Cartoons

If we take the most basic drawings definition of cartoons—a simplified drawing intended to represent a more detailed object or idea—then the history of cartooning parallels human history. When prehistoric humans first made rock and cave drawings of animals and hunters, their results were, basically, cartoons. When the ancient Greeks decorated pottery and walls with figures of athletes and water carriers, they drew cartoon forms. Cartoons were the name of preliminary art that great classical painters such as Leonardo da Vinci executed when planning large murals and friezes. In that context, the cartoon was a simplified version and visualization of an intended end product, rather than an end product in itself.

Our more modern definition of cartooning refers to an intended end product, one that incorporates humor that is often directed at the subject depicted. Here, too, the history of the cartoon must be as long as the human propensity to lampoon others around them and express those thoughts as funny caricatures or drawings. The schoolboy's cartoon of his teacher, whether made for private or public consumption, surely has been a familiar form of cartooning for centuries. But cartoon is a term that could also fit Shepard Fairey's famously—and seriously—rendered image of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign slogan, “HOPE,” as well as the many parodies produced in its wake. Cartoons seem like simple illustrations, but they have a long human history connected with humor but are not confined by humor. That is to say, cartoons also project very serious interpretations of the cultural zeitgeist of their times that is historically connected to humor's social functions but sometimes eludes humor. This entry discusses the history and use of cartoons and how cartoonists have approached topical issues in recent years.

Cartooning encompasses a variety of expressions and professional graphic arts endeavors that exist in contemporary visual discourse, each with its own relationship to humor. Graphic novels, comic strips, and comic books, for example, are extensions of cartooning. In these cases, the cartoon is utilized as a building block to construct a sequenced visual story. Historically, cartooning is connected to the development of comics in the use of drawings that combine commentary and humor to make a point. This entry defines cartoons as two particular types of humorous drawing. One is the panel cartoon, a drawing intended to amuse and provoke a laugh. Panel cartoons are the familiar entertainment features of newspapers, magazines, and social media that are formatted in one or more frames and positioned as entertaining features in various periodicals and [Page 113]social media. Panel cartoons may address political topics, but the political cartoon, or editorial cartoon, is a special feature of news commentary that still has resonance in contemporary society. Both types of cartoons have a particular relationship to humor, both are rooted in historical forms, and both are tangled in the history of comic art.