Researchers like to categorize and count things. Most of the few scholarly studies of editorial cartoons involve making subjective judgements about cartoons to divide the cartoons into categories selected for the study.
I gave Political Science professor Dr. Jody Baumgartner full access to our archives to do a study on editorial cartoons about Coronavirus. Baumgartner and his colleague Dr. Hanna Kassab categorized and counted only CagleCartoons.com content, and their study has just been published; see it here.
The study asked if political cartoonists are “Critics” or “Cheerleaders.” The researchers studied only CagleCartoons that were about COVID during the time of the pandemic.
The conclusion of the study? Political cartoonists are “cheerleaders” for the establishment. We prefer to think of ourselves as critics. Calling us “cheerleaders” sounds a bit rude.
Perhaps Baumgartner and Kassab are conservative and were looking for more cartoons bashing Dr. Fauci, resisting mask mandates, promoting conspiracy theories, and shilling Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, injected bleach and anti-vaxxer nonsense.
Here are the ten most reprinted pandemic cartoons since 2019. (Keep in mind that editors like for us to be cheerleaders for truth.) Congratulations to Jeff Koterba for taking four out of ten, and to Rick McKee and Dave Granlund for each having two on the Top Ten!
