itt: cartoons abt uk politics that are bad cartoons

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/be476d2728f682570af639492ab3b385818c0389/18_186_2470_1482/master/2470.jpg?w=965&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=e02549e244d999afe85d454ed45bfa40

I have a theory that the Daily Telegraph catoonist "BLOWER" is in fact BRANCO (see the bad US politics cartoons thread) doubling up on his income by working under a pseudonym

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/05/30/cartoon-30052017-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgCXocDQF5kP7s3jSjli3eCH0-jRUT4rHK8EgtaGoQwQ.gif

is drawing a tortoise really that hard

I'm trying to parse that first cartoon, but no, it's not happening. I assume that it suggests that whatever Brexit happens it's bad for business, but suspect I've got that all wrong.

grudging respect for the shamelessness of not bothering to work out a way to complete his Abbott and Costello pun and just drawing a big picture of Corbyn covering up the rest of the name

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/05/09/blower170507-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqeo_i_u9APj8RuoebjoAHt0k9u7HhRJvuo-ZLenGRumA.jpg

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello? More like DUD ABBOTT and LOSER CO(rbyn)STELLO, right? *submits cartoon to Daily Telgraph, slopes off to spend rest of the day in pub*

haha yes i have a full-size version of the first cartoon open in my tabs, i keep going back to see if the penny's dropped, but no, it is more mysterious than ever

most of his other cartoons are just ugly clumsy and obvious -- he's been getting work for years! -- but there's a sort of wtf poetry to this one

wot no Mac?

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/06/08/01/41350AB800000578-0-image-a-34_1496880366602.jpg

90% sure he has just recaptioned an old cartoon there

ok not to be caot defend-a-mac, but that is a serviceable and well drawn* cartoon making a political point i disagree with

*obviously he's always been a giles knock-off so i hate him for that reason**
**my mum drew my attention to how well mac draws curly telephone flexes, which is an odd thing to notice, but once you do, she was right, he was good at it, and perhaps still could be were there a need

How to tell if you've drawn a really good cartoon:

http://i.imgur.com/GkhuTA9.png

Blower is esp. terrible.

it's weird, i know people irl whose mental landscape re: politics is accurately illustrated by these guys

and the arguments are near identical to the stuff Tressell mocks in The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, lickspittles are tenacious

a year old now yet suddenly relevant AND badly drawn
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCC-IwAW0AAGPcj.jpg:large

Brookes also drew this oddly terrifying Boris/Gove cartoon:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmQw0nlUsAAOmra.jpg

Boris bearing uncanny resemblance to Rod Liddle in top panel.

Not enough Martin Rowson on this thread.

posting cartoons from low circulation trot newspapers feels a little like breaking a butterfly on a wheel, but I was impressed by the number of captions on this one

http://i.imgur.com/BjRupxd.png

gerald scarfe is bad not good:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/media/images/81420000/jpg/_81420916_geraldscarfe.jpg

britain's last-ditch stunt: the davis-yeltsin switcheroo

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCoaEnuXcAAcbe1.jpg:large

i think that's victor garber at the eu end of the table

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNTQxODYxNzE3NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTM4MTMwMg@@._V1_UY317_CR20,0,214,317_AL_.jpg

posting cartoons from low circulation trot newspapers feels a little like breaking a butterfly on a wheel, but I was impressed by the number of captions on this one

http://i.imgur.com/BjRupxd.png

― soref, Saturday, June 17, 2017 4:09 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

some fine art brut here

polly toyn

i like how the cartoonist just went ahead and wrote "shit" on the pile of things he hated

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fa09e347c-dcf5-11e6-b8ce-5a639b2dfcaa.jpg?crop=3460%2C1946%2C263%2C147&resize=685

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DDAKNPxWsAAEKGR.jpg:large

bit sad abt nosferatu, he did bad things but he doesn't deserve this

bad cartoon about Europe from 1989

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2f/6d/49/2f6d49ea9ea51c4bd0ab05b1b7fbea2d.jpg

Hallmark of bad cartoons = everything has to be labelled. I know this has been said before, but they keep doing it. Are there editors out there encouraging this?

Also, am yet to see a successful rendition of Michael Gove. He is somehow beyond caricature,

did you not see the cartoon above portraying him as a fish eating Boris Jonson's head or

brookes is just drawing pob

drawing him as pob is ok because he does look quite like pob, but it's not enough because he is also much more repulsive than pob. I can see them going for a cross between pob and a human, whereas the real thing looks like a cross between pob and a body from the haunted swamp.

This is surely the canonical Gove?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oHfzDFoVDvk/UEYRaaaY5EI/AAAAAAAAF9M/afSgSxxnk_0/s1600/Stephen-Collins-17-March--001.jpg

Basically Pob crossed with Mr Bean.

Steve Bell belongs on here, though some will I'm sure defend him on the grounds of perserverence: "They don't get it... It's funny because it's not really a monkey, it's really George W Bush... Oh well, maybe next time."

Hallmark of bad cartoons = everything has to be labelled

It's more that ppl like Cummings were steeped in the history of political cartooning, where labelling was as much a part of the style as thought balloons were in comic books. And as with thought balloons, labelling in political cartoons nowadays is very hard to pull off - it's become an 'ironic' device that yes, signals 'bad' cartooning.

