With all eyes are on this year’s election, have you ever wondered what goes into drawing a political cartoon? Fairfield University students found out on Wednesday.

Southport artist Sean Kelly, whose work has been featured in the Washington Post, The New York Times and comedian Stephen Colbert’s book, “Midnight Confessions,” showed students the art – and science – of political commentary.

“I like solving the problem,” he said. “It should be simple, so it can be grasped immediately. But there should also be some nuance to it.”

Kelly said the key to breaking down a complicated political issue is focusing on a single visual element, like Richard Nixon’s nose, Jimmy Carter's wide smile or Joe Biden’s famous Ray Ban Aviators. Other common visual cues include a person wearing nothing but a barrel to portray inflation.

"It should be simple, so it can be grasped immediately. But there should also be some nuance to it. There's a tradition in editorial and political cartooning of labeling things," he said. “It’s very, almost metaphorical, that if you can reduce something to a situation or a dynamic that would be familiar to people in their lives."

But in deeply divided times, political commentary is getting dangerous.

“Sometimes bad things happen to funny people,” Kelly told students.

In 2015, Islamic militants killed 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French magazine that published satirical cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The cartoons led to riots and embassy attacks around the world. The artist, Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, faced several assassination attempts.

“Even more so today, I think it’s essential to be fair and to create images that are not extreme and not sensationalized,” Kelly said.

In the age of social media, Kelly believes memes have become the new political cartoons, which can lead to propaganda and misinformation. Unlike political cartoons, memes are not fact-checked by professional journalists and editors. Artificial intelligence and “deep fakes” also present new risks.

But in the end, Kelly said it’s important to keep things in perspective.

“It’s just a cartoon,” he said. “And it’s important to realize that a drawing is not a weapon, but it can make people think.”

Click HERE to see Sean Kelly’s work.