In MAN BITES MAN Steven Heller has compiled samplings from portfolios of work by twenty-two universally acclaimed graphic satirists, cartoonists, caricaturists, storytellers and commentators. He has selected drawings that have been produced within the past twenty years primarily because the strengths of these cartoonists have shone through, elucidated and reflected the events and sensibilities of the past two tumultuous decades.

The artists whose drawings are presented within these pages display markedly different styles and points of view. All twenty-two are exemplars of the political, social and cultural relevance of the art of satire. What draws them together is a common thread: their need to communicate ideas that fire passions, stimulate the imagination and upset the status quo.

The flame of satire burns brightly in the artists represented in MAN BITES MAN. They display a wide range of painterly and graphic skills and a love of drawing. Most important, they have expanded the definition of cartooning —as Steinberg has done with his amalgam of abstract forms and personal symbology. Significant too is the debt owed to these artists by the scores of neophytes who have ‘‘borrowed’’ styles, most notably from Searle, Osborn, Levine, Feiffer, Sorel, Booth and Blechman.

Steven Heller is the art director of the New York Times Book Review. He has produced exhibitions of satiric art and his articles on the graphic arts have been included in Graphis, Print, and Upper and Lower Case. In addition to MAN BITES MAN, he has edited ARTISTS’ CHRISTMAS CARDS and produced THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING BOOK, THE BOOK OF WATERS and SUN CITY FABLES.