Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year #2004

Edited by Charles Brooks, this 2004 edition of the long-running annual anthology captures the sharpest political cartooning of its era in one handsome volume. Robert Ariail's cover sets the tone perfectly — a suited figure tumbles through a fractured, rubble-strewn landscape as a massive boulder labeled "HISTORY" barrels toward him, with skeletal remains and warning signs scattered across the crumbling ground. It's a vivid, darkly comic snapshot of the anxious mood that defined 2004, and a fitting preview of the pointed commentary waiting inside.