Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources » Stars of Political Cartooning http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com Comic Book Resources Presents... Comics Should Be Good! Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:25:24 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Stars of Political Cartooning - Art Young http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/31/stars-of-political-cartooning-art-young/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/31/stars-of-political-cartooning-art-young/#comments Sat, 01 Nov 2008 05:19:03 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20236 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we finish the month out with a look at another cartoonist who was put on trial along with Robert Minor and Boardman Robinson, only this fellow was a bit more like the James Connolly to their Patrick Pearses.

Enjoy!

Art Young was born in Illinois in 1866. As a teenager, he decided he was going to be an artist, and in fact, by the age of 17, he was a published cartoonist.

In 1895, he moved to New York and became a cartoonist, first working for humor magazines like Puck and Judge as well as Life magazine (which used cartoons before it became famous as a photography magazine) before becoming involved with newspapers, as well (Young came around at an opportune time, for cartoonists were just becoming accepted as parts of newspapers at the time).

At this point, Young was mostly known as a conservative cartoonist, but as he began to follow the news more as a member of then newspaper fraternity, he began to change his viewpoints and slowly became more and more liberal until he was a socialist.

In 1902, Young was commissioned by Life to do an anti-immigration piece. After it was published, he refused his fee and determined that he would never again draw anything he did not believe in. Luckily, by this point, he was famous enough that the newspapers were willing to give him freedom.

In 1910, he helped co-found The Masses, and here he did some of his most powerful socialist cartoons.

Here is Young describing Capitalism...

Young was noteworthy in his frequent use of a hell motif, like THIS look at Capitalism...

He also spoke out about the ills of modern society...

These, too, he would tie into the hell motif...

Like Boardman Robinson, Young was a big fan of Daumier, as seen in this take on Daumier's classic Gargantua cartoon, this time responding to the struggles for reasonable working hours for workers...

Here's a great cartoon directed at one of Young's least favorite people, J.P. Morgan...

This is a great satirical look at the plight of strikers that works now as well as it did then...

Young was not unable to poke fun at radicalism, either, though, as seen in this cute anarchy joke...

Young loved the fact that The Masses was outside of the standard news system, as he deplored the news system, as seen in this piece about the "freedom" of the press...

In 1913, he produced the following cartoon about the Associated Press...

They responded by suing him and he was indicted for criminal libel.

After a year, they dropped the suit.

Young was so out there that he actually responded to them dropping the suit...

And since he never knew when to stop, he continued mocking the AP...

In fact, Young seemed to get off on the fact that The Masses was so controversial, so he celebrated when it was kicked out of libraries...

or whole countries!

However, it was Young's views on war that ended up getting him arrested.

Young, like many socialists, felt that the capitalist system was what was driving the war in Europe, and hoped the US would keep out of it.

Here is a classic cover to The Masses by Young expressing his disgust with war...

Here are a pair of QUITE strong anti-war pieces, showing you exactly where Young stood on the issue...

Ultimately, though, it was this cartoon that got Young arrested in 1917.

Even during this time, Young drew cartoons mocking censorship...

Mocking the Capitalist system...

And even mocking the fact that he should at all be concerned with the trial...

In 1919, Young and the others were released (after TWO hung juries and the end of World War I).

Afterwards, Young helped start two other radical journals, The Liberator and Good Morning.

He continued contributing politically charged cartoons to various magazines and journals until his death in 1943.

The images are courtesy of this great piece at Graphic Witness as well as this neat gallery at the marxists.org.

Okay, that's it!

Hope you all enjoyed the month!

9 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/31/stars-of-political-cartooning-art-young/feed/ 9 Stars of Political Cartooning - Jeff MacNelly http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/30/stars-of-political-cartooning-jeff-macnelly/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/30/stars-of-political-cartooning-jeff-macnelly/#comments Fri, 31 Oct 2008 05:07:24 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20242 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a three-time Pulitizer Prize-winning cartoonist who is one of the most (if not THE most) emulated political cartoonist today (and that's not even mentioning his award-winning humor comic strip!).

Enjoy!

Jeff MacNelly was born in New York City in 1947.

MacNelly went to the University of North Carolina beginning in 1965, where he began doing illustration work for the college paper. His work was popular enough that MacNelly dropped out of school in 1969 to begin working full-time as a cartoonist.

MacNelly worked first at the Chapel Hill Weekly, where his editor was Jim "Shu" Shumaker. MacNelly quickly gained prominence in the region and in 1970 he was hired by the Richmond News Leader to be their top cartoonist.

Jeff MacNelly and another fairly young cartoonist, Pat Oliphant (who had begun working in America in the mid-60s) were massively influential with their sense of cartoon design and humor.

In 1972, MacNelly, only 24 years old, won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for his overall work in the previous year.

MacNelly would win the award a second time in 1978, mostly for this hilarious IRS parody...

By the late 70s, MacNelly's work was beginning to be syndicated nationally by the Chicago Tribune, and in the early 80s, he moved to Chicago to work for the paper directly, and in 1982, he won his third Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.

In 1977, MacNelly launched a comic strip called Shoe, based on his editor and mentor, Jim "Shu" Shumaker.

The strip is one of the most popular comic strips in the country.

MacNelly also drew the cartoons for Dave Berry's syndicated humor column.

Over the years, MacNelly picked up a number of other awards (here's a bio he did for one of the awards he won)

And his cartoons spanned the decades.

Sadly, in 1999, MacNelly was diagnosed with Lymphoma. By this time, MacNelly had already decided to more or less quit cartooning to focus on fine art and sculpting, and a lot of the work on Shoe was being done by his assistant, Chris Cassatt and his friend and fellow artist, Gary Brookins, anyways.

MacNelly was taken at the too young age of 52 in 2000.

The influence of his work upon current political cartoonists is stunning, with Michael Ramirez being probably the most notable example of a current cartoonist emulating MacNelly, and Ramirez is one of the most successful American political cartoonists today (he already has two Pulitzers).

Here is the website for Shoe. Oddly enough, they no longer have a political cartoon archive on the site, which is really odd. Here is a site featuring MacNelly's painting work.

6 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/30/stars-of-political-cartooning-jeff-macnelly/feed/ 6 Stars of Political Cartooning - Clifford "CK" Berryman http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/29/stars-of-political-cartooning-clifford-ck-berryman/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/29/stars-of-political-cartooning-clifford-ck-berryman/#comments Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:34:46 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20237 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at the Pulitizer Prize-winning cartoonist who helped give the world the teddy bear.

Enjoy!

Clifford K. Berryman was born in Kentucky in 1869.

He moved to Washington DC where he worked for the US Postal Service before beginning an amazing FIFTY-EIGHT year career as a political cartoonist in Washington DC, first for the Washington Post (1891-1907) and then at the Washington Star (and the Post, for a bit towards the end) (1907-1949).

Berryman was the ultimate Washington insider, and his comics reflected this, as he always came across as a very knowing observer of the political scenes - he had these characters he would use often that were bees to represent the Washington "buzz."

Part of the reason Berryman was so plugged in was the detached manner in which he delivered the news in his cartoons - he told people when they were in trouble, but he was equally tough on every political party, and in fact, he really wasn't "tough" on ANY of them.

This was no Robert Minor or Boardman Robinson here - Berryman's political cartoons are the types you could easily give to children to explain politics, and even today, they serve as great teaching tools.

For all his political cartooning (he won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1943, just six years before his death - although it was more of a "lifetime achievement type of deal), Berryman is going to forever be known as the guy who inspired the creation of the teddy bear.

Berryman drew a cartoon in 1902 depicting a hunting expedition by Theodore Roosevelt where he refused to kill a bear. The act of humanity (and Berryman's cartoon) led to a toy store owner creating a "Teddy bear," which are still made today (and almost certainly the reason that Roosevelt is known today as Teddy Roosevelt when he never liked that name back then, preferring TR as a nickname).

Berryman would keep using the "Teddy Bear" in his cartoons, even after Roosevelt left office.

That's actually kinda odd.

Anyhow, here are a sampling of Berryman's gentle political humor...

Here, the buzz of a Supreme Court justiceship is thwarted in favor of the buzz of a Presidential nomination for William Taft in 1908, which Roosevelt presumably offered Taft when Taft was hoping Roosevelt would make him a Justice...

