Thursday 24 November 2016

Dunno if you've noticed...

A caricature from a few years ago, that didn't get submitted for publication.

...but after more than a few years of comparative rarity,  political caricatures have made an instant come back. In the UK we had a quite active tradition of occasionally biting, usually cruel satire that has suffered quite a bit from censorship and a circumspection that is understandable taken in the light of the French experience.

Private Eye our erstwhile most prominent organ in the field of satire, has been for a decade or so, occupied with the more cosy coffee table type of material. Slightly ironically,  the kind of material that used to be the source of such contempt from Private Eye when that form of humour was practiced by Punch. The Eye's still worth a read though because, ironically again, it's become Britain's last real newspaper.

This resurrection of a passed art form has arrived courtesy of one political figure, who by happy coincidence, not only shares his christian name with a prominent cartoon character, his surname also happens to be transposable with some onomatopoeia and--he has a ridiculous hair style. It's game on for the caricaturists I think.

BTW, no I didn't draw the above on soiled bogroll, it's chip paper marked with a ring from a mug of tea. If you want to submit cartoons for publication, my advice is that political caricatures are treated like breakfast at the captain's table, you have to be invited first. As such you only see that kind of caricature from established contributors, all other topics are fair game though.

2 comments:

  1. You still around, DSE? Hope you're not ill.

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    1. Hi Kid, I'm not using Blogger much recently because I don't feel much like engaging the web at the moment. So that's why I haven't been around, I'm reasonably well, thanks for asking, hope you're feeling chipper too.

      I might fire up this blog again, just see how things go, I'm a little busy at the moment.

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