Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year #1985

The 1985 edition of this annual showcase, edited by Charles Brooks with a foreword by Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, Jr., rounds up the sharpest political cartooning the newspaper world had to offer that year. The cover sets the tone perfectly: a lanky, loose-limbed figure — unmistakably a caricature of a cowboy-style politician — rides a three-dimensional map of the United States as if it were a bucking bronco, hat in one hand and reins in the other. It's a witty snapshot of mid-'80s American political energy, and the collection it promises is a vivid time capsule of the era's biggest headlines filtered through ink and irony.