Illustrating the Labor Movement

Illustrating the Labor Movement
Cartoonists Draw on Workers’ History

by Mike Konopacki

The typical cartoon in today’s mainstream press is essentially the artist’s take on the headline du jour. Usually, that means illustrating some aspect of the liberal vs. conservative debate. At Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons, Gary Huck and I have found that labor cartoons can do much more. By going to the root of working-class struggle, labor cartoonists are "radical" in their expression of workers’ challenges, outrage, and, ultimately, empowerment. Labor cartoons are radical even in the sense that they acknowledge the existence of a working class, a concept that has all but disappeared off the media’s screen, replaced by the amorphous, nearly all-encompassing "middle class." (read more at http://www.resistinc.org/newsletter/issues/2002/11/konopacki.html