Rob Rogers

After 25 years as the political cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Rob Rogers was fired for drawing cartoons critical of President Trump.  Enemy of the People chronicles Rogers’ unenviable journey: from a social media buzz, from an appearance on CNN to his final days at the paper, Rogers investigates the dangers currently posed to freedom of speech with honesty, daring, and wit. 

This collection features highlights of Rogers’ political cartoons over the last three years, his coverage of past presidents, a tutorial on creating editorial cartoons and two long-form comics. The book also includes brief essays contributed by notable cartoonists and journalists championing the First Amendment and lauding the craft of editorial cartooning. 

Rob Rogers is the award-winning, nationally-syndicated editorial cartoonist formerly with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. After earning an MFA in painting from Carnegie Mellon University in 1984, Rogers landed an internship at the Pittsburgh Press. Three months later he was hired as the full-time editorial cartoonist. In 1993, Rogers joined the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Syndicated by Andrews McMeel, Rogers’ work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Time, Newsweek and The Week, among others. Rogers’ work received the 1995 and 2019 National Headliner Award, as well as the 2000 and 2013 Thomas Nast Award from the Overseas Press Club. In 2015, Rogers was awarded the Berryman Award from the National Press Foundation. In 1999 and 2019, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Rogers also served as president of the ToonSeum, a museum of comic and cartoon art in Pittsburgh, from 2007 to 2017.

In June of 2018, after 25 years on staff at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Rogers was fired for drawing cartoons critical of President Trump. In his most recent book, Enemy of the People: A Cartoonist’s Journey, Rogers talks about the importance of satire in today’s political climate. Rogers continues to draw for syndication and was named a 2019 Emerson Fellow by the Emerson Collective.