Political Cartoons

The thing I love the most about political cartoons is tracing their evolution over the past 250 years.

I'll show some examples from 1800-1865.





Note how incredibly "busy" these cartoons are. And they are drawn with a higher degree of artisticness then many modern cartoons, which present caricatures, or loose sketches. The satire is contained in both the image and the dialogue. The cartoons from this period are almost a stand alone editorial when one takes into account the sheer wordcount.

Merely looking at the image in most of the cartoons of this period will leave you with almost no idea of what point is being made or what is topic is being skewerd.

1902


Above is the cartoon which imortalized the infamous Theodore Roosevelt incident in which he refused to shoot a bear cub. This is event from which the term "Teddy Bear" was derived. Notice the more "cartoonish" feel and the lack of text. The picture tells the story.

Political cartoons are also a neat way to discern what the major fears or concerns were of the general populace of any given time. Many of the cartoons I have seen from the 1950s feature prominent imagery of the metaphor for the end of all things "the bomb"



Below the social unrest of the 60s is alluded to. Notice how each character is labeled and a one sentence statement is at the top. In a similar cartoon from a century before each character would have been labeled and would have had a bubble of dialogue above each of their heads. Further evidence of the elevation of imagery and diminishment of text in the evolution of political cartoons.