Not to defend Cummings, whose work always lacked Mac's visually pleasing cartooning skills - though I guess the dour ugliness of Cummings' drawing style is editorially appropriate for the Express.

I do think Cummings deserves some credit for the look of "never in all my days" indignation on the Sovereignty Dolphin

Thatcher in a swimsuit is really disturbing me

cummings has a style, i always liked the thickness of his line (not well shown off in this example)

i will defend bell: he has a highly original symbolist imagination, which i think is a hard thing to retain after decades of turning out cartoons to order several times a week

(if he has flaws they are rarely the flaws of reach-down banality: i wd honestly rather an artist is drifting the outer reaches of his/her unconscious for insight and intuitive connection than hunkering down in the ante-room of cliche) (true he's sometimes very bad on the power dynamics of sex stuff: there be dragons in the outer reaches of yr unconscious)

i always enjoyed the pleasure cummings took in drawing brezhnev

I always stand by Steve Bell as an uncompromising angry leftist in a world of scumbags.

I also think that his bigger images often show him painting really well and evocatively. He has a good appreciation of art history and artistic method. And he is also a lucid and intelligent writer, better than many other people who write for the Guardian but can't draw.

he was rubbish on university challenge (alumni edition) though.

still have fond memories of the complete set of the collected 'If...' as a kid, 7 or 8 volumes, probably long term borrowed from my older brother or parents.

... there was a quotidian, almost cosy quality to its anarchic silliness, not unlike the young ones.

man at bar: lager lager lager lager lager lager lager 'n' a babycham
penguin: congratulations on your brilliant impression of a bus breaking down!

^ quality original material

Steve Bell is not bad as an artist, surely. I mean he has his own very distinctive style which works well.
He does keep doing things like this though

https://edinburgheye.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/stevebell_incest.jpg

I like If and Maggie's Farm

Steve Bell's debt to Robert Crumb + American underground comix seems more or less unique for a UK editorial cartoonist?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DEIO1g0XYAAJfvk.jpg

terrible + disablist cartoon in Osborne's Evening Standard shocker.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGOEdB6W0AAHrQr.jpg:large

quite like adams' angular style, this isn't a bad cartoon in the sense the o/p is a bad cartoon

obviously his politics are as bad as his grasp of what's going on in venezuela or indeed the labour party

venezuela was clearly going to be something the press were going to beat corbyn with so I'm unsurprised but disappointed that his team hasn't thought up some sort of response to this.

of course it might end up not bothering the public, as the IRA stuff apparently was reasonably ineffective during the GE.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/08/02/17-08-03x243blower_1-xlarge_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpg

Corbyn's one mad staring eye seems to be thing with right wing cartoonists.

fuck me i wish they had disappeared Watson 12 months ago

i like that even though tom watson isn't the target of the cartoon they've still depicted his inflated gut

hey, always room for a bit of body-shaming, target or not

"CHAVEZ REMEMBERED"

sinister seamus requires no such nudge

Trash the economy & eradicate all opposition - same old hard left whether #Venezuela or #CorbynsLabour pic.twitter.com/RxiSCrHtbl

— Anna Soubry MP (@Anna_Soubry) August 3, 2017

Soubry, of course, repeatedly painted as the moderate Tory it's OK to like.

attempting to eradicate all opposition by holding a snap election is a-ok of course

http://c8.alamy.com/comp/E0XHXE/mao-zedong-with-wife-jiang-qing-E0XHXE.jpg
Fiona Hill (left) Nick Timothy (right).

It's worth watching Andrew Mitchell defending Paul Kagame on last night's Newsnight for an insight into Tories selectiveness when it comes to defending democracy.

It's not like Soubry hasn't recent experience of been frozen out by a small party clique, who were running roughshod over any opposition, and not consulting cabinet members on major policies + an election manifesto.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGz1jIXXcAAHxXE.jpg

arguably this cartoon is in fact GREAT

Oh my fucking god lol

it's certainly sexy

Looks like God is not so great.

Ben Garrison is neither racist nor anti-Semitic and has fought back against the online trolls by writing a book.

Bouncing back!

^ from the artist's own FAQ http://grrrgraphics.com/faq.html

http://grrrgraphics.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/gnatzis_garrison1.jpg

Hate how sophisticated some of these are: http://grrrgraphics.com/store/p30/Abandon_Ship%21_Brexit%2C_Great_Britain%27s_Escape_.html

This one is bad not good sort of hilarious, with a truncated England representing Brexit and Brenda up in "The Big Club" with Kissinger!
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/199/995/335.jpg

posing-pouch Trump is a not a genuine Ben Garrison btw

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DG5Lo04XsAA05wG.jpg

(again not strictly speaking uk politics, sorry abt that)

my eyes!