However, Roosevelt quickly began to doubt his decision not to seek a third-term (Roosevelt was in the odd category of taking over for a murdered President, should his first term count as an actual term if he was not elected AS President? Heck, what is the ruling today?)

So Berryman showed him as Hamlet - to run or not to run?

He ultimately did not run.

However, in 1912, Roosevelt officially changed his mind about not seeking a third term for President.

Here, Roosevelt is haunted by the third-term principle (which he spoke of when saying he would not seek re-election in 1908)....

After two terms of Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt was the presumptive Republican candidate in 1920, but he screwed that up by dying in 1919, making it a free for all.

There was a similar free for all in 1924, when Berryman showed a great amount of Democrats throwing their hat in the ring for the 1924 Democratic nomination...

Here, Berryman shows Henry Ford declining the thought of him seeking a Presidential nomination...

Here, Harding wishes he had the approval ratings of Babe Ruth...

Finally, here is a trio of political cartoons that can be tied into today's political climate.

First, a glimmer of hope for McCain...

Secondly, a glance at what the candidates will be feeling like Tuesday....

Finally, a look at what the New Year will likely be like (although hopefully 2009 will be better than 1932)

Thanks to the Clifford K. Berryman Political Cartoon Collection for the images!

7 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/29/stars-of-political-cartooning-clifford-ck-berryman/feed/ 7 Stars of Political Cartooning - Boardman Robinson http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/28/stars-of-political-cartooning-boardman-robinson/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/28/stars-of-political-cartooning-boardman-robinson/#comments Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:05:34 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20208 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a powerful cartoonist/journalist who, like his contemporary, Robert Minor, stood up for his beliefs even when the US Government branded him a traitor.

Enjoy!

The similarities between Robert Minor and Boardman Robinson (who was born in 1876 in Nova Scotia, Canada) are striking, so first let me link you back to the entry on Robert Minor.

Like Minor, Robinson was a staunch Socialist and heavily involved in liberal causes of the day, including women's suffrage.

Robinson even had a similar stark, sparse style like Minor's - the sketchy nature of their cartoons usually had something to do with the immediacy in which they were creating.

Like Minor, Robinson said what was on his mind - whether it fit into a specific mold or not.

However, Robinson was also a very notable artist on his own terms - he just happened to coincide with Minor at more than a few points in history.

Speaking of not fitting within a prescribed mold, check out this great piece where Robinson mocks a group he specifically SUPPORTS, for what he felt to be their negative views on racial equality even while trying to gain gender equality...

What a great cartoon.

(By the by, did you know that our image files are case-sensitive? How odd is that? boardman1.jpg resulted in no image, but Boardman1.jpg worked - so silly).

Robinson was friends and worked alongside John Reed, the famed Communist who Warren Beatty portrayed in Reds.

The two went to Russia in 1914, and Russia always held a place in Robinson's heart, noted by his cartoons later on...

Robinson originally drew for the New York Times and the New York Tribune, and they allowed him to do anti-war cartoons before the United States was involved, but when they DID become involved, Robinson had to turn to the radical newspaper, The Masses, along with Minor, to continue his work.

Here's a beautifully frightening piece he wrote about America's involvement.

Crap - I misplaced the caption. Could someone find it for me?

I'll paraphrase it, for now - "Come on in, America, the War is just fine!"

Along with Minor and a few others, Robinson was arrested for treason for his anti-war cartoons, and was put on trial twice (both hung juries) before the war ended and there really was no more reason to hold them any longer.

Robinson contributed to the sequel to the Masses, The Liberator.

He then proceeded to teach for many years and also did a number of murals.

The creator of the Masses, Max Eastman, who also faced prison along with Robinson, Minor and others (including one artist we'll meet in a couple of days), had this to say about Robinson and also what is probably Robinson's most famous cartoon...

Surprisingly as it may seem, he actually introduced into America the idea, as old as Daumier, that cartoons should have the values of art as well as of meaning.

He was big, burly, bluff, sea-captain sort of character, with dancing blue eyes under bushy red brows, a red beard, and a boisterous way of "blowing in" as though out of a storm, instead of merely entering, a place of habitation. Everybody called him Mike, and I guess it must have been in memory of Michelangelo, whose fury and rapture his powerful and meaningful drawings did recall.

When Mike blew in with a picture of a white-clad, saintly Jesus standing against a stone wall facing the rifles of a brutish firing squad - "The Deserter"- I felt that number (The Masses, July, 1916) deserved a place in the history of art.

Can't really argue with Eastman there.

Thanks to Spartacus for the Eastman quote and thanks to this Marxist site for most of the cartoons featured above.

4 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/28/stars-of-political-cartooning-boardman-robinson/feed/ 4 Stars of Political Cartooning - Will Dyson http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/27/stars-of-political-cartooning-will-dyson/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/27/stars-of-political-cartooning-will-dyson/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:21:37 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20181 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a hauntingly beautiful World War I war cartoonist whose sharp sense of justice continued after the war, as well.

Enjoy!

Will Dyson was born in Australia in 1880.

By 1900, he was contributing cartoons to local Australian newspapers and soon he gained a great reputation for a satirist, almost always of conservatives as Dyson, like his whole family, was a Socialist. He was given a staff job in Adelaide in 1904. In 1909, Dyson moved to England to pursue a career as a cartoonist there.

A turning point in his career happened in 1910, when the British printing industry was locked out in retaliation for attempting to negotiate for a 48 hour work week.

Soon, a strike sheet (a hastily printed paper) was produced to support the printers, and it was soon popular enough that even when the strike ended, there was proof that a left-wing newspaper could survive in England, and so the Daily Herald was born - and Will Dyson was a part of it from the beginning!

Dyson was left to his own devices - anything he wanted to opine about, he could. The Herald would often give him the entire front page if his work was interesting enough!

Dyson soon became one of the most popular cartoonists in England, and was offered jobs by much larger papers, but he loved the freedom and the social beliefs of the Herald, which often led to him being denounced, even by the British party that he supported, as he felt that they were not liberal ENOUGH.

Here's an absolutely brilliant piece of work Dyson did chastising the Labour Party for how they changed once they began getting some power in the British Government...

Dyson's Socialist background would come up in his cartoons often...

Dyson left behind his career as a popular cartoonist to enlist in the Australian Army and serve during World War I.

Dyson covered the war for the Australian GovernmentAustralian newspapers, and he produced what are some of the finest war-time cartoons ever.

Wine of victory (German prisoners captured at Ypres)

Here, Dyson takes the "haunting" term a bit seriously...

Christmas Memories

This following cartoon depicted something Dyson saw with his own eyes - a man carving a cross for a dead friend...

Reinforcements, between Igaree Corner and Lagincourt

Watching the barrage from Mont Kemmel

With the tunnellers near Nieuport

The following is likely his most famous of the War, and it's one of the best war cartoons that I've ever seen...

One of the old platoon

Following the war, back at the Herald, Dyson produced one of the most prophetic cartoons imaginable, and likely his most famous cartoon (it certainly gained a lot more attention in 1939), when he drew the following cartoon where he sneers at the Treaty of Versailles...

The cartoon depicts Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George and Orlando of Italy leaving the Versailles peace treaty meeting with Clemenceau who is saying, 'Curious! I seem to hear a child weeping!'-the weeping child in the cartoon was labelled '1940 class'. Here, Dyson is suggesting that the effects of the Treaty of Versailles were going to start another war in 1940 - he was off by a few months.

Amazing.

Finally, on the lighter side of things, here is a birthday drawing Dyson did for a young niece of his - Dyson is the "Father Time" in the drawing - quite a self-deprecating drawing!

Dyson's wife, Ruby (of the notable Australian artistic family, the Lindsays), died in the great flu epidemic that followed World War I. Dyson was distraught with grief.The Versailles cartoon was actually the first piece of work he was able to bring himself to do for months after her death.

Soon, Dyson also felt that he lost the Herald, as it began becoming more moderate in an attempt to make more advertising money. He quit his gig and soon found that he was simply too radical to gain work anywhere ELSE.

Ultimately, he took a gig back in Australia in 1925. His work there, while not bad, lacked the fierceness of his British work.

Dyson died in 1938, before getting to see just how prophetic his work was.

