Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year #2005

Edited by Charles Brooks, this 2005 edition of the long-running annual anthology gathers the sharpest political cartooning the year had to offer. The cover features a J. D. Crowe cartoon from the Mobile Register — a stark, crosshatched image of three masked, armed figures labeled "Islamic Extremists" flanking a kneeling figure labeled "Islam," a candle held aloft in a scene that captures one of the defining anxieties of the mid-2000s news cycle. It's a pointed reminder of how editorial cartoonists distilled complex world events into a single, unflinching image.