Mike Keefe's 2011 Fischetti Award-winning cartoon (click to enlarge)

Denver Post and Cagle Cartoons cartoonist Mike Keefe has been named the winner of the 2011 John Fischetti Editorial Cartoon Competition.

Keefe’s winning cartoon pokes fun at legislation enacted by Arizona last year, the “broadest and strictest in the nation” to curb illegal immigration, according to The New York Times. The cartoon depicts two public safety officers stopping a motorist and comparing his skin tone to a paint swatch before asking him to step out of the car.

“This cartoon embodies the form’s best elements, a fresh visual take on a timely, provocative subject,” said Nancy Day, chair of the Journalism Department at Columbia College Chicago, which coordinates the competition and the event.

Runners-up for the award were Steve Breen of the San Diego Union-Tribune, who drew a dog tag chain outlining Afghanistan, and by Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on a theme similar to Keefe’s, with a Native American asking white legislators for their papers.

Keefe is now a four-time winner of the Fischetti Award, having previously won in 1991, 2001 and 2007.