A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images intended for satire, caricature, or humor; or a motion picture that relies on a sequence of illustrations for its animation. Someone who creates cartoons in the first sense is called a cartoonist, and in the second sense they are usually called an animator.
Viz is a British adult comic magazine founded in 1979 by Chris Donald. It parodies British comics of the post-war period, notably The Beano and The Dandy, but with extensive profanity, toilet humour, black comedy, surreal humour and generally sexual or violent storylines. It also sends up tabloid newspapers, with mockeries of articles and letters pages. It features parody competitions and advertisements for overpriced 'limited edition' tat, as well as obsessions with half-forgotten kitsch celebrities from the 1960s to the 1980s, such as Shakin' Stevens and Rodney Bewes. Occasionally, it satirises current affairs and politicians, but it has no particular political standpoint.
Robert Dennis Crumb is an American cartoonist who often signs his work R. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contemporary American culture.
Chris Donald is the founder of, and one of the principal contributors to, the British comic magazine Viz.
Steven William Maclean Bell is an English political cartoonist, whose work has appeared in a number of publications, notably The Guardian from 1981 to 2023. He is known for his left-wing views. Bell was fired from The Guardian in 2023, after drawing a caricature of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during the Hamas-Israel war.
Simon Donald is a co-founder and former co-editor of the British comic magazine Viz.
A political cartoon, also known as an editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine artistic skill, hyperbole and satire in order to either question authority or draw attention to corruption, political violence and other social ills.
Sid the Sexist is a character from the British satirical comic Viz, first appearing in issue 9 in October 1982. The strip was created and mostly drawn by Simon Donald until he left the magazine in 2003, when Paul Palmer took over as artist.
William Edward Tidy, MBE was a British cartoonist, writer and television personality, known chiefly for his comic strips. He was noted for his charitable work, particularly for the Lord's Taverners, which he supported for over 30 years. Deeply proud of his working-class roots in Northern England, his most abiding cartoon strips, such as The Cloggies and The Fosdyke Saga, were set in an exaggerated version of that environment.
Cockney Wanker is a character created by Graham Dury and Simon Thorpe in Viz based on a stereotyped male Cockney. Wanker speaks in rhyming slang and spends his days drinking and selling stolen or unworkable goods to passers-by from an East End market stall. Another of Wanker's specialities is trading used cars. Playing upon the stereotype of the indigenous population of London being fantasists, Wanker often buys a car, sells it back to the same person for the same amount of money, then declares the transaction to have been "A nice little earner!" He wears cheap gold jewellery or Argos bling and 'Laahndan' gangster dark glasses, and is often seen smoking a cigar.
John Burton Davis Jr. was an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art, and numerous comic book stories. He was one of the founding cartoonists for Mad in 1952. His cartoon characters are characterized by extremely distorted anatomy, including big heads, skinny legs, and large feet.
Edward Sorel is an American illustrator, caricaturist, cartoonist, graphic designer and author. His work is known for its storytelling, its left-liberal social commentary, its criticism of reactionary right-wing politics and organized religion. Formerly a regular contributor to The Nation, New York Magazine and The Atlantic, his work is today seen more frequently in Vanity Fair. He has been hailed by The New York Times as "one of America's foremost political satirists". As a lifelong New Yorker, a large portion of his work interprets the life, culture and political events of New York City. There is also a large body of work which is nostalgic for the stars of 1930s and 1940s Hollywood when Sorel was a youth. Sorel is noted for his wavy pen-and-ink style, which he describes as "spontaneous direct drawing".
Graham Laidler was a British cartoonist, noted for his work in Punch magazine in the 1930s. He signed his name as "pont", short for a nickname, Pontifex Maximus.
Matthew ("Matt") Diffee is an American cartoonist whose works appear in the New Yorker magazine.
The Fat Slags is a British comic strip appearing in the alternative British comic Viz. The characters made their debut in 1989, their first appearance being in issue 36. The eponymous slags are Sandra Burke and Tracey Tunstall, known to other characters as San and Tray. They are depicted as overweight, eating large amounts of food, mainly chips, while also having a lot of casual sex. As with other Viz strips, the strip's authors use a brash writing style. "Slag" is a British English word for "slut", or loose woman.
Terry Willers was a cartoonist and comics artist in Ireland. He was born in Barnet in North London but spent most of his life in Ireland, living initially in Carrigower then for over 40 years in Rathdrum, both in County Wicklow. In 1992, he was the co-founder and chairman of the Guinness International Cartoon Festival, which ran for three years in Rathdrum. He was a winner of the Jacobs Award for his work for television.
Fat Slags is a 2004 British independent gross out comedy film based on the Viz comic characters of the same name. The creators had no editorial control over the film. Despite the relative popularity of the comic strip and its celebrity cameos, the film was panned by critics.
Michael DeForge is a Canadian comics artist and illustrator.
Ellison Bernard Hoover (1888-1955) was an American painter, lithographer and cartoonist. He is best remembered as an artist for his atmospheric prints of scenes in New York, Paris and elsewhere, “beautiful black and white representations of rural and urban landscapes complemented by faint, ghostly details, leaving much of the viewer’s imagination to wander and fill in ambiguous spaces”.