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/get_image.aspx?w=200&pbid=6f43f638-7c97-4764-9098-3bbcd0ad8ad3

The Daily Toon guy should sue The New European imo

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DIBAP9jWAAAwJFc.jpg

xp the New European have changed the picture at that link so my post above no longer makes sense - for posterity, the cover I was referring to was the one on the right below:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHQ1J-0WAAAMMUO.jpg

do teenagers wear cameo trousers these days? my impression is that they do not, but I'm fairly out of touch

It would be difficult to rule it out.

What do we think of Ben Jennings in the Guardian? I thin he has lots of nice details, but his style is just so ugly. Maybe that works for depicting Trump, sort of.

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cb9ecb312dcc60cb943e4773a998a6b5e8e04846/0_0_2693_1819/master/2693.jpg

here it is

http://i.imgur.com/FqDGkFJ.jpg

more troubling is that he's bungled his attempt at mimicking trump's diction. sad!

i like the style

bad art, better future:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DIgotIWXoAEWe9t.jpg:large

Gotta say, I'm a sucker for a medieval battle scene.

"Ye Comrades of Islington"!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHsq2eSXYAA38Uy.jpg

That's... not that bad.

For Hunt it feels like he's only been Health Sec for a few minutes. For the rest of us...eternity.

nice

no it's bad

very bad

so jeremy cunt was slenderman all along, it all makes sense now

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d14c39aea633faf88dccebb60c94a1ecfa95d1e1/0_0_4859_3307/master/4859.jpg?w=940&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=191bb0f0c63349f7f0846b3465bbf8e5

^^^this may actually be good, i can;t make head or tail of it

I think that belongs on the Lovecraft thread.

i've actually been thinking a lot abt lovecraft and current politics (unfortunately)

complete perspective fail with the tennis ball which looks bigger rather than closer, and it also looks more like May's head than her zombie one. or has she been beheaded?

Martin Rowson is generally pretty bonkers (and crap).

Is she playing tennis with a cricket bat and a cherry bomb? what is this? it belongs in a gallery somewhere. a gallery of horrible things

Her half tennis ball head is biting/eating his half tennis ball head

https://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/styles/magazine_cover/public/magazinecovers/2017_45_the_tory_sinking_ship_med.jpg?itok=DjGtsvIX

someone needs their photoship card revoking!

needs more rats NOT quitting the ship ftb afraid of the coming corbz govt

Enlightened thinking in dark times

Simon Heffer

*puzzled emoji*

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DObeUisWkAE9prB.jpg

this one is from the Socialist Party/Militant's newspaper

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DMHVHBAX0AAeibO.jpg

This is good content.

UK loves a good metaphor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svwslRDTyzU

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5cdb039318648aef0aa0005eb4b991e05832dc89/59_29_4757_3212/master/4757.jpg?w=940&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=08efb6912ad22f4a9d832ba2a52c0642

rowson doesn't really understand what just happened imo

what is that in the background? A narwhal with a limp horn?

This is another one where I like the art w/o caring much about its message - the gallery of tory grotesques is great, would buy a children's book about them.

In the background is a looming fur cup, a common motif in Martin Rowson cartoons.

I like rowson a lot he has been very much on form for the last couple of years.

He's so fucking abysmal and makes Bell look good, and he certainly isn't good. Terrible wooden + lifeless caricatures and always darker (as in drearily overworked and lacking in colour) than a 6th form goth's A level art project.

OTM and v well put, calzino. Rowson has been doing this shit for probably twenty years now, and his basic drawing skills haven't improved at all in that time - still the ugliest colour sense and ink line of any professionally published political cartoonist in the UK.

it's the clanger in the room obv
https://regmedia.co.uk/2008/10/24/tiny_clanger.jpg?x=1200&y=794

Rather like this one:

Scandal @standardnews pic.twitter.com/OVL5y70wdj

— Otto English (@Otto_English) December 6, 2017

shudders

"Sorry Adams, but not enough people will recognise Arlene Foster. No, keep the idea, draw Theresa May there instead. Yes I know it makes it less funny and obscures the point"

Martin Rowson's book of short stories/ squibs/feuilletons 'Snatches' is pretty funny. He should probably have stuck with writing, as I don't rate his cartoons at all.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQhOZDgX4AAcWzm.jpg
bad cartoon, but Arlene probably is making similar faces rn, and maybe is stood by magic money tree.

i... what?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DXPds01W0AAxDiJ.jpg

amazing

"lewd anime edits"

garrison works to commission, doesn't he? p sure i've seen others which have to have been requested and paid for by non-MAGA types

anyway this cartoon is good not bad, especially the economics depicted

who is the fellow abt to be run over?

I like the imprisoned Blairites and Magic Money tree swagbag!

LIBERTY, MARK, LIBERTY, NOT THAT YOU'D KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

sadly my research concludes that it is somewhat altered from the original, which featured al gore in the driver's seat and a uh non-bukkake earth in the sky (?)

Liberty? it looks like a pig trying self-immolation before the train gets it.

