The Best Of Political Comics
Political cartoon, also popularly known as editorial cartoon, is basically an artistic illustration usually related to current events or famous personalities. It contains a combination of impressive artistic skills along with biting humor and hyperbole commonly found in a newspaper’s editorial page. There are also some that can be seen in typical comic strip pages.
Political comics or cartoons have graced many newspaper editorials for many, many years. They are those illustrations that often appear to make mockery of pressing social events usually associated with politics. These cartoons are usually made to ridicule the incongruity between conduct and words.
Creation of political cartoons can be traced back as early as the eighteenth century. One of the most notable editorial cartoon around this time is “Join or Die” by Benjamin Franklin which calls for unity within the American colonies. The editorial cartoon ‘The Thinker’s Club’ in 1819 also caught great attention since it is made as a response to the censorship of German Universities under the Decree of Carlsbad.
Today, a lot of cartoonists and even those with basic drawing skills continue to come up with catchy and attention-grabbing political cartoons, In fact, a great collection of modern political cartoons can be seen in every magazine issue of the ‘Funny Times’ and ‘Humor Times’.
With the emergence of the internet, a number of minority and radical editorial cartoonists have found a great audience online. The internet has allowed editorial cartoonists to publish animated versions of political cartoons. While this type of cartoon can be quite diverse, there is a distinct style used by majority of editorial cartoonists. Most cartoonists make use of caricature and visual metaphors to portray complex political issues into a humorous or emotional manner. Editorial cartoons normally contain demonizing, stereotypical and biased portrayals of events and people.
Editorial cartooning in the twentieth century belonged to Herbert Block. As early as the age of 20, editorial cartoons made by Block have already been featured in the Chicago Daily News. He had a very colorful career in editorial cartooning and was also the very first American political cartoonist to malevolently comment on Senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist hunt. He was the one who coined the term ‘McCarthyism’ in an editorial cartoon containing tons of feathers and tar. The Senator was not pleased with Block’s portrayal of him in his editorial. Block has also harassed a number of other American Presidents through his editorial cartoons, from Hoover up to Bush. Nixon even unsubscribed himself from the Washington Post after seeing Block made an editorial cartoon showing Nixon crawling out of the sewer pipe.
Up to this day, editorial cartoons never fail to grab attention. Whether they are published in newspaper or online, political cartoons will allow cartoonists to showcase their artistic prowess while also informing people on social/political issues that matter most.
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