1 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/27/stars-of-political-cartooning-will-dyson/feed/ 1 Stars of Political Cartooning - Daniel Fitzpatrick http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/26/stars-of-political-cartooning-daniel-fitzpatrick/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/26/stars-of-political-cartooning-daniel-fitzpatrick/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 06:22:51 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20170 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist who was a major influence upon his successor, Bill Maudlin.

Enjoy!

Daniel Robert Fitzpatrick was born in Wisconsin in 1891. He attended the Chicago Art Institute, and after graduation, he worked briefly in Chicago before taking a position in 1913 as a daily cartoonist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he would continue to work until 1958 - almost fifty years at one position!

During this time, Fitzpatrick would gain a sterling reputation for a number of things...

1. He was extremely liberal for the times, but he was so easygoing in his delivery that he rarely alienated people.

2. His cartoons were not funny, they were hearfelt examinations of issues that Fitzpatrick felt affected the common man

and

3. He was an excellent draftsman, influenced greatly by the style of Robert Minor and Rollin Kirby (Kirby, in particular, was a big early influence for Fitzpatrick).

Here are a couple of cartoons by Fitzpatrick on the Stock Market Crash and the ensuing Great Depression of the 1920s/30s...

One Person Out of Every Ten

Fitzpatrick was an early critic of Hitler, and his national prominence as a cartoonist certainly helped in the fights for the hearts and minds of isolationist Americans...

Fitzpatrick won two Pulitzer Prizes for Editorial Cartooning.

The first was in 1926 for this well-drawn, but honestly, not the best idea in the world, depicting an American weighed down by "too many laws."

The Laws of Moses and the Laws of Today

For serious?

Too many laws? This was a major issue of the day? Really?

Fitzpatrick more than made up for his lackluster first Pulitzer win with his second (wish I could not find a copy to show you - if someone has one, I'd love to be able to post it here), in 1955, just three years before he would retire.

The cartoon depicted Uncle Sam with a machine gun deep in the jungles of Vietnam, with the caption "How Would Another Mistake Help?"

This was in 1955!!

Amazing.

Fitzpatrick was a close compatriot with his fellow national cartoonists, like Herb Block, and he also served as a mentor to younger cartoonists. One such cartoonist was Bill Maudlin, who Fitzpatrick convinced to succeed him as the daily cartoonist for the Post-Dispatch. Maudlin would leave the paper after a few years for Chicago (like so many cartoonist before him), but not before adding another Pulitzer Prize winning cartoon to the Post-Dispatch's record books.

Daniel R. Fitzpatrick died in 1969.

2 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/26/stars-of-political-cartooning-daniel-fitzpatrick/feed/ 2 Stars of Political Cartooning - Arthur Szyk http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/25/stars-of-political-cartooning-arthur-szyk/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/25/stars-of-political-cartooning-arthur-szyk/#comments Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:50:44 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20151 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at an opponent of Hitler's Germany who Eleanor Roosevelt called a "one-man army against fascism."

Enjoy!

Arthur Szyk was born in Poland to Jewish parents in 1894. He was actually expelled from a school in his teens for doing anti-Czarist, pro-Zionist/pro-Polish sketches, so even as a youth he was determined to use his artistic skills to attack what he felt was wrong with the world.

Szyk (pronounced "shick") soon became an extremely popular artist, particularly with his miniature portraits (there is no doubt that Szyk was the pre-eminent miniature portrait artist, as few people specialized in the artform in the 20th Century - it was big in the 1500s).

He was extremely opposed to Nazi rule, and spoke out against Hitler and his ilk for years before the war, and due to the dangers of criticizing Hitler, Szyk moved to England, where he was also censored to keep from offending Germany. Once the war began, however, things changed, and now his anti-Nazi work was in high demand.

Szyk moved to America in 1940 (he ultimately became a US citizen in 1948) and he soon became extremely popular for his anti-Nazi caricatures and cartoons.

Here are a sampling....

Early on, Szyk mocked the Nazis as incompetent...

but soon, he was depicting Hitler and his crew as a dominant force.

Here, they discuss their plans to re-shape the globe...

Here is an extremely disturbing piece depicting Uncle Sam and John Bull in chains before Hitler, who is using a rug made of a Jew...

Here's Death and Satan supporting Hitler

Here is Satan leading the Axis forces...

Here's a frightening image of what would happen if the Nazis got their way, according to Szyk...

Szyk's medieval interests are at play here in this famous piece he did to raise support for Poland...

This is an interesting look at people putting aside racial differences for the greater good...

Here's an amusing piece Szyk did for Roosevelt's 1944 re-election campaign...

Finally, here is Szyk's celebration of V-E Day...

Szyk died in 1951 - sadly, right before his death, the House Un-American Activities Committee actually chose to investigate this man, a man who devoted the latter years of his life to promoting the United States.

What a shame.

Thanks to the Arthur Szyk Society for the images used this week!

3 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/25/stars-of-political-cartooning-arthur-szyk/feed/ 3 Stars of Political Cartooning - Carl Giles http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/24/stars-of-political-cartooning-carl-giles/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/24/stars-of-political-cartooning-carl-giles/#comments Sat, 25 Oct 2008 05:26:59 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20137 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at the man voted 'Britain's Favourite Cartoonist of the 20th Century'.

Enjoy!

Ronald Giles was born in London, England in 1916. He gained the name Carl due to his friends thinking he looked like Boris Karloff, so they called him Karlo, which eventually became Carl.

He dropped out of school at age 14 and became an office boy and eventually worked a bit in animation.

In 1937, he began doing cartoons and soon began working at the Daily Express, which is where he stayed for the rest of his career until his retirement in the very early 90s.

His cartoons were not standard political cartoons, and he did not typically do caricatures - he was noted by telling topical stories using normal people reacting to the news around them.

The main people he used for this were the Giles "family," particularly his most famous creation, the rascally matriarch, Grandma...

He was a War Correspondent during WWII, and here is one of his few cartoons directly on the war...

Giles really does not have any one super famous cartoon.

Here is a fairly random sampling...

The images are courtesy of this awesome searchable Giles site...

For fun, here are the two cartoons Giles did in his career on October 24th (he was so detailed that his cartoons were not dailies).

Giles lived long enough to see a statue of Grandma built in Ipswich, right outside the newspaper office building window where Giles worked for so many years...

Giles passed away in 1995, five years before he was named 'Britain's Favourite Cartoonist of the 20th Century'.

8 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/24/stars-of-political-cartooning-carl-giles/feed/ 8 Stars of Political Cartooning - Homer Davenport http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/23/stars-of-political-cartooning-homer-davenport/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/23/stars-of-political-cartooning-homer-davenport/#comments Fri, 24 Oct 2008 06:15:09 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20082 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a US cartoonist who was controversial enough that the government tried to ban his cartoons!

Enjoy!

Homer Davenport was born in 1867 in Silverton, Oregon (Silverton has a three day festival every year celebrating Davenport) to a local big-wig at the cracker factory that was Oregon at the time.

Davenport was interested in drawing, but had no formal training, and bummed around at a few jobs until his early 20s, when the famous newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst saw something in Davenport, and brought him to New York and gave him a prominent cartoonist job in 1895.

Davenport would not disappoint, and soon, he would become one of the most popular cartoonists in the world, and in many ways, the true successor to Thomas Nast (Davenport's mother told him stories about Nast when Davenport was a very young boy).

Davenport was a skilled draftsman and an excellent caricaturist.

He was a Democrat, and he ripped the Republicans frequently.

Here is a cartoon where he rips then-President William McKinley's tariff bills...

Davenport was an early supporter of the Jews, as seen in this turn of the century rebuke of the Czar (by Columbia) for his treatment of the Jews in Russia...

Here, Davenport derides something that is quite common these days, the idea of the President wielding too much executive power...

Davenport's most famous target was Mark Hanna. Mark Hanna was a major backer of William McKinley. As Davenport noted in the future, McKinley was just too goldarn squeaky-clean, so it really wouldn't work to mock HIM, so instead Davenport (and Hearst) turned their aims on the rich industrialist and financier of McKinley's campaign, Mark Hanna - a man who raised so much money for McKinley that when McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan in 1896, McKinley outspent Bryan 20 to 1!

Here's a few examples of how Davenport depicted Hanna (as the puppet master of McKinley)...

The last piece used an actual quote by Davenport, stating "I am confident that the working men are with us."

