WHAT'S SO FUNNY?

NICK ANDERSON AND MIKE LUCKOVICH
OPENING JUNE 11, 2026

Chronicling over half of US history, the comic strip is a uniquely American art form. Ever since the scrappy slang-spewing bald headed Yellow Kid from Hogan's Alley appeared in 1895’s New York newsprint exposing urban immigrant squalor, the American audience has feasted on illustrated social commentary in a box.

Often the readers’ first go-to, the comics fueled newspaper sales and competition between publishers, all pushing to be the most entertaining. Full weekday pages and entire Sunday sections featured dozens of comic strips (color reserved for weekends), many with dramatic storylines that pulled devotees from one day to the next. 

Popularizing characters spawned a rich mixture of American cartoon and caricature: from waxed paper comics lining bubble-gum wrappers to urbane sketches in The New Yorker. 

The genre even earned the ultimate badge of Americana with a seminal United States Postal Service stamp design honoring the newspaper comic strip. By the 1990s, a national museum of cartoon art opened and closed, but importantly became the largest collection of cartoon art at the US Library of Congress. It's a national treasure trove with depictions that mirror history. Cartoonists have long plied us with simple, often scorching visuals. 

Today, on America's 250th birthday, we feature the finest in contemporary narrative imagery. Syndicated cartoonists Nick Anderson and Mike Luckovich take daily swipes in newspapers. Their mastery of this cross-generational American tradition, considered among the most prized and beloved of homegrown art forms, jumps off the page. In quizzical, often playful ways, these artists visually journal the absurdities of America at 250, and summon us to reflect and repair.

We are excited to exhibit two Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonists who fill our gallery walls this spring into summer with some of the finest lampoons. “What’s So Funny?” includes original drawings as well as enlarged, signed and dated editions. The artists address the most pressing issues of the day. Their delivery may startle, puzzle, even prompt you to reflect. That’s what they’re meant to do. 

FEATURED ARTISTS

FEATURED WORK

THE BODY POLITIC

As a nation, we are as healthy as the sum of our parts, but we are complex, and our divisions dig deep. From the very young to the most advanced in age, Americans are at increasing risk. Cartoonists Anderson and Luckovich give us the most goofy, exaggerated form of who we are and how we behave, the leaders we’ve chosen and a good look at what’s happening on the ground.

Emboldened by Trump’s hubris and anxious to lead the nation himself, Florida’s Republican Governor reaches into the state’s school shelves to ban books. Continuing to evade bans, guns are now commonplace in schools where Kevlar manufacturers market their bullet-proof gear for active shooter protection. The healthcare system is a literal maze for those with access while slashed Medicaid and sinking the Affordable Care Act sent the number of uninsured soaring. The White House is at war with the Pope who condemned the president for savage treatment of migrants and the US-Israeli invasion of Iran. The rich are getting richer and, well, the rest don’t seem to matter.

MESSING WITH ELECTIONS

Shaping the electorate by sidelining women, black and brown populations has always dominated American politics. Democrats and Republicans vigorously compete in state redistricting and Anderson’s classic Escher Drawing Hands remake is a tip to both parties in the gerrymandering war. People of color, the nation’s most politically marginalized, have suffered the greatest setbacks. Luckovich lays out hard won gains with legendary civil rights activist and longtime Congressman John Lewis as a bridge to that voting booth. Anderson replaces the famous Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima with the Supreme Court Justices hoisting a Confederate flag after the highest court’s stunning assault on the National Voting Rights Act, the nation’s guardrail against voter discrimination.

January 6th redefined election tampering as MAGA mobs stormed the US Capitol to forcibly change presidential election results. Luckovich gives it graphics with the velocity of a composer putting it to music as Trump vomits the mob up the steps toward the US Congress. Jestful, but no less menacing, is Stephen Miller’s hope that soaring oil prices will make it too costly for Americans to drive and cast their ballot in this fall’s upcoming mid-term elections.

BRAVADO AND BUCKS

During his first term, Donald Trump enabled a full resurgence of male dominance: a study in how sexist and base treatment of women developed into accepted practice to some and to others the term “Toxic Masculinity” became a buzzword for what the White House wrought. Trump’s naïve reach for Putin enhanced Russia’s interference in US elections and a complex of US operatives and lobbyists doing Russia’s bidding. Financial gain for Trump Inc is incalculable. But it’s clear there’s more involved; Putin is a master manipulator. Embroiled in the Epstein Files by term two, Trump fanned the flame on others and managed to deflect public outrage by invading Iran, a replay on the bravado of earlier US incursions in the Gulf. Soon the White House ballroom will be a major funnel of money into the president’s expanding coffers, his most important measure of bigness. But in the interim, he doesn’t seem inclined to put up signs that say “Pardon our appearance, we’re under construction,” and instead provides outside access. Beckoning large paying crowds to the White House South Lawn this summer, Trump exudes machismo as the President himself becomes White House impresario for Ultimate Fighting Championship matches. 

AMERICA 251?

In the beginning it was shocking. Each news day delivered another vulgar money grab, another naked push for power leaving Americans incredulous. No president had ever trod on the national ethos with this intensity and it was hard to believe. The days became weeks, then months, now years of a systematically degraded America that’s dispatched federal agents as gestapo operatives to cities; that’s turned a health system from protector to risk creator; that’s stripped checks and balances from a 250 year-old republic as Supreme Court justices pander to politicians, Congress lacks leadership and the executive, by its own design, is unbridled. The President’s non-stop executive orders, military forays, and policy blitzes deflate and defeat, designed to exhaust any opposition capable of launching cohesive action. Art reflects society and these daily illustrators – Nick Anderson and Mike Luckovich – are the ultimate visual chroniclers. From their eyes, the nation’s monetary system is in a noose, American values are trampled by a presidential wrecking ball, and Lady Liberty is on the ground. All of this is happening while most of us watch and many of us worry. The People have receded into the reflexive; the Politicians have become the active. Some ask what we can do to change the equation. We are more than just one person, more than one family, and more than one community. We combine as a country that manages competing needs for independence and community with the finest Bill of Rights any nation state has ever adopted. Those guarantees of liberty and justice for all are at odds with everyday life in 2026 America. No Kings marches have moved through cities and small towns across the country in clear opposition to Trump’s autocratic rule. The Courts are handing down decisions that push back on his overreach. Citizen engagement is moving higher, but all the more polarized. Anderson and Luckovich deliver as promised, with lyrical, lasting drawings that ask us to examine ourselves as a democracy and to savour our freedom. And of course, they show us the absurdities of abandoning the very premise of our United States. 

MIKE LUCKOVICH ORIGINALS