The ninth edition of Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year follows the same successful format as the previous volumes. Each book not only entertainingly encapsulates the year's history-making events as they happened, but also records for posterity the opinions they generated.James Kilpatrick, nationally syndicated political commentator, in his foreword to this volume, extols the cartoonist's "ability to extract the essence of an idea and to distill it with shutter-speed swiftness into a single drop of critical comment."The 140 contributing cartoonists rained down their "critical comment" in 1980 on the Ayatollah Khomeini, the presidential candidates, the Russian leaders, the voter, the consumer, and all those who peopled the passing scene of 1980 to become tomorrow's history.In the more than 350 cartoons chosen for this volume, the contributors focused their rapier wit on such topics as the Carter-Reagan-Anderson presidential campaign, the Iran-Iraq conflict, the hostage internment, the American Olympic boycott, the Canadian political developments, mounting environmental problems, and spiraling inflation.ABOUT THE EDITOREditor Charles Brooks is past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and for thirty-eight years was a cartoonist for the Birmingham News. He has been the recipient of thirteen Freedom Foundation Awards, a national VFW Award, two Vigilante Patriot Awards, and a Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial cartooning.