Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year #1990

Edited by Charles Brooks, this 1990 annual collects the sharpest political cartooning of its moment — a year when the world was visibly cracking open. The cover, drawn by Clyde Wells of the Augusta Chronicle, captures that mood perfectly: two silhouetted figures breach a crumbling wall topped with barbed wire, one wielding a hammer against a sickle in a striking visual pun on the Soviet symbol. It's a compact, powerful image that sets the tone for a volume full of pen-and-ink commentary on one of history's more remarkable years.