Liberty is a pig trying self-immolation, do you see?

non-bukkake earth

i looked at this as an uplifting vision of the 2020s tbh

makes u tink does this Garrison fellow.

i believe tracer is arguing that the top-hatted pink head has been photoshopped onto the pale green body of liberty in an outrageous and subversive act of détournement

my preferred story is that some irony-poisoned very online leftie hired garrison to produce this (with detailed elements requested, as is i believe the garrison technique) (like jim'll paint it but TRENCHANT) and the wily and entrepreneurial BG* simply repurposed an old global warming cartoon to save time, with a quick corbs-head added here and a BOURG TEARS there

*BG? wait my mind is racing here

Oh wow, is that a top hat?!?!

it's from this:
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/264/002/a2e.png

another good cartoon in the thread reserved for bad ones >:(

No red star on Corbyn's hat = punishable by death.

*BG? wait my mind is racing here

ps know-your-meme informs me that top-hat guy is called "porky" and comes from a 1920 poster designed by mayakovsky no less

I always presume the fat cigar smoking evil capitalist in 20's/30's soviet propaganda is a Churchill caricature?

there was a good Nazi cartoon of Churchill, good in the relative sense obv

i mean as in "animated short" rather than sub-Matt caricature

i think the basic idea predates him*:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Karikatur_Das_Verhältnis_Arbeiter_Unternehmer.jpg/708px-Karikatur_Das_Verhältnis_Arbeiter_Unternehmer.jpg

*but yes, he was after all secretary of state in 1919 when the various victors of WW1 invaded russia to "strangle the nascent soviet state", and often dressed like this (as, to be pedantic, did all other british politicians)

http://c8.alamy.com/comp/CPGYB1/churchill-winston-30111874-2411965-british-politician-full-length-CPGYB1.jpg

as the closest to a self-outed matt-stan on the boards, i am drawn to the concept of "sub-matt"

Submatt is a Happy Hardcore DJ from Dewsbury iirc

also i was gonna go with "sub-Mac" but i thought we should honour the great man's anniversary

Matt's cartooning style is a bit 'Sub-Wicked Willie', imho:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Willie

matt's scribbled cock-and-balls faces transcend the banky-esque DO YOU SEEs of joliffe--mayle* imo
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2017/06/09/1006-MATT-GALLERY-WEB-P1_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.png

*lol what

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYRQAzEW4AIMFB_.jpg

much hilarity from the SPectator

It's always a bad cartoon when it needs a written sign/poster to make any sense.

looking at that signature all i can think is 'asshoppers need not apply'

lol yes

This is quite something. Can't help thinking Dave Brown has some issues.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcHxiTAWAAEYo9S.jpg

good grief!

woah

i must have missed that issue of 2000ad

LAWKS

Brown seems to be saying on twitter that the Independent (the paper for which he's the regular editorial cartoonist) refused to publish it? (can't think why etc)

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f46377ad13e1b5406ad723736838a098dcb2dd2d/51_94_3285_2034/master/3285.jpg?w=940&q=20&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&dpr=2&s=a011fa7b0570f8c885d387d1a2f73189
when I said they deserved to be messed up, badly, I didn't mean a badly executed cartoon, innit?

that is so crap

this isn't about UK politics, but it's by a UK cartoonist if you couldn't tell

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dld8GO3WsAYLQgB.jpg

idgi

Pope: "Forgive me for I have sinned". Paddy O'Bogtrotter not impressed.

pic.twitter.com/wYYUdUs833

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) September 9, 2018

Depiction of Momentum as a rabid dog particularly hilarious if you happen to have met any actual Momentum members.

Is that supposed to be Hodge next to Chuka? Wondering who's cowering behind them. Anyway, I'm on the rabid dog's side.

if it's anyone i imagine it's joan ryan mp -- who happens to fit the usual generic "blonde white lady in peril" theme that is often favoured in such cartoons sadly

waht

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DsHfHLcW0AYmYIS.jpg

By his low (yet high priced) standards that’s actually edging close to funny

Nailed it again

Looks pretty clean for the amount of shit that’s supposedly hit it

where's martin rowson when you need him eh

hint: you never ever need him

wat if i need a bad cartoon

matt's cartoon a couple of days ago was quite good i thought (the brexit deal one)

https://i.imgur.com/GLA1NBp.jpg?1

that thing they teach first year ordinary national diploma design students: avoid anything that accidentally looks phallic or like a nazi swastika. Matt obv didn't go through that route of education.

*on design courses*

assuming there's an accident involved is giving matt too much credit tbh

he's banky and it's deliberate

I once saw some work by a student that was a silkscreen print on fabric of various penises and balls in repeat, that looked a bit cribbed from an Egon Schiele study. Classic Catholic Boy stuff!

I don't know much about art but...

this was supposed to be textile design, but like our friend Matt - some people like to kick against convention, or this case substituting some dull floral with a load of cocks!

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0ff6709ae30cd37a20fa3061af7ca00057da044e/0_0_3035_1819/master/3035.jpg?width=1225&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=912dddb79175933c8600869f1ea1bee9

Ok, that is great. Though the image of Gove in Speedos is a little disturbing.

pic.twitter.com/BstiacEvXX

— Jeremy Noel-Tod (@jntod) January 14, 2019

Ha, I always liked ‘Brant’.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2019/03/07/BOB080319_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqNvLtDx75wZSR0MSb26ou_wYXolwkaB7Nxk9VWQCpFM0.jpg?imwidth=1240

how many deathrays have you seen that go BOOM

Well actually, it's not the deathray itself that goes BOOM, but the target it hits.

