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When prints served as newspapers. Supporters of John Wilkes came shouting “Wilkes and Liberty” in a campaign rally for a Wilkes ally in the Middlesex elections. Thugs hired by his opponent, the court’s favorite, attack the “Wilkesites.” “The Hustings at Brentford, Middlesex election, 1768.” Anonymous, 1768. Here you can read description and context.
Some classic satirists
William Hogarth. (1697-1764) Humours of an election; John Wilkes; The Times.
William Hogarth, “The Bench,” oil on canvas, 1758. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
A popular theme in political caricature — for example, this satirical attack on Whig MP Charles James Fox.
Prime Minister Robert Walpole offers hope of preferment. “Idol-Worship or the way to preferment,” Anonymous (and we can see why), etching, 1740. British Museum.
James Gillray (1756-1815). At the British Museum.
Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson called “The Plumb-pudding in danger” “the greatest political cartoon ever” in a brilliant appreciation of Gillray. Rowson’s article is a deft short appreciation of Gillray, with a number of illustrations, by one of today’s great political cartoonists. Here is an amazing website with a comprehensive catalog of Gillray’s work, with the images and explanations of the sometimes insanely detailed imagery by Jim Sherry, a retired AT&T technical writer.
“The Plumb-pudding in danger, or, State epicures taking un petit souper.” James Gillray, 1805. William Pitt dines with Napoleon. Gillray may have been the first to show the great powers dividing up the world at dinner, but cartoonists have used the idea countless times since.
The Judge. Thomas Rowlandson 1756-1827. Graphite and watercolor on paper. Tate.
Thomas Rowlandson, 1756-1827.
George Cruikshank
“The Political House that Jack Built,” by Wm Hone, Illustrated by Cruikshank, 1819.
Honoré Daumier
Contemporary British cartoons
British newspaper editorial cartoons are arty — full color, in many of the newspapers. I regularly look at the Guardian, the Observer. Sometimes the references and caricatures are hard to interpret if you don’t follow British politics, but the imagery offers a wealth of ideas to cartoonists everywhere. (And there is plenty of reference to US politics.)
Here are the Press awards (Society of Editors) for Cartoonist of the Year in 2010 with links to award-winning cartoons. A few winners from other years:
Morten Morland, The Times: “House of Lords” (Lords complaining about immigration)
Peter Brookes, The Times “Alex Salmon’s Fantasia” (Alex Salmon, then leader of Scottish National Party, referendum for Scottish independence) and “MH17” (Russia shot down Malaysian Airline flight MH 17 over Ukraine)
The Guardian (UK) daily opinion cartoon. Brilliant artists on the edge of lunacy, not sure which side of the edge.
Also in the Guardian, daily cartoonist Steve Bell’s “If …”, the title a satirical appropriation of Rudyard Kipling’s paean to Britishness.
The Observer’s weekly cartoon (the Guardian Media Group’s Sunday paper)
Peter Duggan’s Artoons, archives, also in the Guardian just to show Brits are classier than we are. If you like cute art world gags. More in his twitter feed.
Dave Brown in The Independent (UK)
“Art of Darkness.” Here Brown writes about the art of cartooning, his personal history — a painter who needed a smaller canvas — his thinking and process. The Independent, June 18, 2008.
The Luvvies, by Andrew Birch, in The Independent, comments on popular culture.
Steve Bell in The Guardian. and The Steve Bell Cartoon Website also has his animations.
The British cartoon archive. “The BCA holds the artwork for more than 150,000 British editorial, socio-political, and pocket cartoons, supported by large collections of comic strips, newspaper cuttings, books and magazines.” The archive dates back to 1904.
Some of my personal favorites
Eric J. Garcia, “El Machete.” Check out his new book “Drawing from Anger: Portraits of U.S. Hypocrisy.” Proud to have had him as F Newsmagazine‘s political cartoonist, when he was a painting grad at the School of the Art Institute, and today years later.
Leif Zetterling, brilliant Swedish artist who excoriated the global elites, most of his work from the ’80s to the oughts. You can recognize some of the international figures, some of the images are clear at a glance, and it’s worth your time to use Google translate to figure some out.
Matt Wuerker’s cartoons appeared in Z Magazine for years, now on Politico.com.
Tom Tomorrow’s This Modern World, satirical strips exposing tricky political language. One thing I like about Tom Tomorrow (and Brian McFadden) is that their strips make points in each panel. I want more than the mainstream four-panel, one-gag comics; usually the gags aren’t very funny.
Eli Valley in The Jewish Daily Forward. As testimonial that he (and his editors at the Forward) are doing their job well, they were attacked for publishing his scathing critiques of right-wing Zionism. Especial targets were his piece on Stephen Hawking after he was smeared for supporting the academic and cultural boycott of Israel and his Diary of Dr. Lowenstein, attacked in Commentary as “hate” and “anti-Semitic invective.” Here is a comment on that attack on the Philosophy and Law blog. Who could have predicted that he and the Forward would have creative differences?
F Newsmagazine’s award-winning political cartoonists and not-so-political cartoonists, at www.fnewsmagazine.com:
In the mainstream
Mark Fiore is the first Internet animator to win a Pulitzer (2010).
Berryman Award for Editorial Cartooning, National Press Association
Association of American Editorial Cartoonists
AAEC Cartoon gallery
AAEC John Locher Memorial Award (cartoonists under 25)
Society of Professional Journalists awards for editorial cartooning
Gary Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” is a past Pulitzer Prize-winner (1975) and essential reading for anyone who cares about satire on American politics … and culture. One of the edgiest and perhaps the most-censored mainstream comics. Check the Wikipedia article for a list of controversial strips.
Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, sometimes in the Chicago Tribune.
The NY Times publishes “The Strip” by Brian McFadden on its website. Political satire rather more pointed than typical single-panel daily newspaper cartoons. Some funny strips on Occupy Wall Street.
College newspaper cartoons and comic strips
Some of these award-winners are good examples of college cartooning, but some are … a bit lame. Feel encouraged by the lack of competition.
Associated Collegiate Press awards
Previous years awards are at http://www.studentpress.org/acp/contests.html (Go to “Past winners” to see winners from 2003 on.)
Student cartoonists who won American Association of Editorial Cartoonist Locher Award.
A classic college cartoon strip: look at the early Doonesbury, by Gary Trudeau, which you can find in A Doonsbury Retrospective or the out-of-print Doonsbury Chronicles (1975).
Other cartoonists to watch
Carlos Latuff (Brazil). Brazilian cartoonist whose work attacks corporate power and globalization and U.S. military interventions. He is especially known for his cartoons about Iraq and Palestine. You can find his work in “Drawing Attention to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Political Cartoons by Carlos Latuff” from Hungry Eye Books.
Zunar, the pen name of the cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Haque, is a prominent figure in democracy movements in Malaysia. There his books were banned and he was arrested a number of times for offenses against public order and for sedition, under a British colonial law that continued to be useful to post-colonial regimes. Here is a CNN article with illustrations that give some idea of his work.
About Cartoonists
Victor Navasky, Why Are Political Cartoonists Incendiary? New York Times, 11/12/11.
Gillian Orr, Newspaper Cartoonists: Quick on the Draw. The Independent, 9/26/11.
