Matt Bors

Matt Bors is a cartoonist, journalist and editor based in Portland, Ore., who relentlessly skewers the latest absurdities in American politics and culture.

From recession woes to social networking, Bors’ cartoons dissect and satirize the ways of the world to make readers think and laugh about the real issues affecting them. "I like to use news events as a jumping-off point for a discussion," Bors says. "So I try to avoid the obvious gags and get at the underlying issues."

His comics have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Village Voice, The Boston Phoenix, The Daily Beast, Funny Times and dozens of other print and web publications. His first graphic novel, "War Is Boring," a collaboration with journalist David Axe, was published in 2010 by New American Library and was picked by Rolling Stone as their "Hot Graphic Novel" of the year.

Bors also serves as the comics journalism editor for Cartoon Movement, a website devoted to international political cartooning. He traveled to Haiti in the summer of 2011 to find cartoonists and journalists to create a long-running graphic novel about the humanitarian and political problems facing the country, a project he is editing and publishing over the course of 2012.

Bors seems to have a travel bug for dangerous places. In the summer of 2010, he traveled unembedded through Afghanistan to draw comics and filed them to newspapers from the ground over the course of his month-long trip. "I don't want to simply react to news events, but seek them out for myself," says Bors. "It's good to get out from behind your drawing table once in a while. I figured, why not a war zone?"

Bors has won numerous awards for excellence in editorial cartooning, including the prestigious Herblock Prize, and most recently, a Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Bors has also been a featured industry panelist, most recently speaking at the 2012 South By Southwest (SXSW) Festival on "How Comics Journalism is Saving Your Media."