Finding it impossible to accept Hammond as mastermind behind anything.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2019/apr/11/steve-bell-on-julian-assange-and-his-possible-extradition-to-the-us-cartoon

i recently read a book where he was described as the "greatest UK political cartoonist" since david low.

I quite liked this one:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2019/apr/10/steve-bell-on-benjamin-netanyahus-election-victory-cartoon

Which is notable because he's shite.

I think his depiction of Trump's head as a toilet is one of the most effective cartoon renderings of Trump, something about toilets as a liminal space between what is ok to acknowledge and what everyone is aware of but has to deny because it's foul and taboo etc works as a representation of Trump's position as a conduit between the world of mainstream respectable politics and this netherworld of racism and misogyny etc thatcan't be mentioned - Trump retweeting far-right memes as a backflowing toilet

Is that Nixon manhandling Assange?

LOL I almost posted the same question last night.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D37vy-GUcAEXqEF.jpg

if you look at the pic it is appropriated from the goon behind him looks nothing like Nixon, but the fat-necked cop with the self satisfied grimace in the bottom left corner has a similar self satisfied grimacing countenance to the Trump toilet head!

badly written post but i'm multi-tasking!

Steve Bell was good in the 80s.

i will defend bell: he has a highly original symbolist imagination, which i think is a hard thing to retain after decades of turning out cartoons to order several times a week

(if he has flaws they are rarely the flaws of reach-down banality: i wd honestly rather an artist is drifting the outer reaches of his/her unconscious for insight and intuitive connection than hunkering down in the ante-room of cliche) (true he's sometimes very bad on the power dynamics of sex stuff: there be dragons in the outer reaches of yr unconscious)

― mark s, Friday, July 7, 2017 10:24 AM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^

i still basically like bell's dogged willingness to develop a transformative dream-figure for ppl he has to draw several times a week and then work with it and stick with it: no one else that i can quickly think of does anything like this (except for NAILED IT MATT drawing willies on literally everyone's face, but then i like that also tbh)

not all these figures work! at all! bush-as-chimp was poor! and bell definitely also routinely tumbles off into ugly lazy slur territory with some of his targets, which is bad not good -- but i will stan for toilet-head trump and for condomhead cameron and for pierrot theresa comments are closed

his strips were generally a lot better than his big paintings tho

i mean gilray mostly belongs on this thread and low sometimes does also (i like low's line tho, i don't like gilray's)

that Netanyahu one he did a few years back was dodgy as fuck (ithink it was linked on ILX SB thread). It was obv more ill-judged + stooopid rather than intentional anti-Semitic slur, but ironic appropriation of ZOG imagery isn't ever a good idea.

I appreciate that the pressure to have to deliver every day is slightly more than if you were baking doughnuts or something. But lots of his work is dreadful imo. Sorry comments closed i know!

baking doughnuts is man's highest endeavour and i am offended that you would compare it to the frippery of cartooning for a daily newspaper

http://i.imgur.com/6bOX9Uo.jpg

https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fc8.alamy.com%2Fcomp%2FE7YENK%2Fdrive-thru-donut-hole-in-la-puente-california-E7YENK.jpg&f=1

bell's dogged willingness to develop a transformative dream-figure for ppl he has to draw several times a week

I've been trying to think of other examples of cartoonists who do this with real-life figures - Garry Trudeau maybe (I haven't kept up with Doonesbury in years)? It seems more like something impressionists or stand-ups do, rather than cartoonists, which I guess points up the uniqueness of Bell's work, and also its limitations - ie he can be as bad as a stand-up comedian!

Also hard agree about his black and white line strip cartooning being far superior to his single panel colour illustration work; I think it would have been interesting, and maybe better for Bell, if he had produced longer narrative comics, even autobiographical ones - his life in leftism would prob be quite interesting.

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f14eec7d74baad95c666103f0103ceb7e371ed8b/0_0_4805_2983/master/4805.jpg?width=940&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=5d33fe94f1c7fb4bfa65ddbe7c967f9c

everyone done to the scale of their current next PM standings it seems, long-winded "ACME" joke and skip labelled "dustbin of history". Proper amateur shit is this.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D8ZDr7wXUAERDlr.jpg

(the new yorker ffs)

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d8322d2fa4e30ce281780a873100a8d9a8f66ed6/0_0_4882_3069/master/4882.jpg?width=940&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=84e79be0bfa6a4c02c428911456dbf65

from last Sunday's observer. I think because he already is a crude + crass, gaudy cartoon character, he brings out the worst in lazy cartoonists who are already very bad at what they do anyway.

I'm having a bit of u-turn on this cos a farting shitty nappy is pretty lolsome tbf!

That is startlingly bad.

yes it is, I have come to senses again after an evening constitutional.

