MY ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE WENT TO WASHINGTON ...

MY ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE WENT TO WASHINGTON by Tom Toles (Andrews & McMeel: $8.95; 128 pp., paperback original). This anthology of recent drawings confirms Toles’ status as one of the most talented members of the new generation of political cartoonists. Although obviously influenced by Oliphant and Auth, Toles draws in a style that is uniquely his own. He also possesses a mordant wit: The collection is subtitled, “And All I Lost Was My Shirt.” Toles depicts the Pentagon as an elaborately costumed matador waving his cape at a desiccated bull’s skull; draws a shrinking diplomat as the U.N. delegate from “Yugoslavia/Yugoingslavia/Yugoneslavia” and reminds readers that he was the first to refer to the former President as “George Herbert Hoover Bush.” A delightfully acerbic look at the previous year in politics.