The Best Political Cartoons of the Year 2025

Transcript:

76 Best of 2025 for Transcript
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Speaker: Hi, I am Daryl Cagle and this is the Caglecast where we're all about political cartoons. And today we have the best cartoons of 2025, the 75 best cartoons. That's a heck of a lot of cartoons. These are the 75 cartoons that were most reprinted in America in all of 2025. And this is cartoon number 10 by Dave Whamond from Calgary, Canada.

And it's got the two guys on the street and the bum says, Hey, remember when I used to spend money like a fool and you told me to invest it, or I'd end up with nothing. Well, now we both have nothing. At least I had fun. I think that's pretty funny. What you're gonna notice when you look at these 75 cartoons is that.

Editors have perhaps a little different taste than what you expect on YouTube. On YouTube, people like strong, hard hitting cartoons. The most traffic we get is [00:01:00] Trump bashing cartoons in newspapers. You don't see that much Trump in the 75 most reprinted cartoons in America in 2025. There are only two cartoons that depict Trump.

Ah, hard to believe. You know, if you're aspiring cartoonist and you're sending cartoons to us, keep in mind that we need to sell something. And these guys like Dave Wman, he draws lots of hard hitting cartoons, but he also draws a few cartoons that editors want to reprint, and we're out of business if we don't get any of those.

So, uh, keep it in mind. Now what's gonna happen here is that I'm gonna go through the top 10, the top top five of the top 10, and then the last five I'm gonna do after the slides show of 75 cartoons. You see if you can watch that and guess which cartoons? America's timid newspaper editors like. The most and reprinted the most.

Each of these cartoons appeared in probably between 150 and 250 newspapers, and the editors have [00:02:00] a choice of dozens of cartoons every day to pick from. So it means a lot that a cartoon shows up being this popular in this bunch, in this 75, because we had thousands of cartoons this year from the a hundred cartoonists in our group.

So. These are great cartoons, whether they're actually the best. That's a subjective thing, but they are in fact the most popular with newspaper editors and the most read in newspapers. So let's go with number nine. Okay, here we are with number nine. This is by Chris Wyant and it's a compass. He's just showing that the Democrats don't quite know where they're going 'cause that compass is broken.

I think that's acute cartoon number nine. Here's number eight. Also by Chris Weyant drawn for the hill in Washington. And the guy says, any chance I could get a cotton of eggs instead? You know, expensive eggs around, uh, last spring were all the rage on the news programs and with all the cartoonists and the editors love it.

No Trump and expensive eggs, [00:03:00] cartoons. So this one is by Dave Granland, back to School Refresher course for drivers. In case you forgot over the summer that you should slow down for children that are in the street. Now. This is the perfect example from Grandma and Grandpa's newspaper of the editorial cartoons that they like to see.

You should slow down with your driving care for those kids in the streets as uh, Ukraine is. Burning and, uh, tariffs are horrifying. The world and ice is in the streets, grabbing people and, you know, everybody's worried about affordability and we're about to lose our health insurance. Hey, what we want in the newspaper is remember to slow down for children in the street.

So I want you to to keep in mind that what the best cartoons are is a subjective matter. What the cartoons that editors of newspapers want is what we're showing you here. And if you're an aspiring cartoonist, you're looking to submit cartoons to us and you wonder what we want. Well, we want cartoonists to do what they want, and we [00:04:00] want to have hard hitting cartoons and be part of the panoply of.

Great tough editorial cartoons, that is our history. But at the same time, we gotta have something to sell. And so if you're cartoonist like Dave Granland or Chris Wyant or Dave Wand, you know, they mix in a few cartoons that they know editors will want. Just kinda tip your hat. To the marketplace, just pay the tiniest little bit of respect to supply and demand, and that's how you make your career as a cartoonist.

Otherwise you can just spend your whole, all your time drawing stuff that editors don't want and you can't make a living at this. So, you know, we all compromise a little bit to make a living and that's what you're seeing. So here's another expensive Eggs cartoon by John Darkow, who is just a brilliant cartoonist.

You know, he draws this on in pencil, on paper, the guy says. Hey girls, forget the golden eggs. I can make more from the regular ones. It's funny and here is cartoon number six, [00:05:00] AI cartoon. And you know, editors love ai. AI is all the rage in cartoons. It appears to be having trouble getting over the rug.

