In celebration of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, enjoy dynamic presentations by Denver's leading editorial cartoonists at this day long event. Slideshow presentations will provide a glimpse into the artwork, process, and humor of some of our favorite local cartoonists. Editorial cartoons often use visual metaphors and caricatures to comment on political situations. Although their style, technique or viewpoints may differ, editorial cartoonists depict current events with humorous or satirical imagery to effectively draw attention to important social and political issues. The energized political atmosphere in the United States during this election year has provided editorial cartoonists with rich subject matter.

About the Presenters:

Ed Stein, Rocky Mountain News
(http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/stein/)
Ed Stein has been the editorial cartoonist for the Rocky Mountain News since 1978. His cartoons are syndicated internationally to daily newspapers by United Media. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek , US News and World Report, Business Week, Playboy, People and many other publications. From 1997 to 2008, in addition to his editorial cartoons, Stein drew “Denver Square,” a six-day-a-week editorial comic strip about a fictional Denver family, named for a type of house common to the city. Stein has won a number of awards for his cartooning, including the special category of the John Fischetti Award for cartoons drawn after the World Trade Center attacks. He also has won the Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award for Editorial Cartooning, many Colorado Society of Professional Journalists Awards and Colorado Press Association Awards, and he has been cited by the Headliner Award, The Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Fischetti Award, and the Best of the West Award. He is a former president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and is a member of the National Cartoonists Society.

Mike Keefe, Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/keefe

By throwing himself into auto assembly line work, the United States Marines and graduate school in mathematics, Mike Keefe desperately hoped to suppress his secret nature. But then, in an unguarded moment during Watergate, he found himself drawn to Richard Nixon’s nose. He’s been out of the closet and cartooning ever since. Keefe has been the editorial cartoonist for The Denver Post since 1975. Throughout the nineties he was a weekly contributor to USA Today and a regular on America Online. Nationally syndicated, his cartoons have appeared in Europe, Asia and in most major U.S. news magazines and hundreds of newspapers across the country. Keefe’s animations have appeared on broadcast TV, the internet and CD-Rom magazines. He has won top honors in the Fischetti, National Headliners Club, Society of Professional Journalists and Best of the West contests. He was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University and is a past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. He was a juror for the 1997 and 1998 Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism. Keefe is the author of the books Running Awry, Keefe-Kebab and The Ten-Speed Commandments. He was co-creator (with Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoonist Tim Menees) of the nationally-syndicated comic strips, Cooper and Iota. He plays guitar and harmonica for the bar band, Falling Rock. Keefe has two college-age children and lives with his wife in Colorado. He has no known allergies.

Kenny Be, Westword
http://blogs.westword.com/demver/delegating_denver_by_kenny_be/
Kenny Be has been a cartoonist for Westword since 1982. He creates the weekly cartoon "Worst-Case Scenario", a page dedicated to Denver issues; and also drew "Hip Tip", a single frame which was published in most of the Village Voice weeklies through 2007. Kenny has been working on a web feature for Westword called “Delegating Denver”. He says Delegating Denver is “part field guide and part travel guide for the upcoming 2008 Democratic National Convention to be held in Denver in August of 2008. It is a field guide to help Denver residents identify the delegates from the 56 states and territories of the US. It is part tour guide in that it helps delegates to find the Colorado bars, restaurants and day trips most like home. It is a project that allows me to make fun of/pay homage to everyone in America, while I make fun of/celebrate the city of Denver. I started the project in July of 2007, and have added a delegation every week since then. The final delegation of Wyoming will appear two weeks before the convention begins."