The Muppets maker's in town

Daryl Cagle, the daily editorial cartoonist for NBCNEWS.com, will conduct a workshop at the American Center on August 30 called Cartoons: How funny, how powerful.

The workshop will highlight how the editorial cartooning business works, censorship and press freedoms, where red lines are drawn, the state of the cartooning profession and journalism. "I will talk about how I draw my own cartoons. How I came to do what I do. Sometimes we'll talk about issues because cartoons can be provocative," says Cagle, who partnered with Slate in 2000.

Editorial cartooning is a negative art form, he says. "Cartoons that are positive are lousy. I have drawn very few cartoons about India," he says.

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Cagle's site syndicates Indian cartoonist Paresh Nath to newspapers around the world. "He's really popular. I met a bunch of Indian cartoonists at the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention last year," says Cagle. "Maybe I'll add another Indian cartoonist to syndication after this trip," he adds.

A cartoon panel by Daryl Cagle

It is important to be funny as a cartoonist, but Cagle is impressed by those who aren't funny, but still successful - cartoonists of The New Yorker, for example. "Conservative political cartoonists too, who are humourless, but think they are funny," concludes Cagle.u00a0