Perhaps the Roomba was not the best choice to lead the charge for the AI takeover. Another one from Dave Whamond in Calgary, Canada. This is great. Okay, now you've seen half of the top 10. You're gonna watch the slideshow of the 75 most popular with editors. Most reprinted in newspapers, probably about 150 to 250 newspapers.

Each chose to reprint each of these cartoons in 2025 out of the thousands of cartoons that we received from us and from other syndicates. So, uh, this is the cream that rose to the top. Now, after you watch these 75 cartoons, zip by in the slideshow, I'm gonna show you the top five. You see if you can guess what they are as you're watching 'em in the slideshow.

Let me interject here. Please, please subscribe wherever you're watching this. Please like and subscribe. That [00:06:00] does a lot to help us out with this podcast, and it does a lot to make me happy. And all the cartoonists get happy when you subscribe to everybody's happy, so please subscribe and when you subscribe, consider also subscribing to kegel.com/subscribe.

Our daily free email newsletter where you get the top three cartoons of. The day that editors are reprinting most in the newspaper that day or the following morning, and you get to see them before they're in the newspaper, and it is, it's just so cool. And don't you wanna know what's popular? Remember you also go to kegel.com and see all the cartoons.

You go to my blog at Darylcagle.com and see the top 10 cartoons of week every week. But. Subscribe to that free email newsletter. My goodness. It's delivered to you hot and fresh. And hey, if you wanna see all the cartoons, including those cartoons about events outside of the new United States, that newspaper editors here don't like to print and about.

Trump, which we see all the time on tv, but not all the [00:07:00] time on the editorial page because I guess editors just think that's, that's too disturbing a cartoon to see. Well then you can get all the disturbing cartoons in our premium newsletter, which costs only $6 a month and what a deal that is quid at any time.

It is just great fun to get a ton of cartoons in your email box from the hundred cartoonists that are drawing them. So subscribe, subscribe, and back to our podcast.[00:08:00] [00:09:00] [00:10:00] [00:11:00] [00:12:00] [00:13:00] [00:14:00] [00:15:00]

So you're gonna be able to guess which ones were the [00:16:00] five most popular ones. This cartoon is also from Dave Whamond from Calgary, Canada, and the guys are talking about P Field there on Groundhog Day. Likely ran on Groundhog Day, and the guy says, so did the groundhog notice his shadow? The other guy says he doesn't notice anything anymore because he's always looking down at his phone.

Here is cartoon number three by Dave Granlund, and he's got the old guy, typical demographic of a newspaper reader sitting in the hospital and he said, this makes me sick, and it's the health insurance cost spiking again, as he's reading the newspaper in bed like you'd. Do in the hospital and Dave Granlund understands the supply and demand.

If you are a amateur cartoonist and you wanna know how to make it as an editorial cartoonist, you just have to occasionally tip your hat to supply and demand. You can't make everything an angry rant. Or, uh, you're gonna have nothing to sell. And we have a whole lot of cartoonists thrown, a whole lot of anger expressing their [00:17:00] souls, and we love that.

That's our tradition as editorial cartoonists. We don't do that all the time, but if we did it all the time, we would never sell anything because. The editors don't wanna print what is in our souls, which is really kind of sad. But, uh, hey, these are the most reprinted, most popular cartoons of the year, and that doesn't mean that they express what's in our souls.

And this one. Is the most popular, most reprinted, most beloved by editors Cartoon of the year. John Ross May by Rick McKee from Florida. He's got the young graduate at graduation day typing into his phone. Hey, chat, GPT, write my graduation speech on a 12th grade level and make me sound real smart. I think that's funny.

Young people nowadays with their phones, you know, who can figure anyway? Um, if he had been a, a little bit smarter young man, perhaps he would've written his speech in advance, but you don't have to when [00:18:00] you've got your phone in the chat, GPT. So, um, hey, that's the story. Those are, uh, all the most popular cartoons of the year, 2025.

Remember, please do subscribe, subscribe, go to kegel.com/subscribe, and you will get those three most popular cartoons every day. And if you wanna see those cartoons that express cartoonists inner anger about. Trump and about the world, then subscribe to our premium newsletter for only $6 a month. You get every darn cartoon and you can see what's happening in the world, unlike what's happening on the editorial page of your local newspaper.

So thank you so much for joining us, and uh, I will see you on the next one.