that the political cartoons has played a uniquely formative role in American history."--"Cartoon News"

"[A] handsome and bracingly irreverent history of the form."
--"New York Sun"

"This will make a nice coffee-table title for political junkies."
--"Publishers Weekly"

"This hybrid volume mixing history and sociology with political cartoons entertainingly brings the past to light. "
--"Library Journal"

"[Dewey's] well-researched text offers insight into the historical setting that allowed the form the burgeon in the late nineteenth century, as well as interesting anecdotal information that illuminates shadowed elements of political history."
--Popmatters.com

"Several previous titles have tackled this important subject, but none equals the depth, breadth, and value of this new title."
--"The Bloomsbury Review"

"More than 200 pungent examples, from the days of Paul Revere and Benjamin Franklin to thepresent, with a smooth text that explains the special punch of editorial cartoonists."
--"The Philadelphia Inquirer"

"A striking panorama of the unruly history of the American cartoonists trade. "
--"Austin American Statesman"

"Covers many, widely unknown political battles and scandals as well as cartoons that steered and swayed mass opinion with a one panel drawing."--"Alarm"

"Provides hundreds of examples of . . . puncturing the myths and mendacities in the political arena."--"Copley News Service"

The Art of Ill Will is a comprehensive history of American political cartooning, featuring over two hundred illustrations. From the colonial period to contemporary cartoonists like Pat Oliphant and Jimmy Margulies, Donald Dewey highlights these artists uncanny ability to encapsulate the essence of a situation and to steer the public mood with a single drawing and caption. Taking advantage of unlimited access to The Granger Collection, which holds thousands of the most significant works of Thomas Nast and the other early American cartoonists, The Art of Ill Will provides a survey of American history writ large, capturing the voice of the peopleᾹhopeful, angry, patriotic, frustratedᾹin times of peace and war, prosperity and depression.

Dewey tracks the cartoonists role as a jester with a serious brief. Ulysses S. Grant credited cartoonists with helping him win his election and was not the only president to feel that way; political bosses and even state legislatures have sought to ban cartoons when they endangered entrenched interests; General George Patton once promised to throw beloved wartime cartoonist Bill Mauldin in jail if he continued to spread dissent.(Mauldin later won the Pulitzer Prize.)

Despite the increasing threats they face as daily newspapers merge or vanish, cartoonists have given us some of our most memorable images, from Theodore Roosevelt's pince-nez and mustache to Richard Nixon's Pinocchio nose to Jimmy Carters Chiclet teeth. At a time when domestic and foreign political developments have made these artists more necessary than ever, The Art of Ill Will is a rich collection of the wickedly clever images that puncture pomposity and personalize American history.

Cartoonists include: Benjamin Franklin (whose Join, or Die was the first modern American political cartoon), the astoundingly prolific Thomas Nast, "Puck" magazine founder Joseph Keppler, Adalbert Volck, suffragist Laura Foster, Uncle Sam creator James Montgomery Flagg, Theodore Geisel departing from his Dr. Seuss persona to tackle World War II, Herbert Herblock Block (who so enraged Richard Nixon that the president canceled his subscription to the Washington Post), Daniel Fitzpatrick, Jules Feiffer, Paul Conrad, Gary Trudeau, and the controversial Ted Rall.