In an intriguing display of "behind the scenes" magic (and what seems to be a bit of bragging, really), Davenport later did a famous cartoon where he showed HOW he turned Hanna into such a comical character...

This inspired the New York Legislature to try to pass a law banning cartoons.

In response, Davenport did the following brilliant piece, comparing the politician behind the bill to Boss Tweed...

"No Honest Man Need Fear Cartoons"

The bill did not pass.

After the Turn of the Century, Davenport became a Teddy Roosevelt supporter, and even supplied his OTHER most famous cartoon...

Uncle Sam: "He's good enough for me."

Davenport continued doing cartooning and reporting for Hearst until Davenport died in 1912 - after he caught a cold while covering the Titanic disaster.

3 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/23/stars-of-political-cartooning-homer-davenport/feed/ 3 Stars of Political Cartooning - Vaughn Shoemaker http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/22/stars-of-political-cartooning-vaughn-shoemaker/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/22/stars-of-political-cartooning-vaughn-shoemaker/#comments Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:26:18 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20072 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a cartoonist who created the character "John Q. Public."

Enjoy!

Vaughn Shoemaker was born in 1902, and by the age of 22, he was the head cartoonist for the Chicago Daily News, a position he would hold for almost thirty years before moving on to various other papers before his retirement in 1972.

Shoemaker used very clean lines, and was a favorite of many of his fellow cartoonists, including Herb Block.

Here's one of his early cartoons, where we see Shoemaker harken back to the days of Nast and Tammany Hall, in discussing New York Democrats...

Early on in his career, Shoemaker developed a character named John Q. Public who worked as the personification of the typical US citizen. Many other cartoonists took this idea, as well, and the name soon became synonymous with "average US citizen."

Shoemaker was highly critical of Hitler, as these cartoons show...

I particularly enjoy the one about how the Nazi leaders did not look like the Aryan "supermen" that they wanted of the German race.

Shoemaker was not initially a Democrat supporter, but like many, he got behind FDR...

Here he shows FDR stewarding the ship during war...

And here is a cartoon arguing for the drafting of young men for the war efforts.

Here is a neat cartoon he did late in career showing what problems Vietnam was causing LBJ....

Shoemaker was a devout Christian, and he claimed to kneel and pray before beginning every cartoon.

Shoemaker died in 1991.

7 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/22/stars-of-political-cartooning-vaughn-shoemaker/feed/ 7 Stars of Political Cartooning - John "HB" Doyle http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/21/stars-of-political-cartooning-john-hb-doyle/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/21/stars-of-political-cartooning-john-hb-doyle/#comments Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:44:48 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20052 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a famous cartoonist who was (intentionally) anonymous during his life as a cartoonist.

Enjoy!

John Doyle is very different from most of the other cartoonists featured this month.

For one, he's a popular British cartoonist of the 19th Century who was actually (GASP!) Catholic.

And for another, unlike most of the cartoonists this month, Doyle was actually pretty nice with his political cartoons.

In one area, though, he is extremely similar to many of the cartoonists this month, and that is the fact that when the young Doyle came to London in 1821 (he was born in 1797 in Dublin), he was trying to make it as a "high" artist. He actually had a few shows at the Royal Academy, but within a few years, he was making his living as a cartoonist.

In 1829, he began his association with the renowned British newspaper, The Times, where he worked until his retirement in 1851. In his entire tenure at the Times, Doyle always signed his work HB, and was quite adept at keeping his actual name hidden.

HB was known for his great skill as a cartoonist, but also for the fact that while he would, in fact, use his cartoons to satirize people, the satire would usually be so mild that the people he was ostensibly mocking would be pleased by the cartoons! One politician was known to collect every H.B. cartoon in which he appeared and put them all in an album!!

For example, here is an 1832 piece by Doyle about the new Canadian legislature in Newfoundland, and he draws them as Newfoundland dogs!

It's so precious who can be offended?

Similarly, this cartoon of King George IV, titled "A Great Economist," teasing George on his thrift, is not exactly a harsh cartoon.

Doyle's cartoons were noted by three major events during his two decades at The Times, and I'll show a sampling of his cartoons for each of these major political events.

First, the Reform Bill of 1832, which revolutionized the way the British Legislature was decided...

Politicians had been striving for Reform for many years, but kept getting shut down, particularly by the popular Duke of Wellington, the great British war hero of the Napoleonic Wars, who felt that the current system was absolutely perfect and did not need to be changed at all, despite the fact that in a country of 14 million people, only about 250,000 were eligible to actually vote.

This cartoon notes the struggles to keep the Reform Act alive...

In this particularly inventive cartoon, the King is attempting to keep the two sides on the issue even (which essentially means nothing was going to happen) until John Bull, representing public opinion in Britain, pushes the issue by choosing the side of reform...

This cartoon just shows the various players at the time, I just wished to show how kind Doyle is with his caricatures, everyone looks pretty good, don't they?

The next major event was the situation with Catholics in Britain during the 1840s, with Daniel O'Connell working as the spokesperson for Irish Rights. O'Connell had already (surprisingly) achieved Catholic Emancipation in the late 1820s, but was now looking for even more, and Doyle, as a Catholic, was quite supportive of O'Connell.

Here are a few pro-O'Connell cartoons (pro-Catholic cartoons, what is the world coming to?!!?)...

O'Connell and Wellington, each waiting for the other to make the first move...

Here's a cute one...

'Daniel in the Lions' Den'

Here's one where O'Connell is the fish they're trying to control, but he's a big one, so we shall see what happens...

The next major event was the repealing of the Corn Laws. Corn, in this instance, really just refers to grain. There were heavy restrictions on the importation of foreign grain, as that was seen as injurious to British land owners. Well, free trade enthusiasts for years felt this was a poor idea, but when the Potato Famine came about, the heavy tariff on foreign grains REALLY caused some problems, and Doyle was in support of the repealing (which ultimately took place in 1846).

Here, he shows two notable politicans of the time, Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel (the Prime Minister) "confessing" to the lead supporter of repealing the Corn Law, Robert Cobden.

Upon the repealing of the Corn Laws, Peel resigned as Prime Minister.

Doyle had one of his harsher cartoons here, depicting Peel as Medea...

Medea Having destroyed her children vanishes through the air upon a chariot drawn by winged dragons

Here's a great archive of Doyle cartoons.

Doyle passed away in 1868.

His children were also involved in the arts, and in fact, Doyle lived long enough to know his grandson, Arthur Conan, who you maybe, just MAYBE have heard of before.

3 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/21/stars-of-political-cartooning-john-hb-doyle/feed/ 3 Stars of Political Cartooning - Doug Marlette http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/20/stars-of-political-cartooning-doug-marlette/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/20/stars-of-political-cartooning-doug-marlette/#comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:04:06 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=20021 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at an award-winning cartoonist who was no stranger to controversy before his life was tragically cut short just last year.

Enjoy!

Doug Marlette was born in North Carolina in 1949.

While in college, he began doing political cartoons, and went to work doing political cartoons at the Charlotte Observer in 1972.

In 1981, he debuted the syndicated comic strip, Kudzu, about life in a small town in the South...

Kudzu was a big hit, even having a musical version done in 1998.

As a political cartoonist, Marlette's first majorly famous moment was his cartoon reaction to the Challenger tragedy in 1986.

This classic image was reproduced all over the country.

In 1987, Marlette left the Charlotte Observer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In 1988, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for his work in 1987 at the Observer and the Journal-Constitution.

Here is a sampling of his work from that year...

In 1989, Marlette left to work for New York Newsday, which is where he stayed until 2002.

That same year produced perhaps his most controversial cartoon ever....

As you might imagine, Marlette drew quite a lot of criticism for this cartoon, and to be honest, I can't say that I like the cartoon all that much myself.

When the Danish Mohammed cartoons became a big deal, they actually called Marlette to ask him for advice for handling the situation (this was early on, before it turned into a MUCH bigger deal than Marlette's controversy).

A year or so later, Marlette drew this excellent cartoon (Marlette drew for the Tallahassee Democrat from 2002-2006) directing his ire at a controversy in Chicago involving some firemen saying some racist statements over the official airwaves.

The Mayor of Chicago himself denounced Marlette's cartoon.

A decade earlier, Marlette had also come under fire for a Kudzu cartoon where he shows someone reading a magazine titled "Modern Depression," which featured "Suicide notes to the editor."

