1.1 Definition of English Political Cartoons

A political cartoon, a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic artistic combination of drawing or painting, together with news commentary, has long reflected the political discourse in western culture. As visuals that comment on political events or figures, political cartoons usually present images in exaggerating ways to help create situations and provoke feelings. In political cartoons, the artist’s attitudes towards and opinions about political events are perceived through the painting of characters and the language of cartoon characters. Furthermore, political cartoons have developed very mature. Political cartoons and political cartoonists are recognised by a number of awards, for example the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning (for US cartoonists, since 1922) and the British Press Awards’ “Cartoonist of the Year”.

1.2 Development of English Political Cartoons

The pictorial satire has been credited as the precursor to the political cartoons in England: “English graphic satire really begins with Hogarth’s Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme”. (Richetti, John J. The Cambridge history of English literature, Cambridge University Press, p. 85.) His pictures combined social criticism with sequential artistic scenes. A frequent target of his satire was the corruption of early 18thcentury British politics. His art often had a strong moralizing element to it, but his work was only tangentially politicized and was primarily regarded on its artistic merits. George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend produced some of the first overtly political cartoons and caricatures in the 1750s.

The medium began to develop in England in the latter part of the 18th century, especially around the time of the French Revolution. James Gillray initiated and explored the use of the medium and was widely regarded as the pioneer of the political cartoon. To explain the situation of the king, prime ministers and generals, many of Gillray’s satires were directed against George III, depicting him as a pretentious buffoon, while the bulk of his work was dedicated to ridiculing the ambitions of Revolutionary France and Napoleon.

By the mid 19th century, major political newspapers in many countries featured cartoons designed to express the publisher’s opinion on the politics of the day. One of the most successful was Thomas Nast in New York City, who imported realistic German drawing techniques to major political issues in Civil War and Reconstruction. Notable political cartoons include Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” (1754), on the need for unity in the American colonies; “The Thinkers Club” (1819), a response to the surveillance and censorship of universities in Germany under the Carlsbad Decrees; and E. H. Shepard’s “The Goose-Step” (1936), on the rearmament of Germany under Hitler. “The Goose-Step” is one of a number of notable cartoons first published in the British Punch magazine.

1.3 Characteristics of English Political Cartoons

We can find political cartoons on the editorial page of many newspapers, although some are sometimes placed on the regular comic strip page. Metaphors and caricatures are often used to stress some political events. Most cartoonists create humorous or emotional images to implicitly express their attitudes toward certain political events or characters. Nowadays political cartoons can be built around traditional visual metaphors and symbols like the widely accepted images of Democratic donkey, the Republican elephant, Uncle Sam, ec. One alternative approach is to emphasize the text or the story line, as seen in Doonesbury which tells a linear story in comic strip format.

Political cartoon usually incongruously combines two unrelated things to achieve the humorous effect. The humour can reduce people’s political anger and so serves a useful purpose. Such a cartoon also reflects real life and politics, where a deal is often done on unrelated proposals beyond public scrutiny. Cartoons have a great potential to political communication capable of enhancing political comprehension and reconceptualization of events, through specific frames of understanding.