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Post by The Old TomCat on Dec 31, 2014 13:40:19 GMT
I am new to this site so do please forgive me if I start a discussion about political cartoons. I hope it has not been covered before and that I’m posting on the correct thread. I’m sure the site administrators will delete or move this post if either is the case.
Political cartons and/or lampooning our elected leaders is part of the British DNA, almost certainly because we have never had an authoritarian government where such things were forbidden.
With the onset of mass circulation newspapers I think the first political cartoons of note were during the Napoleonic era where Pitt and Napoleon were seen dissecting the world at a dinner table. The other cartoon I like from that time is one of UK squatting over France and defecating.
Cartoonist can be extremely cruel as that last example shows.
Coming forward a couple of hundred years, David Steel still complains about the Spitting Image satire of him in David Owen’s top pocket. Both men were then political giants. Whether it had any impact is difficult to ascertain because Steel became leader of the combined party and Owen entered the political wilderness.
John Major was depicted as a grey man who wore his underpants on the outside. I think the joke was on the cartoonist big time when it was years later revealed that far from being grey he dropped his underpants for Edwina. You never know whether he might have won the 97 election if the public had known beforehand.
The Conservatives had a cartoon image of Tony Blair as the devil on their posters, which I personally found offensive, but his facial bone structure made the comparison so easy.
Currently we have David Cameron with a condom over his head and Ed Miliband as Wallace. Both pretty tame to days gone by.
One cartoon image that I can think of where the cartoonist got it wrong was with Harold McMillan portrayed as ‘SuperMac’. It was originally intended as dismissive mockery but is now very fondly remembered. Labour tried to portray Cameron as a 1970’s Gene Hunt neathandal and it backfired spectacularly when adopted by the Conservatives.
Of the current political cartoonist, I especially enjoy browsing Dave Brown in The Independent. He is cruel and takes no prisoners but still very funny.
What newspaper cartoonist do others enjoy and is it possible that we are regularly alerted to any above average political cartoons on the day that they are published?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2014 13:59:49 GMT
Political cartoons started well before the napoleonic era. My niece's degree dissertation last year was on media representation of political figures in the mid eighteenth century, and there was a lot in it on political cartoons, which were far more vicious than modern efforts.
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Post by La Fontaine on Dec 31, 2014 14:04:16 GMT
I collect CJ Fox caricatures, etc. The earliest is from the 1770s. They had considerable effect.
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Post by The Old TomCat on Dec 31, 2014 14:04:25 GMT
Political cartoons started well before the napoleonic era. My niece's degree dissertation last year was on media representation of political figures in the mid eighteenth century, and there was a lot in it on political cartoons, which were far more vicious than modern efforts. James, invite on board and let her tell us more. I would be very interested in what she would have to say. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2014 14:31:22 GMT
Political cartoons started well before the napoleonic era. My niece's degree dissertation last year was on media representation of political figures in the mid eighteenth century, and there was a lot in it on political cartoons, which were far more vicious than modern efforts. James, invite on board and let her tell us more. I would be very interested in what she would have to say. I shall ask her permission to upload the thesis; she's unlikely to want to get involved on here I think. |
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Richard Allen
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Post by Richard Allen on Dec 31, 2014 14:49:46 GMT
Coming forward a couple of hundred years, David Steel still complains about the Spitting Image satire of him in David Owen’s top pocket. Both men were then political giants. Whether it had any impact is difficult to ascertain because Steel became leader of the combined party and Owen entered the political wilderness. Spitting Image got the Owen/Steel dynamic all wrong. Owen might have got more media attention but Steel was the more accomplished politician and did better out of the Alliance than Owen did. |
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Post by The Old TomCat on Dec 31, 2014 14:59:01 GMT
Coming forward a couple of hundred years, David Steel still complains about the Spitting Image satire of him in David Owen’s top pocket. Both men were then political giants. Whether it had any impact is difficult to ascertain because Steel became leader of the combined party and Owen entered the political wilderness. Spitting Image got the Owen/Steel dynamic all wrong. Owen might have got more media attention but Steel was the more accomplished politician and did better out of the Alliance than Owen did. I totally agree with you Richard, but that is with the benefit of hindsight. |
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Post by carlton43 on Dec 31, 2014 15:13:12 GMT
I think Bell and Scarff are well up to the standards of penetrating scurrility seen in the 18thC. The amazing thing for me is the extreme abuse directed to the Royal Family and the overt sexual innuendo that was employed then in a manner no one dares now. Let's face it Princess Di, Fergie, Charles and Andrew could have been the butt of some very intrusive, nasty and not inappropriate send ups to a degree never seen in these rather more prissy times. For we live in a period of lax to non-existent morals coupled with prurient prissiness about the spoken word and politicians private lives.