In July of 2007, Marlette was killed in a car accident.

Here is his last editorial cartoon...

And here is a tribute cartoon to Marlette, which ran in the spot where his regular cartoon would go (by 2007, he was working for the Tulsa World)...

All images courtesy of Doug Marlette's website, dougmarlette.com.

4 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/20/stars-of-political-cartooning-doug-marlette/feed/ 4 Stars of Political Cartooning - Joseph Keppler http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/19/stars-of-political-cartooning-joseph-keppler/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/19/stars-of-political-cartooning-joseph-keppler/#comments Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:46:36 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=19992 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a cartoonist who is most likely considered to have been Thomas Nast's successor as the most notable cartoonist in America.

Enjoy!

Joseph Keppler was born in Austria in 1838. He moved to the United States in 1867, where he tried his hand at acting in St. Louis. That was not going so well, so he started up a humor magazine in St. Louis in the style of England's notable Punch magazine. It did go so well at first, so he decided to re-start the magazine in New York in 1876.

At first, there were German and English versions of the magazine, which he named Puck (after the mischievous character from Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream), and in fact, for the first few years the paper was in business, the German version totally subsidized the English one.

But eventually, the paper caught on and became the first popular humor magazine in the United States.

The format was that each cover would have a political cartoon, each back cover would have a social satire cartoon and the middle would have a two-page spread of a political cartoon. The rest of the issue would be made up of articles and editorials about the current day.

Keppler was an interesting fellow - he was a Democrat in a Republican world, and he had numerous odd beliefs. He was anti-women's suffrage, for crissakes!

Other weird things would come up, like he would criticize Grant for drinking, but then he would criticize Hayes for banning alcohol from the White House.

Essentially, he changed his arguments to suit whatever position he happened to take - wow, I wonder why he didn't pursue politics himself!

Here is a sample cover of Puck...

(the subject of this cartoon shows up in a great one coming up)

Here is a cartoon showing Grant's popularity waning...

A lot of that had to do with the charges of fraud levied at Grant during his second term...

However much controversy surrounded Grant, he was still pretty damn popular, so Keppler was scared spitless over the notion that Grant might pursue an unheard of THIRD term!

So he did a LOT of cartoons on this topic - here are three I liked the best...

The third term being the Golden Calf...

The third term express rolling over Columbia (representation of America)...

The Republican party leaders shutting down the third-party supporters at the Republican Convention. Note the fellow with the fancy beard, that's Roscoe Conkling - Keppler liked Conkling at this point, but as you can tell by the cover at the beginning of this piece, within a few years, Keppler felt Conkling had lost all his credibility...

And this is why....

Conkling was the driving force behind the 1877 "compromise" that gave Hayes the Presidency in exchange for the removal of Northern troops in Southern cities...

Note how Conkling is Satan and Hayes is courting the South...

Great cartoon.

So yeah, after this point, Conkling was no longer a fellow Keppler respected.

Around this same time, another one of Keppler's pet peeves was the Pension Fund for Civil War veterans. He felt it was FILLED with corruption, so he did a series of cartoons on it. Here are a couple...

Here's a cute cartoon from the 1880 Election period, depicting a last drive for the polls before election time....

Here's a really good one which was titled "Inspecting the Democratic Curiosity Shop," where the modern Democrats are confronted with the cruelties of their past.

Here are two pieces where Keppler depicts politics as both a dog show and then, a beauty contest.

Funny stuff.

Keppler shows the Republicans attempts at reform here, presenting their ideas to Columbia...

Here's a cute one showing President Harrison dealing with the legacy of his grand-father, William Henry Harrison....

Check out this neat archive of Puck cartoons for more!

Keppler passed away in 1884, and his son took over the magazine. It continued to thrive well into the 20th Century, but then Hearst bought it and it went under within two years.

12 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/19/stars-of-political-cartooning-joseph-keppler/feed/ 12 Stars of Political Cartooning - Philip Zec http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/18/stars-of-political-cartooning-philip-zec/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/18/stars-of-political-cartooning-philip-zec/#comments Sun, 19 Oct 2008 06:20:49 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=19976 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a great cartoonist who is, more than most other cartoonists, known almost entirely for two cartoons in particular.

Enjoy!

Philip Zec was born in London in 1909.

He won a scholarship to Art School, and upon graduation, he began working in advertising. Eventually, he was successful enough to start his own agency. However, with the advent of World War II in Europe, Zec, the son of Russian Jews, had a deep hatred of Hitler and the Nazis and he was looking for an avenue to express that disdain, and a friend of his helped him find it working for the Daily Mirror.

Unlike the great David Low, Zec tended to be a bit more aggressive with his attacks (Low tended to go for mocking the people he hated rather than outright attacking them)...

This cartoon is fairly self-explanatory...

The New Christianity. 100% Aryan.

This one is, too, really...

It's funny, I did a Hess cartoon by another cartoonist on the list (I forget who). That cartoon was mystified by Hess' trip to SwitzerScotland to broker a peace. Here, Zec is a bit angrier...

Can't we be friends?

By the by, the hatred Zec had for the Nazis was mutual. Hitler had him on a list of "people to arrest" if/when Germany was to invade England.

This piece on the French Resistance is fairly self-explanatory...

VERY MUCH ALIVE!

Here, Zec aims his sights on General Henri-Philippe Petain, who was the head of the Vichy government in France (Petain was first sentenced to death for treason after the war, but was commuted to a life sentence - the dude was already in his 80s at the time).

Saving France - for Germany

Here, Zec shows his disgust for Pierre Laval, who was a former Prime Minister of France who worked closely with the Nazis during World War II (which saw him being put to death after the war by the new French government).

Can you believe a former Prime Minister being willing to work in concert with an invading power?!

Okay, that's a nice sampling of Zec's cartoons - now I'll show you the two cartoons he'll forever be known for.

The first one came in 1942, when Zec published the following cartoon...

The price of petrol has been increased by one penny." Official

Zec's message was "men are risking their lives to bring you petrol, don't waste it." In fact, his original caption WAS "Petrol is Dearer Now" before a colleague got him to change it.

The cartoon, though, absolutely infuriated the government, including Winston Churchill, who felt that it was saying that the petrol companies were profiting off of the sacrifices of the merchant navy, which, to be honest, the caption does sort of give that impression - doesn't it?

In any event, Churchill had the government examine Zec, and Parliament actually conferred on whether they were going to shut the Daily Mirror DOWN over the cartoon! In the end, they chose to just severely reprimand the paper.

Three years later, the government was singing a different tune, as Zec produced the following stunning, powerful (and for the government, political useful) cartoon at the close of the War in Europe...

"Here you are! Don't lose it again."

Isn't that amazing?

Well, the Labour Party wanted to use this as their basic slogan for their re-election campaign in 1945, and actually went to Zec for help with the campaign. They even officially apologized to him for their castigation of him three years earlier.

In the end, on the day of the election, the Daily Mirror reprinted the cartoon on the front page to exhort readers to vote for the Labour Party...

Labour carried the day, and Zec's cartoon was given considerable credit for the victory.

Zec became a director of the Mirror after the war, and continued cartooning for the Mirror and other periodicals (even the Jewish Chronicle).

Philip Zec passed away in 1983.

8 Comments

  • At October 19, 2008, Crash-Man wrote:

    I enjoyed this one more than most of the others, Brian. Keep it up.

  • At October 19, 2008, Tilt Araiza wrote:

    >Churchill’s Labour Party wanted to use this as their basic slogan <

    Winston Churchill's party was the Conservative party, not Labour.

    This ...

  • At October 19, 2008, Tom Fitzpatrick wrote:

    Such a fascinating array of political cartoonists (all or most of them dead or retired).

    On a separate matter, Mr. B.C., ...

  • At October 19, 2008, Tilt Araiza wrote:

    Actually, my little floating correction needs more clarification. The last paragraph makes it look like the cartoon was an ...

  • At October 19, 2008, Brian Cronin wrote:

    Thanks, Tilt!

    Total brain fart there.

  • At October 19, 2008, Ajit wrote:

    That cartoon was mystified by Hess’ trip to Switzerland to broker a peace.

    Do you mean Hess's famous flight to Britain?

  • At October 19, 2008, Brian Cronin wrote:

    I meant Scotland!

