Occupy Wall Street continues to amass followers and strength, despite crackdown efforts in towns like Oakland and Nashville. The protests are having a strong effect on our current politics, as the conversation has changed in Washington and has begun to include discussions on income and wealth inequality and jobs.

So who had the best cartoon today - my cartoon for msnbc (view more of my cartoons here), or Nate Beeler's cartoon for the Washington Examiner?

Daryl Cagle / msnbc.com

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner

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Political cartoonists love Halloween. It gives them a chance take all those cool, ghoulish characters and use them to make fun of our otherwise lovable politicians.

So who drew the best cartoon using Halloween as their theme - Nate Beeler of the Washington Examiner, or John Cole of the Scranton Times-Tribune?

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner

John Cole / Scranton Times-Tribune

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Daryl Cagle / msnbc.com (click to start slideshow)

Happy Halloween! The Northeast is expected to get hit today with a classic nor'easter, which is expected to dump anywhere from a dusting of snow to about 10 inches throughout the area.

So if you live anywhere from Washington D.C. to Boston, warm up some hot coco and relax by enjoying our October Snow cartoon slideshow. You'll need the rest before shoveling, anyway.

My daughter, cartoonist Susie Cagle, was teargassed on Tuesday and had to avoid rubber bullets fired by Oakland police attempting to prevent a peaceful march of Occupy Oakland protesters from walking to the police department. Susie shot the iPhone video above.

“As I crouched down to protect myself, a teargas canister rolled right under my face and exploded,” she told The Daily Crosshatch. She’s been spending time at Occupy Oakland as part of her graphic series of the movement, which she is funding through Spot.Us.

A sketch from Susie's Occupy Oakland graphic series.

She's also decided to change the original scope of her series:

Yeah. It’s going to have to be totally different now. It was going to be a five-part piece about how different Occupy Oakland is from the rest of the occupation. When the camp was up, it was very different. They were primarily concerned with creating this functional mini-city, rather than doing focused protests and actions, which is very different than the other ones. They spent more time trying to figure out how to feed everyone and building a kids’ area, and a library and a community garden. That’s what they were spending their time on.

Read the entire interview here.

David Fitzsimmons / Arizona Daily Star (click to view slideshow)

Every Friday, we collect the best political cartoons of the week and stuff them into one big, glorious slideshow.

The big news this week was the fact we're finally pulling our of Iraq, but the resurgence of the "flat tax" and crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street protesters also sprinkled into the news cycle. GOP Presidential hi-jinks are always welcome news to cartoonists as well.

Catch up on it all by checking out our Week in Political Cartoons slideshow.

As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to grow and strengthen, police have arrested protesters in Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Santa Ana. In Oakland, protesters are up in arms after an Iraq war veteran suffered a skull fracture after police shot protesters with rubber bullets and threw flash bang and tear gas grenades at them.

So who drew the best cartoon about the crackdown on Occupy Wall Street protesters - Rick McKee of the Augusta Chronicle or Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune?

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle

Pat Bagley / Salt Lake Tribune

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Click to view our collection of Reynolds Halloween cartoons

My buddy, famed greeting card artist Dan Reynolds, has put together a collection of his hilarious Halloween cartoons for us to share. Dan’s cartoons are read by millions of readers across the U.S., Canada and points beyond all the way down under in Australia. His work is seen in every issue of Reader’s Digest (where he is known for his cow, pig and chicken cartoons), on greetings cards everywhere, and in his many book collections.

Dan is also a fantastic painter, and has set up a Web site (Danreynoldsart.blogspot.com) to showcase his wonderful pastel paintings.

Here’s what Dan said about painting:

“Painting is my way of relaxing after a hard day of cartooning. For me, cartooning is an exercise of the mind. Painting is an exercise of the heart. Painting, for me, is the next step in my evolution as a creative person. It gives me a different sense of accompishment.   As a cartoonist, I feel like I’m eating candy all day long.  Painting give me the sense that I’m eating my vegetables, too, and enriching my body and soul.”

Click to view more of Dan Reynolds fantastic paintings.

In a race to the right, the idea of a flat tax has made a comeback among nearly all of this year's GOP Presidential hopefuls. The idea of lowering the taxes of the rich could prove politically difficult in an environment where protesters around the country are calling for the rich to pay more.

So who drew the best cartoon - R.J. Matson of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, or Mike Keefe of The Denver Post?

R.J. Matson / St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Mike Keefe / Denver Post

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Rick McKee, Augusta Chronicle (click to start slideshow)

I am thrilled to announce that we've added Augusta Chronicle cartoonist Rick McKee to our site and to our Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Rick is a talented cartoonist with a very unique drawing style, and his conservative opinions set himself apart from most cartoonists that tend to drift more to the left.

A native of Tallahassee, Florida, Rick has been editorial cartoonist for The Augusta Chronicle in Georgia since January 1998, and in 2006, McKee was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year. Along with everybody else.

Make sure you bookmark his page to keep up with this latest work, and check out this slideshow featuring some of his recent cartoons. Welcome aboard Rick!

As the cost of tuition at most colleges continues to skyrocket, most students are left footing larger and larger student loan bills. Student loans account for more than a trillion dollars of debt in the U.S., an amount that has doubled in just the past five years.

So who drew the best cartoon about this crushing debt - Jeff Parker of Florida Today or David Fitzsimmons of the Arizona Daily Star?

Jeff Parker / Florida Today

David Fitzsimmons / Arizona Daily Star

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After eight contentious years and the death of 4,400 U.S. troops, President Obama has declared an end to the Iraq War and announced that all U.S. troops will be home by Christmas. More than just fulfilling a 2008 campaign promise, Obama has now officially ended one of the longest and most divisive conflicts in U.S. history.

So who drew the best cartoon - Nate Beeler of the Washington Examiner, or Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune?

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner

Pat Bagley / Salt Lake Tribune

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