Was sure we had a thread for over explained cartoons in general but couldn't find so putting this here

https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65/62117358_10214303142924877_2516822325463089152_n.jpg

https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65/62117358_10214303142924877_2516822325463089152_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&_nc_eui2=AeH84Tfbsxk5nLU73Cn_WNHRLnT5SQAByW82v_YpXAJT21wX4gcpERhLcP2qSY0e2_KIUZcpwt3K6BWgecGPBE5iNi0mrH-P3z2YotBvLEuG0g&_nc_ht=scontent-lht6-1.xx&oh=64c6811f9611db7f16eeb1578d4861b2&oe=5D959681

Chris Riddell can draw at least.

better evidence needed imo

His kid's illustrations are nice.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9wlGdCWsAEe12Q.jpg

at least the unsmiling guardianista stasi neighbours have a better purpose than fucking netflix in their lives!

Just can't stand this guy's style, looks ugly and captures nothing

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/91505101a80a0e7ee373a723c94b945256f87178/0_0_2023_1213/master/2023.jpg

This - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2019/jun/23/ben-jennings-on-the-pressure-facing-boris-johnson-cartoon - for some reason can't hotlink.

Jennings drew this cartoon about the Extinction Rebellion protests a few weeks ago and I don't understand it

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bab061d76b116c855fb9b078f2428b8ef3bad89c/0_0_3035_1819/master/3035.jpg?width=940&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=bc939cf0fb2e08504dc32f49737b79e6

I know ER protesters were gluing themselves to structures, so the woman gluing her hand to the man's head is a metaphor for how they are making the public think about climate change, I guess? Is there any significance to the fact that the man looks like Pep Guardiola?

Yes... I don't... what is... I don't get what that is trying to say... does she fancy the guy and, er, that explains the lascivious grin... no, sorry, I give up.

Doesn't look like Pep to me but yeah, this is incomprehensible.

Is he trying to say he can only think about climate change now that a protester is glued to his head? idgi

Ben Jennings is the absolute worst.

The 496 (!) comments on that one aren't making it any clearer either.

he did that fucking awful Hockney swimming pool pastiche with Gove with the knife. A combination of bad ideas allied to bad drawing talent is a recurring theme in all of his work, but sometimes the bad ideas get even worse.

If I'm being charitable I'd guess that he's implying people are being indoctrinated by climate change rhetoric, but yes it's pretty lame.

I think it's just a silly joke rather than a statement? But a crap one.

What's the joke?

you'd think a climate change protestor would know better than to glue themselves to the solar panel for a sex machine

lol

we have a winner (i have no idea what's going on here)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DEYkcOxXUAAHVFU.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D-eliN7UEAM-sN2.jpg:large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D-eliN7UEAM-sN2.jpg:large

its hard to know, rly, whether we are seeing the two fools and their impression of ireland and a miracle deal, or whether idk its just a lazy shit effort

and ofc it can be both

i mean yes it's an "away with the fairies lol unicorns" message mocking both of them and arguing that their conception of ireland is fantastical at best

but it's also a v bad cartoon (bcz the leprechauns aren't doing riverdance)

they clearly are?

flatley rules clearly state that the arms must n

well who fuckin died and left him lord of the d

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9752ad64c8f11291a98d3b06fa59454ed32845e4/0_0_4825_3007/master/4825.jpg?width=940&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=379503a202aa5427469bb0a304184aa7

more garbage from Rowson, same drawing talent deficiencies and horrible colour sense and now also he's using that same Corbyn in a Lenin hat the S*n uses.

https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2019/09/11/14/adamscartoon1109.jpg

Appealing to people who want to bring back dial-phones?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFOP1gEXkAYN3ZQ?format=jpg

makes u think

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOejdb7XkAEJGiW?format=png&name=small

Nailed it again

(I have no idea what this is about)

reminder: matt makes £650k a year doing this (whatever 'this' is), more than the editor of the torygraph

the system works!

the cartoon is abt the west over-interpreting the resignation from political salience under putin of top russian metalhead dmitry medvedev by positing its correct equivalent

(matt is still good)

a: rinsing the failing telegraph for cash when it badly needs what little it still has
b: cock and balls for faces

The fact that the font has considerably better resolution than the drawing makes me a little suspicious (but I may be underrating the UK's best paid cartoonist)

hes a memelord

Matt S and Matt both otm. The position of St Basil's Cathedral and the top corner of GUM means our protagonists can only be in the courtyard outside the sealed-off government-complex bits of the Kremlin, which is admirable commitment to geographical accuracy too.

Mark S, even.

The fact that the font has considerably better resolution than the drawing makes me a little suspicious

I suspected the same, but 'tis legit:

My latest cartoon for tomorrow's @Telegraph

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter to receive my unseen cartoons: https://t.co/JNDhrYJMFH pic.twitter.com/z1yKT6Ax2r

— Matt Cartoons (@MattCartoonist) January 16, 2020

Fountain with fantail pigeons thankfully spared from Matt’s interpretation.

it's legit - it's on the torygraph website - matt just chooses to provide his cartoons at 16dpi resolution

Obligatory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crMw-QOHvBQ

memeking

is the deployment of the word 'cunning' some kind of near-subliminal lesbian joke from matt or am i losing my mind (both may be true, i concede)