  • At April 1, 2009, Tim Benson wrote:

    Don’t lose it again! The life and war-time cartoons of Philip Zec (Hardback)

    Donald Zec - £19.99

    Philip Zec is now widely ...

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/18/stars-of-political-cartooning-philip-zec/feed/ 8 Stars of Political Cartooning - John Tenniel http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/17/stars-of-political-cartooning-john-tenniel/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/17/stars-of-political-cartooning-john-tenniel/#comments Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:09:04 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=19932 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a notable British cartoonist who is most famous for his work on a children's book.

Enjoy!

In a pattern that is all too familiar at this point, John Tenniel (born 1820) tried to pursue a career in "High Art" before ultimately becoming famous as a cartoonist. He was still in his teens when he began sending in drawings to the Society of British Artists.

When he was 20, Tenniel was blinded in one eye in a fencing accident with his father (awwwwkward).

When he was 25, he entered a mural contest and won his first Royal attention (and a decent chunk of change).

While he was, as noted, most concerned with "high art," to pay the bills, he did various other art projects, including some humor work. It was his illustrations on an edition of Aesop's Fables that led to him, in 1850, being asked to contribute a cartoon to the British humor magazine, Punch.

His cartoon, "Lord Jack the Giant Killer," depicted Lord John Russell attacking Cardinal Wiseman, representing the "goliath" of the Catholic Church. The cartoon so offended Richard Doyle (one half of the cartooning team on Punch, along with John Leech) that Doyle quit upon the cartoon being accepted. Tenniel was given Doyle's job, and soon became the main cartoonist at Punch. Tenniel, though, never really felt like he belonged - he didn't think he was funny, and despite his general conservative views, he did not even find himself all that political, he was just giving the people what he felt they wanted.

He worked at Punch until 1901.

Like other British cartoonists of the era, Tenniel was concerned with the problems in Ireland...

And like most other British cartoonists of the era, Tenniel was very harsh on the Irish...

Here's an impressive piece of work by Tenniel, depicting the race to become Prime Minister...

Tenniel, in the pages of Punch, was quite critical of the inability of the police to capture Jack the Ripper, and did a number of cartoons on the subject...

Tenniel's most famous political cartoon was probably the following, noting the deposing of Otto von Bismarck by Kaiser Wilhelm. Only a few years earlier, von Bismarck was seen as the pilot of a new dawn of greatness for Germany, and now he was on the outs.

During the American Civil War, Tenniel did a number of impressive cartoons, even if they were mostly filled with offensive characterizations of America, Blacks AND Irish (Tenniel was a bit of an equal opportunity offender - so long as you weren't British, you were fair game)...

Here, the squabble is seen as, well, a squabble...

Here Lincoln and the South are acting out scenes from Shakespeare (Tenniel would do this frequently during the war)...

In possibly his most offensive cartoon, Tenniel shows what would happen if black soldiers for the North met black soldiers for the South...

Not wanting to leave the Irish out of it, Tenniel drew this one, which actually is technically kinda sympathetic to the Irish, who came to America and were forced into fighting a war for the rich. I mean, sympathetic in the way you'd feel bad for a dog if it got kicked, but still, sympathetic!!

Here, John Bull looks sorely at the American kids....

Here, Britain considers they might actually have to eventually deal with the South as an actual country (Tenniel was exaggerating heavily here - the British were nowhere NEAR ready to deal with the South at this point)

Finally, the war is over...

And Tenniel, on behalf of England, expresses his sorrow over Lincoln's assassination...

In any event, in 1865, Tenniel illustrated a novel by a young mathematician, and that is likely what Tenniel is most known for today, as his illustrations of The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland are, well, pretty darn well known....

He also illustrated the sequel, Through the Looking Glass...

Tenniel passed away in 1914.

4 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/17/stars-of-political-cartooning-john-tenniel/feed/ 4 Stars of Political Cartooning - Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/16/stars-of-political-cartooning-jay-norwood-ding-darling/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/16/stars-of-political-cartooning-jay-norwood-ding-darling/#comments Fri, 17 Oct 2008 05:28:34 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=19897 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist whose cartoons landed him a major position in the FDR administration!

Enjoy!

Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling was born in Michigan in 1876. His family moved to Sioux City, Iowa in 1886. When Darling was in college in the early 1890s, he developed his nickname, Ding, which was an abbreviation of his last name.

He would use "Ding" as his signature for the rest of his career.

After graduating college, Darling went to work as a reporter in Sioux City. He moved to Des Moines and began working at the Des Moines Register doing cartoons in 1906. After a few years, he moved to New York to work as a cartoonist, but quickly returned to Des Moines in 1913. He moved to New York again in 1916 to work for the New York Herald Tribune, but once again, he couldn't stand to be away from Iowa, so he returned to Des Moines in 1919, which is where he spent the rest of his cartooning career, although he was popular enough that the Herald Tribune continued publishing his cartoons until his retirement in 1949.

Darling was mostly concerned with conservation, and conservation themes popped up frequently in his cartoons.

Here are a few:

How Rich Will We Be
When We Have Converted All Our Forest, All Our Soil,
All Our Water Resources and Minerals to Cash?

Wonder What Mother Will Say
When She Finds He's Had It Clipped?

What a Few More Seasons Will Do to the Ducks

The Only Kettle She's Got

I love the bit on the last one where Darling notes that his editor is on his case about the cartoons being too depressing!

Due to his widespread popularity on the topic of conservation, in 1934, President Roosevelt appointed Darling as the Director of the U.S. Biological Survey, the forerunner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

While there, Darling designed the first "duck stamps," stamps people needed to have to hunt ducks.

Darling also designed the logo for the United States Park Refuge system...

During this time, Darling continued to produce cartoons, as well. Here are some of his notable ones..

On the topic of racism in America...

Even the Best Flag in the World Has Its Shadow

On the evolution of Harry Truman as President...

The Passengers Are Beginning to Sit Back and Relax

On the folly of trusting Adolf Hitler...

Bluebeard's Seventh Wife

And, in one of his most famous pieces, a commemoration of Pearl Harbor...

Remember!

Darling won the Pulitizer Prize for Editorial Cartooning twice.

First, in 1924, for the following cartoon speaking of the importance of putting effort into your life...

And in 1943, for the following cartoon that, well, really isn't all that great.

What a place for paper waste salvage

Apparently, upon learning he had won the Pulitzer, Darling had to actually dig through his records to find out what cartoon they were talking about, that's how unmemorable this piece was!

Darling died in 1962, and upon his death, he had his secretary release the following cartoon, which perfectly encapsulated the folksy charm that defined Darling's cartoons for decades and made him such a beloved figure...

Check out the Jay Norwood Darling Foundation for more cartoons and other information about Darling.

12 Comments

  • At October 17, 2008, Eldric IV wrote:

    The expressions he could give to a planet are just stunning. The look on the Earth's face as it ...

  • At October 17, 2008, Matthew Johnson wrote:

    This is a great series, Brian! I hope you're going to include Walt Kelly (since you're discussing political cartoonists, not ...

  • At October 17, 2008, Marc Kandel wrote:

    The pinheaded Neanderthal with the look of, "well, where's the food already?" on what is obviously not his first portion ...

  • At October 17, 2008, Anthony Strand wrote:

    Is it just me, or does his Hitler look quite a bit like Dr. Seuss's Hitler?

  • At October 17, 2008, JackKing wrote:

    Re: The Duck Hunt, is that a dragon's bones in the museum?

  • At October 17, 2008, Larry Bush wrote:

    To further what Marc Kandel said, Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge has a welcome center with some of Ding's cartoons on ...

  • At October 27, 2008, Marc Kandel wrote:

    I'm envious. I worked as an actor/tech on Sanibel during the winter season of 97', and it remains one ...

  • At October 27, 2008, Larry Bush wrote:

    Marc:

    Let me know when you will be here. My wife and I will make ...

  • At October 27, 2008, Marc Kandel wrote:

    I might just do that Larry. Thanks for the offer! Like I said we're hoping November, but in ...

  • At October 27, 2008, Larry Bush wrote:

    Marc:

    Where are you coming from? Gas is cheaper than it has been in at ...

  • At October 28, 2008, Marc Kandel wrote:

    That would be New York. So flying, car rental, boarding the dog, (I can't bring him to an island ...

