Drawn-out endings

Last year, editorial cartoonists eulogized civil rights icon Rosa Parks, television veterans Johnny Carson and Peter Jennings, Vietnam War antagonists Gen. William C. Westmoreland and Sen. Eugene McCarthy, and a troupe of beloved actors, many fondly remembered simply by their most famous roles: Mrs. Robinson, Gilligan, Maxwell Smart, Oliver Wendell Douglas.

The passing of globe-trotting Pope John Paul II cast a worldwide shadow, noted solemnly by Jeff Parker. The political circus around Terri Schiavo’s undignified demise sparked Mike Keefe’s indignation. Signe Wilkinson made rueful note of the Iraq war numbers game. And Chip Bok, remembering Chief Justice William Rehnquist as a legal ally of satirists, delivered a final posthumous punch line.

- Joel Pett