Newt Gingrich took a beating in absentia at the Institute of Politics last night as a panel of political cartoonists likened him to everything from a club-wielding giraffe hunter to fitness guru Susan Powter.

"I think the Newt years will be to political cartoonists what the plague was to undertakers," said Boston Globe cartoonists Paul Szep.

Gingrich was one of many targets of the panel discussion, entitled "Laughing Your Politics Off: Political Cartoons of the '90s".

Panelists Jeff Danziger of the Christian Science Moniter, Jerry Holbert of The Boston Herald, Etta Hulme of the Fort Worth Star Telegram, Doug Marlette of New York Newsday and the Globe's Szep addressed an audience of about 250.

Each panelist presented some samples of his or her cartoons and then took questions from the audience.

Asked whether he saw his role as that of educator, political watchdog or entertainer, Marlette quipped: "As I see it there are 50 million people in this country that work for the government. I am a political cartoonists--I work against the government."

While the panelists differed in their personal approaches to cartooning, they agreed on its mission: bring levity and to editorialize.

"You can make people mad and still be funny," Hulme said.

"Drawings are primitive and threatening and wild and untame," said Marlette. "And the best ones are the ones that make people squirm."

Danziger added that lampooning politicians in the 90s is much easier than it used to be. "Politicians who are coming along now self-cartooning. They you so ridiculous...that you have to be serious because that's the only growth area left," he said.

"I can't write anything more ridiculous than you could see on Sally Jesse Raphael--or the evening news," Marlette said.

But not all the subjects of political cartoons are humorous. "Americans are under the impression that if they look at a cartoon it's going to be funny," Danziger said.

"All of us look at national trauma or disaster they way a plastic surgeon looks at Crow's Feet--you know it's too bad, but we've got to make a living," said Marlette.

Some cartoons are never even meant to be funny. Marlette cited his experience with the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. "I heard about it like everyone else, and I knew I had to draw something."

Marlette's drawing--of an eagle, in tears, gazing at the sky--evoked a greater response from readers than he had anticipated: In addition to thousands of thank you letters, "[He] received flowers from anonymous readers" and thousands of requests for copies of the drawing.

Asked from where the inspiration for their work comes, panelists generally agreed that it takes a particular mind set to be a political cartoonist.

"Our cartoons are like our thumbprints," said Marlette. "I've found that looking at things in a twisted, weird way is where things come from."