  • At October 29, 2008, STWALLSKULL » HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse in The Gypsies at Rodney Bowcock’s Comics and Stories : October 29th, 2008 wrote:

    [...] Stars of Political Cartooning - Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling from Comics Should Be Good! [...]

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/16/stars-of-political-cartooning-jay-norwood-ding-darling/feed/ 12 Stars of Political Cartooning - George Cruikshank http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/15/stars-of-political-cartooning-george-cruikshank/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/15/stars-of-political-cartooning-george-cruikshank/#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:05:30 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=19855 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at a notable British political cartoonist who is most famous for his non-political work with a legendary British author.

Enjoy!

George Cruikshank was born in 1792 into an artistic family. His father, Isaac Cruikshank, was a notable painter and caricaturist, and George soon took up the "family business," as it were.

When he was still in his teens, Cruikshank would visit the preeminent caricaturist of the day, James Gillray, at his apartment and try to learn from him. Sadly, by this time, Gillray was very much insane. Still, Cruikshank must have taken SOMEthing out of these encounters, because he soon embarked on a series of political prints that were much in keeping with Gillray's style.

Cruikshank would take on the British Crown with some mockery, but unlike Gillray, most of Cruikshank's barbs would be sent outwards, to the enemies of the Crown (Gillray also had a patriotic streak, don't get me wrong, I just mean that Cruikshank had a much higher proportion of patriotic pieces than did Gillray).

Here, Cruikshank mocks Napoleon quite well, who Cruikshank has termed "Boney"...

Cruikshank goes particularly low brow here, illustrating how Napoleon's campaign has "gone to pot"...

In an case of events foretelling the future, here, Cruikshank demonstrates how Napoleon's attempts to go into Russia ended up ruining his campaign (much like it would ruin Hitler's campaign over a hundred years later)....

Do note how the Russians are depicted - that is a common trait in Cruikshank's work...

With Napoleon out of the way, Cruikshank THEN set his sights on British society, particularly its high society.

Here, he mocks the excesses of the day by depicting all the ridiculous outfits people wore and how it would cramp a room (most of these outfits had, by this time, actually been banned, but still, it's a good gag)...

Cruikshank does a particularly good job here depicting how "societal change" is, to high society, a terrifying monster...

This is a nice little parody of society by showing the servants of the rich imitating their masters...

Next, in a nice little bit of googly eyes, Cruikshank mocks the high prices at the British theatres...

While George III was the most prominent butt of Gillray's pieces, George IV was Cruikshank's main target...

Here is George dancing with another man's wife...

The British Crown ended up actually bribing Cruikshank to not mock George III, so I suppose that's why George IV got the rough end of it the most.

Here's a particularly Gillray-ian depiction of disease as "demons"

Cruikshank was such a patriot that he would often go a bit overboard with his depictions of those that were enemies of the crown.

The Americans got it easy, they were just depicted as cowards...

Any rebels, though, were treated like they were filthy animals...

One of his most famous works was illustrating William Maxwell's History of the Irish rebellion in 1798 (published in 1845).

In it, the Irish were barely even humans...

Yikes.

In many ways, Cruikshank was also a modern successor to not only Gillray, but to William Hogarth, as well.

Like Hogarth, he spoke out against the evils of alcohol...

And like Hogarth, he became known for his storytelling abilities, as late in his career, he got out of editorial cartooning and began doing book illustrations, which is how he might be most known today, for he illustrated a couple of Charles Dickens' novels, most famously, Oliver Twist...

George Cruikshank died in 1878, at the extremely old age (for the time) of 86.

By the by, apparently JK Rowling used his name for Hermione's cat in the Harry Potter series (the cat is named Crookshanks).

3 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/15/stars-of-political-cartooning-george-cruikshank/feed/ 3 Stars of Political Cartooning - Edmund Duffy http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/14/stars-of-political-cartooning-edmund-duffy/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/14/stars-of-political-cartooning-edmund-duffy/#comments Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:22:55 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=19843 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at another three-time winner of the Editorial Cartoon Pulitzer Prize!

Enjoy!

Edmund Duffy was born in 1899. He began working as a professional cartoonist in 1924, for the Baltimore Sun. At the Sun, he worked with the famous observational writer/critic, H.L. Mencken, for over twenty years.

Over those twenty plus years, Duffy won THREE Pulitizer Prizes for Editorial Cartoons, in 1931, 1934 and 1940 (if anyone has copies of those winning cartoons, I'd love to see them - sadly, most of Duffy's work is strangely not up for public viewing).

For the most part, like Mencken, Duffy was primarily a cartoonist/reporter, and most of his cartoons delivered the news in a straightforward, easy to understand, manner. Mencken was known to have said, regarding Duffy "Give me a good cartoonist and I can throw out half the editorial staff."

While his work was quite simple, it also had a real strength to it.

Here, Duffy depicts the uneasy state of peace that existed in the World during the 1920s...

This following piece, depicting Duffy's view on the righteousness of one of FDR's policies, is a fairly rare example of Duffy editorializing...

Here, Duffy is discussing the news that the United States and England would be ending the boycott of Mexican oil...

Duffy depicts the carpet bombings of Germany during World War II beautifully here...

Here, Duffy shows how the world viewed the signs of the US, England, USSR and China getting together during World War II....

This questioning of what the deal was with the supposed exile, Rudolf Hess, whose reasons for leaving Germany during the War (leading to a life sentence as a Prisoner of War) were never made clear, makes up the following cartoon...

Here, Duffy shows the burgeoning Cold War, in post-WWII Europe...

One area where Duffy went beyond simple reporting was with civil rights. Here, he was downright aggressive, and did some brilliant work on the subject.

Here is a stunning anti-lynching piece he did...

I wish I had some more of his civil rights work to show you - it's great stuff.

After retiring from the Baltimore Sun in 1948, Duffy spent the rest of his cartooning career contributing to the Saturday Evening Post.

Duffy died in 1962.

5 Comments

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/14/stars-of-political-cartooning-edmund-duffy/feed/ 5 Stars of Political Cartooning - James Gillray http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/13/stars-of-political-cartooning-james-gillray/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/13/stars-of-political-cartooning-james-gillray/#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 06:21:36 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=19819 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at perhaps the greatest caricaturist of all-time!

Enjoy!

James Gillray was born in 1756 in Chelsea.

He was apprenticed to an engraver (of normal stuff like maps, banknotes, etc.), and in 1778, he enrolled in the newly founded Royal Academy of Art. It was here that he developed his unique caricature style.

He began doing satires at around that same time, and soon began the foremost relationship of his life, with Mrs. Humphrey, who would publish his prints. He would live over her print shop until he died. In many ways, the relationship of Gillray and Humphrey reminds me of that of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett - they never married, but they were clearly involved - she facilitated his craft and he, I dunno, kept her company, I suppose.

In one of his first major pieces, Gillray mocks the spending of the Royals during a time that England had a large national debt.

Note the Prince of Wales getting a check to pay off his debts on the right. The King wouldn't pay his debts, hence his tattered clothes. The Prince would be a consistent target of Gillray's...

Including here, where the Prince was rumored to have secretly married a Catholic peasant...

Gillray uses Hogarth's prints of Marriage a la mode AND a Harlot's Progress to depict his views on this subject (Gillray was not a fan of Catholics).

Here is a brilliant satire of William Pitt, where Gillray shows the young Prime Minister how Gillray views him...it's almost Seussical...

George III got the brunt of Gillray's satires (along with Pitt, of course), and only made matters worse when he remarked about Gillray's work "I don't understand these caricatures."

That led to this following piece, A Connoisseur Examining a Cooper...

Other politicians noted how popular Gillray was. Being caricatured by Gillray was seen as quite an honor in some circles, sorta like being insulted by Don Rickles. One fellow even sent Gillray a portrait he had done, in case Gillray needed some help caricaturing him!

Here, Gillray mocks Thomas Paine, who had just recently released his international smash, The Rights of Man...

Here is John Bull, the personification of Great Britain. John Bull had been around since the early 18th Century, but it was the printmakers of the late 18th Century, Gillray included, who really popularized the character.

Here is Gillray's take on the (rather temporary) treaty between England and Napoleonic France.

Napoleon apparently loved this drawing.

He likely did not like this one as much, with Napoleon drawn as Gullivar (as a shot at his size).

