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National Archives Hosts 11th Annual McGowan Forum on Communications Nov. 18

October 22, 2015

On Wednesday, November 18, at 7 PM, the National Archives hosts the 11th Annual McGowan Forum on Communications titled “Drawn from the Headlines: Communication and Political Cartoons.” A panel of award-winning political cartoonists will discuss their work, inspiration, and motivation.  They will examine how political cartoons affect the political community and the public, and how technology has impacted the form. Moderated by David Sipress, cartoonist for The New Yorker, the panel features Tom Toles of The Washington Post, winner of the 2011 Herblock Award; Jen Sorensen, nationally-syndicated cartoonist and 2013 recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award; Keith Knight, award-winning creator of Knight Life and The K Chronicles; and Signe Wilkinson, the first female artist to win a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.  This program is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation with the generous support of the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund.

The event will be held in the William G. McGowan Theater of the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC. Attendees should use the Special Events entrance on Constitution Avenue at 7th Street, NW.  It will be webcast live via the Archives’ YouTube channel.  This program is free to the public, but reservations are recommended and can be made online. For those without reservations, seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. The doors to the building will open 45 minutes prior to the start of the program.

Keith Knight is a rapper, social activist, father, educator, and creator of three popular comic strips: the Knight Life, (th)ink, and the K Chronicles. For nearly two decades, this multi-award-winning artist has brought the funny back to the funny pages with a uniquely personal style that’s a cross between Calvin & Hobbes, MAD, and underground comix. Knight is part of a generation of  African-American artists who were raised on hip-hop, and infuse their work with urgency, edge, humor, satire, politics and race. His art has appeared in various publications worldwide, including the Washington Post, Daily KOS, San Francisco Chronicle, Salon.com, Ebony, ESPN the Magazine, L.A. Weekly, MAD Magazine, and  the Funny Times.

David Sipress’s first cartoon appeared in The New Yorker in 1998, and he was newyorker.com’s first Daily Cartoonist, during the 2012 Presidential election. His work has also appeared in the Boston Phoenix, Time, Parade, Playboy, Funny Times, the Washington Post, Harper’s,Gastronomica, and Shambhala Sun. Sipress has also lectured on the art of the cartoon, and he was the writer and host of “Conversations with Cartoonists,” a series of onstage interviews with many of the artists who work on the magazine. Sipress has published both fiction and nonfiction on narrative.com and on The New Yorker’s Web site, including “Marcella Hazan Changed My Life,” a tribute to the great Italian chef, and “My November 22, 1963,” an account of his family’s experience of the Kennedy assassination.

Jen Sorensen’s comics and illustrations have appeared in the The Progressive, The Nation, NPR.org, Ms. Magazine, Politico,  Daily Kos, AlterNet, Truthout, MAD, Nickelodeon, The Los Angeles Times, The Austin Chronicle, The Village Voice, In These Times, The Book of Jezebel, and dozens of other publications around the country. She has created commissioned long-form comics for the ACLU, NPR, Kaiser Health News,The Oregonian, and other clients. She grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and went on to attend the University of Virginia, where she studied cultural anthropology and drew cartoons for college publications. She started her weekly strip in 1998, which quickly became political as the 2000 election and 9/11 dominated the national conversation.

Tom Toles is the editorial cartoonist for The Washington Post and writes the Tom Toles blog. He joined the newspaper in 2002, after 19 years as the cartoonist for the Buffalo News and nine years with the Buffalo Courier-Express. He has also produced a syndicated a comic strip, “Curious Avenue,” and a syndicated panel, “Randolph Itch, 2 a.m.” His cartoons are collected in six books, and he is the author of a children’s book, “My School Is Worse Than Yours.” While at The Post, Toles has received the 2011 Herblock Award, the National Headliners Award, The Week magazine’s “cartoonist of the year” award, the Overseas Press Club Thomas Nast Award, the National Cartoonists Society “cartoonist of the year” award, the John Fischetti Award and the H.L Mencken Free Press Award. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1990.

Signe Wilkinson is an editorial cartoonist best known for her work at the Philadelphia Daily News.  Wilkinson is the first female cartoonist to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning (1992) and was once named “the Pennsylvania state vegetable substitute” by the former speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. She served as president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists from 1994-1995. In 2005 she published a collection of her work entitled One Nation, Under Surveillance. In 2007, Wilkinson began a syndicated daily comic strip,Family Tree, for United Media. She decided to end the strip in August 2011, with the last strip appearing on August 27. In 2011, Wilkinson received a Visionary Woman Award from Moore College of Art & Design.

The National Archives Museum in Washington, DC, is Metro accessible on the Yellow and Green lines, Archives/Navy Memorial station. To verify the date and times of the program, call the National Archives Public Programs Line at: 202-357-5000, or view the Calendar of Events online: http://www.archives.gov/calendar.

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For press information contact the National Archives Public Affairs staff at 202-357-5300.