I think both are true, yeah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roswPPr2t3U

something for me to reflect on this weekend xp

bg staring into space sadly while brushing his extremely fluffy cat

emo blofeld

How tf has that remainiacs thing not been posted itt

It’s really powerful stuff. I could feel the shit for brains positively radiating from my phone screen when I saw it. Kinda love that an ex ilxor is involved too, must be like seeing someone you went to school with in the paper for fucking a dog or something

xp it and the associated fools were discussed in the main thread

https://www.facebook.com/BestForBritain/photos/a.1921153301457398/2513957022177020/?type=3&theater

(I'm aware this isn't the one, I suspect they have a lot in the tank)

well thanks, I've just had a horrible 10 minutes scrolling through these, every single one of them belongs here and then some.

https://twitter.com/remainiacs_art

jesus keep that garbage off my lovely thread of extremely bad UK political cartoons

(more evidence that matt is in fact good btw = look at the alternatives)

That’s a bit “this is the war room” if I may say so

ha, the link in their twitter profile just goes to some rando, the incompetence of these people who present themselves as the only grownups in the country never fails to delight.

you may indeed say so if you enjoy stepping on my joeks

@ wins

Post by steer karma (gyac) from bojo is king, brexit is on, stuff is fvcked, tomorrow starts here -- new govt new thread new battle on ILX - bojo is king, brexit is on, stuff is fvcked, tomorrow starts here -- new govt new thread new battle

I did indeed see that, was just surprised that this thread was revived and nobody mentioned it

xp turns out I do sometimes

Posting this here not because Matt is bad, because maybe he is good, not going to have any opinion on this, but because it may be of tangential interest to posters itt

Today I am launching a competition: every month I'll give one of my cartoons to the person who can write the funniest caption for an uncaptioned cartoon – you can see this month's one below.

Let's see if you can make me laugh 😜

Reply or RT with your caption and #CaptionMatt pic.twitter.com/sLrwADhT6b

— Matt Cartoons (@MattCartoonist) January 23, 2020

broke: earning £650k a year for your inscrutable cock-and-balls art
woke: earning £650k a year while making your readers caption your inscrutable cock-and-balls art

bespoke: woke: earning £650k a year while making your readers caption your inscrutable cock-and-balls art and the only thing you have to part with in return is the napkin that you drew it on

more good cartoons in the bad cartoon thread with an all-purpose message that side-eyes literally everyone this morning

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPSexEOW4AARDa6?format=jpg

Posting this here *not because Matt is bad*, because maybe he is good, not going to have any opinion on this, but because it may be of tangential interest to posters itt

🐦[Today I am launching a competition: every month I’ll give one of my cartoons to the person who can write the funniest caption for an uncaptioned cartoon – you can see this month’s one below.

Let’s see if you can make me laugh 😜

Reply or RT with your caption and #CaptionMatt🕸 pic.twitter.com/sLrwADhT6b🕸
— Matt Cartoons (@MattCartoonist) January 23, 2020🕸]🐦

Think the Spectator made the right call in swapping the gag.

Any ⁦@spectator⁩ readers out there ... the wrong image has been put with the wrong caption , or vice versa. I wasn’t deliberately trying to be nonsensical! pic.twitter.com/pyqkYzUNO2

— Nick Newman (@Ncknwmn) February 21, 2020

as that’s surely funnier than the actual caption his tweet should read “i wasn’t deliberately trying to be funny”

he's no matt thats for sure

i wasn't deliberately trying to nail it again!

it's pancake day! Now what shall I draw?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERjprfqWkAEEAMf?format=jpg&name=large

It has all the superfluous captions and lame visual gags of a Ben Garrison cartoon, but without any of his artistic talent. All four caricatures are bad but by far the worst is Corbyn, how long has he had to practice drawing him now?

I was hoping for this one. Unironically love Corbs

Has he ever seen a picture of Lisa Nandy?

Keir Starmer as an icy Terminator is p cool

still hasn't downloaded humour module from meltnet!

Lentils! Quinoa! er... Wooden spoons! I bet they're all wearing sandals, right guys?

xp

All right, listen. The Starmer’s an infiltration unit: part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyperrightwing ex-DPP, Labour First-controlled. Fully legitimate; very tough. But outside, it's leftish views and issues: unions, gays, tax - grown for the soft left.

Quinoa-munching pancake-flipping

Couldn't even get the distinctive shape of RLB's head right, useless.

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1237826977672892420/UZ34ZTjG?format=jpg&name=900x900

the state of this fucking mess! Give Matt a pay rise.

oops probably belongs on bad FT articles that are accompanied with bad illustrations that look a bit like political cartoons thread, but never mind.

What's Stonehenge got to do with anything?

Er, so, you know he's in, er, England? Fuck knows.

There'll be a new motorway tunnel worth £2bn near it.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EY7HY5oWoAAP_1G?format=jpg&name=medium

from today's Irish Times, oh no the dreaded Boris Dancers.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EaJDwHeWAAE9B4b?format=jpg&name=900x900

theyre giant waves but also they''re giant killer fish its, a metaphor

there is probably the germ of a half decent idea for a cartoon there just completely bodged by a total hack!