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Post by carlton43 on Dec 31, 2014 15:19:59 GMT
Coming forward a couple of hundred years, David Steel still complains about the Spitting Image satire of him in David Owen’s top pocket. Both men were then political giants. Whether it had any impact is difficult to ascertain because Steel became leader of the combined party and Owen entered the political wilderness. Spitting Image got the Owen/Steel dynamic all wrong. Owen might have got more media attention but Steel was the more accomplished politician and did better out of the Alliance than Owen did. And rather stretching it to say either of them were 'political giants'! Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Churchill, and Gandhi were giants of one sort and t'other.........Smoothie and the Puppet were not. |
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Post by The Old TomCat on Dec 31, 2014 16:02:57 GMT
And rather stretching it to say either of them were 'political giants'! Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Churchill, and Gandhi were giants of one sort and t'other.........Smoothie and the Puppet were not. I contend that they were giants in UK terms and at that point in time. David Owen and his Gang of Four had completely destabilised the Labour Party and was getting as much publicity as Nigel Farage is currently getting. Remember Owen was earlier the youngest Foreign Secretary for nearly 40 years while Steele built up one united party from two different strands of politics. Steel also took through parliament the abortion act which brought stability to a contentious matter. In world terms I agree that they were political minnows. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2014 16:17:33 GMT
I like Matt's cartoons for the Daily Telegraph. His drawings are very simple, but he cleverly combines two separate political stories and combines them into one cartoon, to comic effect. I'll give you an example. A couple of weeks after 9/11, he was depicting two Al-Qaeda terrorists hiding in a remote cave in Afghanistan. One terrorist said to the other "What's the latest on the Lib Dem conference?"
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Dec 31, 2014 17:14:43 GMT
I think Matt is superb in his simplicity, both of drawing and of content. The Matt and Alex cartoons are the only things worth reading in the Telegraph now.
Whereas Steve Bell is just rude and unfunny.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Dec 31, 2014 17:25:38 GMT
Who is the Times cartoonist who hilariously depicts Clegg as Cameron's public school fag.
Twice a week.
For over 4 years ......
(yes, I am being sarcastic)
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Post by Arthur Figgis on Dec 31, 2014 17:30:39 GMT
A print of this is by my desk in the office. (I set fares as part of my day job, and a few years ago my company had a large campaign based on the premise that London was moving closer, as travelling times were being reduced)  |
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Post by The Old TomCat on Jan 1, 2015 8:06:37 GMT
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Jan 1, 2015 12:57:24 GMT
I think Matt is superb in his simplicity, both of drawing and of content. The Matt and Alex cartoons are the only things worth reading in the Telegraph now. Whereas Steve Bell is just rude and unfunny. Bell is dreadful. Half the stuff he throws at people, he wouldn't accept coming his own way. I also agree on the Telegraph. I was never a massive fan of it, but the world news sections in particular are abysmal, soft-news garbage. This site is a genuinely better source of world political news than the Telegraph. |
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Post by carlton43 on Jan 1, 2015 13:18:00 GMT
That new cartoon is well up to the tradition and standard of the ages. There are levels of obvious and less obvious allusion with the usual iconography as a framework. The still 'mad eye', on the left, for Blair, with the right eye closed to change! The haggard appearance of a 'Dorian Gray' in actuality, reflecting an accumulation of past 'wrongs'; the hampering of the new and young by the old and passed over.......still able to sabotage and willing to do so because he can and because it reinforces a feeling of one-time powers he feels the other should not have and is too weak to grasp. Then the preternatural ageing of the nascent year and wannabe PM to how he will look so much quicker than the inhibiting master! The mirroring of the teeth image from geeky youth to predatory restrainer. It has a touch of chilling brilliance.
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Post by The Old TomCat on Jan 1, 2015 13:34:54 GMT
Carlton, that is one of the best summaries of a political cartoon it has been my pleasure to read.
I will now check it out with renewed interest.
Thanks
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Post by carlton43 on Jan 1, 2015 13:37:01 GMT
I disagree about Bell. He styles in the model of Scottish anti-establishment radicality. He uses long themes to menace and subborn a whole mode of political thinking (or unthinking) and IMO he is very effective indeed. I think he will be subject to much study in future times.
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neilm
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Post by neilm on Jan 4, 2015 2:24:56 GMT
Didn't Kenneth Baker present a programme on political cartoons a few years ago?
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