Herblock was better than Oliphant says former WaPo publisher Don Graham

The greatest editorial cartoonist? That was Herblock.  [letter; in print as The greatest editorial cartoonist? Herblock].

Donald E. Graham, Washington

Washington Post July 25, 2026 : A16

online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/07/24/greatest-editorial-cartoonist-that-was-herblock/ 

A Herblock cartoon from 1950. (Herblock/Illustration by Herblock/The Washington Post)

David Von Drehle’s July 21 Tuesday Opinion commentary, “The greatest editorial cartoonist? The case for Pat Oliphant.,” called Pat Oliphant the greatest cartoonist of all time.

I was the publisher of The Post during the last years of Herblock’s amazing work there. For many of those years, Oliphant worked at the Washington Star. I was pleased for the Star that they had an excellent cartoonist. The Post, I knew, had the greatest ever, a fellow whose work would be looked at 100 years from now. If anyone had suggested we trade with the Star, everyone at The Post would have laughed. 

Von Drehle praised Oliphant’s willingness to criticize his targets harshly. I grew up reading Herblock when only he and a handful of writers took aim at Sen. Joseph McCarthy, a vicious, dangerous target who was willing to hit back at Herb and at the paper that printed him. Herb was a pinko to McCarthy, and the Wisconsin Republican charged that his cartoons were aimed at secret communists within the government (these remain secret to this day). Herb’s cartoons led Vice President Richard M. Nixon to cancel his subscription to The Post — more than once! And Herb did not let up.

Day after day, brilliant drawing after brilliant drawing, Herblock left his contemporaries far behind. We who read The Post were lucky to know him.

The writer is a former publisher, chairman and CEO of The Post.