What' going on underneath Parliament there? Motorway junction across ploughed fields? A ribbon tied around the little green lump that Parliament's on?

some of these lot do make Steve Bell look very good

Marin Rownson in the Guardian just gets worse

I demand an update where one of the waves is engulfing a slave trader’s statue

no no Ben is actually the name of the flag you see

https://i.imgur.com/7QX6bza.jpg

but that is good!

Well I was going to ask, looking at the person speaking on the left there, if the artist had ever seen a human head in profile before, but it now occurs to me that he's a dead ringer for Michael Gove

top-tier acne-work

do any living, shitting polypeds on this rock actually lift their left leg when they fart? I think that is hilarious: "I'm going to jolly well fire a gaseous blast of wind out of my rectum straight into tour face you cad, haw haw!" *lifts leg*

another thing that is funny as fuck is that the portrait of the prince regent appears to be indignantly smelling the fart!

(l-r)

Harvey Keitel, DeNiro, Scorsese. First audition for Mean Streets!

not UK cartoon strictly but definitely a bad cartoon

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c0736da5b611b5725ea7f487c90ef9e8b81e93d8/14_10_3006_1805/master/3006.jpg

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c0736da5b611b5725ea7f487c90ef9e8b81e93d8/14_10_3006_1805/master/3006.jpg?width=940&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=dc319880e33a54d3cfac090fc4b19304

wouldn't it make more sense for a bolsonaro saw to have overheated or got stuck or something before it has severed the trunk of a brazil tree? still wouldn't be good but maybe a bit less nonsensical

has jennings ever done a good one?

some of the others try and fail for depth but his stuff seems so surface that it actually hurts the point he wants to make if you try to read it as satire or metaphor

That really really needed the Brazil flag there.

it's ironic, because Bolsonaro liked to cut down trees, you see

lol gonna go against the grain (ha!) here and say that one's ok

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Ff0fbf998-7b20-11ed-bcd8-855e06175970.jpg?crop=2749%2C1833%2C595%2C164&resize=685

rip off of an episode of Hancock's Half Hour I just listened to

THE RMT DOES NOT REPRESENT TRAIN DRIVERS are you listening Peter Brookes

are Nicola Jennings and Ben Jennings related or is it just a coincidence that the Guardian employs two cartoonists with the surname Jennings who can't draw?

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d616ec63a2ecc8c5248246cd71dfdf8ac77f4f90/0_0_3035_1819/master/3035.jpg?width=940&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=90a6ca27afc37378c065620b642f5150

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dcaecabca370f89cb48cdb5ca0478438eaecdae4/3_0_3030_1819/master/3030.jpg?width=940&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=9afcc8486cad1b88978bf8d198994a3b

going by their ages they might be mother and son? if so, they're no Matt and Edith Pritchett

wait, there's another one https://www.theguardian.com/profile/seamus-jennings

(this guy's cartoons don't seem to be quite as bad tbf)

If Ben is Nicola's son then I'm kind of impressed by the audacity of this one

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/04e2386fb0fdb31c80d7fb104a5d7ba5e8caab31/18_9_2998_1800/master/2998.jpg?width=1920&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=828ad5bb95d35b27564f96ed54bdc081

just such ugly drawings, painful to look at

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b663ff82ef304db5840231743aa8322e73e7c071/0_0_5126_3287/master/5126.jpg?width=1300&dpr=2&s=none

could be a whole separate thread for cartoons about UK politics that are weirdly horny

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/05/28/TELEMMGLPICT000379719588_17169392212900_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=960&imdensity=2

I like it when they do these 'state of the nation' type ones

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2022/11/30/TELEMMGLPICT000318043273_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqnY32puTRmJBD0IQz1kt_ZW6qMEuv0qSVyX1bNcDmagk.jpeg?imwidth=960&imdensity=2

I'm a bit disappointed that so far I haven't seen any cartoons depicting the tories as dinosaurs gazing haplessly at an advancing meteor (labelled GENERAL ELECTION) but maybe there will be some before polling day

Interestingly, in that one dated 30/11/22, Blower seems to be predicting England's world cup exit at the hands of France, ten days before it happened

"smash the past"

That's right

There's a weird innocence to that second street scene cartoon. Though that partly might be because I misread it at first, thinking the people with the "OMG ITS THAT INFLUENCER" were referring to the vicar and/or Jesus and were running away

lol CENSUS is IN THE BIN

also what's going on here?

https://i.imgur.com/qV6O1e0.png

(studing this rich text to decode 2022 all over again)

society is in the gutter

HARD looking BLOKES with POOFY DOGS

XL bullies hadn't been invented yet

... EU colours too.

(xp)

I thought maybe the dog walker was a self-portrait of the artist, and he looks angry because he's appalled by all the tawdriness and vulgarity he sees around him, but I found a photo of Blower and he doesn't look like that

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64d54f746909bb7341402bfe03b3e84c7ffa7788/2_0_3031_1819/master/3031.jpg?width=1300&dpr=2&s=none

please ma'am crush me under your gigantic shoe

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f53a86ea76bacdda742df8f039b9cd08afb58298/0_0_3035_1819/master/3035.jpg?width=1300&dpr=2&s=none&crop=none

that ship
called
dig
neigh
ty