This drawing is notable for the way that Gillray did not come up with it on his own. By the early 19th Century, Gillray was so famous as a caricaturist that he began having people send him sketches and ideas, some just rough sketches, but some fully drawn pieces, which he would then redraw himself - this being probably the most famous.

Here's another anti-Catholic piece - Gillray's response to the notion of Catholic Emancipation...

Gillray could be quite patriotic at times, too (in fact, he once gave Pitt an extremely flattering personage in one piece during the Napoleonic Wars), and here he is at his most serious...

Like most other cartoonists of the time (Hogarth seemed to be the exception, as he pursued painting to make a name for himself so he could do prints), Gillray first wanted to be a "real" painter, turning to prints when that turned out to be the way he could make a name for himself. So when a fellow decided to do a big collection of British artists (feeling they weren't getting enough respect) drawing scenes from Shakespeare plays, Gillray was notable irked that he was not invited.

So he was QUITE delighted when, due to the war with France, the exportation of fine art was cut off, so this endeavor was a complete disaster, and Gillray gladly rubs it in...

The artists involved in the fiasco apparently all tried to get copies of this print for themselves...

Finally, here is a piece by Gillray where he caricatures the Prince of Wales and all his Royal friends.

What's particularly notable about this print is that the Prince of Wales was so angered by this piece that he paid Gillray an obscene amount of money to buy the print and have the plate destroyed!! Gillray agreed, however, the people the Prince trusted to do the destroying could not bring themselves to do it, so they secreted the plates away and it was later produced in a series celebrating the "censored" nature of the piece.

Gillray sorta went insane in 1810, and spent the last five years of his life totally nuts (he tried to kill himself in 1811). He died in 1815, still living over the print shop of Mrs. Humphrey.

By the by, just as one last bit - they would always hang Gillray's prints in the window for sale, so people, of course, would always gather around the shop - Gillray did a drawing of this scene, and it's an amusing capture in time of the depictions of his own work! I guess we can tell which drawings he thinks are the most important!

Thanks to the New York Public Library and their James Gillray exhibit from a few years back, for the images. Check the exhibit out here for more images and more information about Gillray!

5 Comments

  • At October 14, 2008, Alf Tupper wrote:

    Charles III ? Do you mean George III, Charles III is still waiting for his mum to pop her clogs.

    Gillray ...

  • At October 14, 2008, Brian Cronin wrote:

    Ha! You're right, I wrote Charles where I meant to write George. Thanks for the pick-up!

    As per the Catholic thing, ...

  • At October 14, 2008, Sam wrote:

    Charles III? I'm pretty sure that the idea of there being a Charles III was a big part of why ...

  • At October 15, 2008, Jeremy Cresswell wrote:

    Pedantry time again. Actually Prince Charles has stated that he will take the Name George VII when he assumes the ...

  • At October 16, 2008, ZEITGEIST / Quick hits wrote:

    [...] Exhibits/Events Go See Dave Gibbons Comics and Crime, Sitting In A Tree History On Bill Mauldin ...

]]> http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/13/stars-of-political-cartooning-james-gillray/feed/ 5 Stars of Political Cartooning - Rollin Kirby http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/12/stars-of-political-cartooning-rollin-kirby/ http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/10/12/stars-of-political-cartooning-rollin-kirby/#comments Mon, 13 Oct 2008 06:22:58 +0000 Brian Cronin http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/?p=19776 Each day this month I will be profiling a notable political cartoonist. Since the choices are vast, I've decided to slim the numbers down a bit and eliminate living cartoonists. Perhaps I will do a current political cartoon stars in the future.

Here's an archive of the artists mentioned already.

Today we look at the first cartoonist to ever win a Pulitzer Prize.

Enjoy!

Rollin Kirby is intriguing, because he was sort of like Robert Minor (who was clearly a huge influence upon Kirby), but he was a bit of a toned down Robert Minor - or rather, a mainstream version of Robert Minor, if that makes any sense.

He was political in a lot of the same ways that Minor was, but never so political that he would turn off the mainstream. And he was MUCH more willing to work with the government and higher-ups who wanted to censor his voice than Minor, so he was treated a great deal better than Minor by the mainstream.

As a result, Kirby not only won the very first Pulitizer Prize awarded for editorial cartoons, he won a total of THREE of them, which I believe is the most Pulitizer Prizes ever won by a cartoonist (a couple others also won three, but no one has ever won four, I don't think).

Rollin Kirby was born in Illinois in 1875, and as a young man, he studied art in Paris and New York before becoming an illustrator in the very early 20th Century at a number of magazines, like Colliers, Life and Harper's. He was not particularly successful in this field, so in 1911, he turned to cartooning.

In 1911, Kirby began working for the New York Mail, doing political cartoons. He then went to the New York Sun. In 1913, he began drawing for the New York World, which is where his reputation was mostly made. Here, Kirby used his cartoon as a platform for his mostly liberal viewpoint on the world.

Kirby was big proponent of women's suffrage, and contributed to a number of women's journals...

Probably the biggest issue facing women, vis a vis not having a voice in elections, was the way that they were treated on the employment front.

Here, Kirby derides the proposals in 1915 by the New York State Legislature to remove most of the restrictions on hours women were allowed to work...

Similarly, Kirby shows what he thinks of the Supreme Court's decision on minimum wage...

Your constitutional right to starve...classic!

In the days leading up to World War I, Kirby even applied the concepts of women's suffrage overseas, where the women of Belgium also were not allowed to vote...

In Belgium : and yet when she wanted the vote they told her a woman's place was in the home

During World War I, Kirby did some strong war-related work.

Here, he shows the battle of Verdun in its basest form...

And he has some pretty anti-German takes on these post-War cartoons...

Vandals in Victory, Vandals in Defeat

Here, the Kaiser's autocracy is given...

The death sentence

And here, Uncle Sam himself congratulates Wilson...

Kirby was a supporter of civil rights, as well. Here is a great mocking cartoon of William Allen White (a member of the Ku Klux Klan)'s bid for Kansas Governor in 1924...

A Real American Goes Hunting.

Kirby was staunchly opposed to Prohibition, and even created a character named Mr. Dry to mock the Prohibition movement...

Now then, all together, "My Country 'tis of Thee"

Kirby was opposed to Isolationism, as seen in this cartoon of Uncle Sam...

It was during this time period that Kirby was his most popular and also his most acclaimed, capturing the Pulitizer Prize in 1922 (the first year it was awarded), 1924 AND 1929.

I actually couldn't get a hold of ANY of the three cartoons.

They were titled "The Road to Moscow," "News From the Outside World" and "Tammany," respectively.

If someone could find those three cartoons, I'd be most appreciative!!

But in the meantime, I'll describe them.

The first one is a basic commentary on the problems in the Soviet Union with the Revolution.

The second is depiction of outside nations to the formation of the League of Nations. It shows the countries not in the League of Nations as basically bums, cut off from the "civilized" world.

The last of the three is probably the best. In it, Kirby plays on the Tammany Hall figures that Thomas Nast made famous, only now Kirby is saying that the Republicans can no longer complain about Tammany, because they have more than their share of corrupt officials. It shows a big figure representing the GOP shouting about Tammany, but in the background is a motley crew of Republican figures who did corrupt things. It's a great piece - I hope someone can find it so I can share it with you all here!

In the days following the Stock Market crash, Kirby had this amazing, if truly sad, cartoon...

Sold Out

Around this time, New York World was purchased by Scripps-Howard, and was merged into the Evening Telegram as the World-Telegram. Kirby went along for the ride, but his heady days of total freedom were over.

Still, he made some strong cartoons (Kirby was also in his mid-50s by this time), like his depiction of Roosevelt cleaning up the country after becoming President in 1933...

Still, Kirby began getting edited frequently, and finally, in 1940, he parted ways with the World-Telegram.

He drew for a few different places through World War II, doing some strong work, still...

But by now, Kirby was completely mainstream.

In fact, check out these series of propaganda posters he produced for the US Army to urge Americans to make more metal for the war effort...

Very well drawn, of course, but for a guy whose initial work was based on Robert Minor, having folks talk about how they want to do whatever it takes to stop the Japs? A bit of a letdown.

Kirby passed away in 1952.

Here is a nice collection of his cartoons and here is a list of a bunch more propaganda posters.

5 Comments

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