The Cartoonist Rights organization has joined a growing list of groups and people boycotting X/Twitter:
Effective immediately, CARTOONISTS RIGHTS will cease posting content to Twitter, now known as “X”, until such time as there is a change in ownership and a marked improvement in the website’s policies and functionality.
Following recent changes in policy and performance on the Twitter/’X” social media platform, and the public actions of its owner, Cartoonist Rights shall stop using his site as a means of outward communication with immediate effect.
Theses issues include: …
Read Cartoonists Rights full statement here.
If they can, we encourage readers to follow us on Bluesky. We may also be found on Mastodon, and Facebook and Instagram as well. We would also recommend subscribing to our monthly newsletter.
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“At my age your fingers start failing you – there’s nothing more frustrating than when you’re two-thirds through a drawing and your fingers lock up.
“So as much as I’d like to carry it on, Mother Nature has other plans.”
A REGULAR Chronicle cartoonist is finally retiring after more than 60 years of work.
Barrie Hawkins, 86, has been making the people of Barnsley laugh since his first tongue-in-cheek illustration was published in the Chronicle back in 1959.
The Barnsley Chronicle reveals cartoonist Barrie Hawkins is retiring.
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At the end of every year cartoonists put down their pens, lean back from their drawing boards and think — well, next year can’t be as crazy as this year was. And we’re always proved wrong.
Political cartooning is like cooking a dish. You have multiple ingredients, throw them all in the pot, simmer, and reduce and reduce until it’s combined into an immediate, easy-to-digest flavour hit. My job, therefore, is to present you with my opinion of the political story of the day, served up bite-size.
Christian Adams is only retiring 2023 not his career.
For The Standard he comments on a few of his cartoons from the past year.
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Dan Leno (1860–1904) was an inventive British music hall comedian from the late 1880s who had a knack for recognising an opportunity. He had his finger on the pulse to what was, or could be, a popular form of entertainment to target long before his competitors caught on. This, of course, included a younger version of the comic book industry.
Daniel Parker for The Comics Journal writes a brief history of the early comic magazine Dan Leno’s Comic Journal.
Dan Leno’s Comic Journal had a fairly short run, publishing its final issue in 1899, the year after it was launched. This wasn’t due to a lack of success; the comic sold impressively. The first issue, for instance, sold 350,000 copies.2 It’s presumed the venture was short-lived on the grounds the fast-moving, busy Leno had grown slightly bored of the project and wished to devote his attention elsewhere.
The Comics Journal recently published a fascinating article by Daniel Parker about one of Britain’s earliest comics, the weekly comic, Dan Leno’s Comic Journal, the official comic of the British music hall star, creator of the pantomime dame, published between 1898 and 1899, featuring art by Tom Browne. The comic is believed the first comic to be written, edited and star a real person.
Born this day on 20th December 1860, the article notes Dan Leno (not to be confused with the American sporting cartoonist of the same name) was an inventive British music hall comedian from the late 1880s, who had a knack for recognising an opportunity. He performed every day for 36 years, after which he suffered a mental breakdown.
John Freeman at downthetubes follows up with a short Dan Leno bio and some further reading suggestions.
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John Freeman also notes a couple British collections to look forward to with some world famous comic artists:
Book Palace Books have announced they will be collecting two classic British adventure strips from the weekly Boys’ World comic, “Wrath of the Gods“, and “Ghost World” in one huge volume next summer, featuring art by Ron Embleton, John M. Burns and Frank Bellamy.
Book Palace say all the Ron Embleton and John M. Burns double-page spreads will be printed as deluxe fold-outs in a monster full colour volume.
And the writers of the comics, Willie Patterson and Harry Harrison, are not exactly unknown.
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And now for the inevitable.
Mike Peterson mentioned the hulabaloo in Canada caused by The Toronto Sun printing a Gary Varvel cartoon. (The cartoon is up at GoComics.)
True North carries more about the blowup and some background. The story even made it to Pravda.
In the U.S. the liberal Crooks & Liars had their take on the The Sun publishing the cartoon:
When I first heard about this on Twitter I was taken aback. An openly antisemitic cartoon in one of Toronto’s largest papers, in 2023? Then I learned it was in the Toronto Sun, a rightwing tabloid-type paper that is similar to the New York Post. Then I looked at the cartoon and saw that it was done by Gary Varvel of Creators Syndicate and it all started to make sense…
The Sun and presumably the editor who okayed it without a second thought later apologized.
Not apologizing are the editors of Arab newspapers for their anti-Israel cartoons.
Political cartoonists in the Arabic-language press have dramatically increased their use of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories in the wake of the October 7 Hamas onslaught in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, the Anti-Defamation League found in a report published Thursday.
The report, titled “Antisemitism in Arab Cartoons During the Israel-Hamas War,” detailed numerous instances of antisemitic tropes that have been published in Middle Eastern and Arabic-language newspapers and websites since the start of the war.
From The Jerusalem Post on that same ADL report:
The ADL’s assessment delved into the political cartoons featured in numerous newspapers across the Middle East, including those published in Arabic-language newspapers in the United Kingdom. The findings revealed the widespread use of hateful antisemitic tropes, including the unfounded claim that Jews control US politics, comparisons of Israel and its leaders to Hitler, and frequent references to the blood libel – a baseless accusation that Jews consume the blood of their victims as part of a perverse religious ritual.
I support any reasonable person in leaving X (though the removal of titles or headlines from web links posted to the site seems a much lesser complaint, and one I believe has already been reversed).
It’s a shame their statement couldn’t include clickable links to their various social media accounts, though.
No problem. Email has worked great.