They say a picture speaks a thousand words. This statement is especially true when it comes to political cartoons. Newspapers carry these, so do magazines and their subscribers usually look for them first thing in the morning to read and chuckle over. These cartoons are funny yet hard hitting. They can be brutal in their political statements keeping the humour intact. Essentially, these cartoons can be consumed as opinion piece, with the political neutrality kept intact. The only difference being that the words used in it would be hardly four or maybe six.
If you look at it from a slightly different perspective, political cartoons (and some comics too) are a part of journalism. India has had its own list of influential cartoonists, including the inimitable late RK Laxman, among others. Laxman’s common man was the apt representative of the readers, the citizens of this country, looking at the political tamashas and the social ups and downs, without uttering a word. There are other formidable names such as E P Unny, Ponappa, Ajit Ninan, the late Sudhir Tailang, who have contributed to this aspect of literature and journalism in our country.
The trend of political cartooning actually dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries and names like William Hogarth gave us social commentaries in sequential art. Over the years, propaganda during the World Wars as well as hard hitting criticism of the world leaders also marked a boom in the use of cartoons in this field. News accompanied by cartoons added a lot more power to the written word. The 20th century gave us Ronald Searle, a satirical cartoonist. Satire, criticism, cynical observation and the ability to show things as they are with a humorous twist are some features you would associate with this genre of cartooning.
Not just cartoons, but comics and graphic novels too, over the years, have become a formidable weapon of expression and journalism. When it comes to comics-journalism, Joe Sacco is often credited as the pioneer of the genre. Comics were always seen as a channel of entertainment, but Sacco changed it all through his works like Palestine, a graphic novel, which is a commentary on the socio-political situation in Gaza and the West Bank in the early 90s.
People realised the power of using comics to talk about these issues. We thus had other graphic novels like Maus by Art Spiegelman talking about the Holocaust and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, which talks about life in Iran through the eyes of a little girl. All these comics, incidentally, were biographical. The creators either talked about their first hand experiences, kind of like reporting live from ground zero, or were retelling events based on the details shared by close sources. A case in point was Art Spiegelman, whose father gave him the inputs about the Holocaust.
The pictures suddenly retold stories in a new light. News was no longer just read in newspapers or seen on TV channels. Along with quarter page political cartoons in newspapers and the pocket cartoons (smaller cartoon boxes on the side), there was a completely new avenue of graphic novels talking about real issues.
And with the advent of the internet, political expression, satire and social issues suddenly got a big dose of exposure. New cartoonists have emerged and we have more topics that are talked about through tongue-in-cheek illustrations. Take your memes, for example. In the recently concluded elections, how often were we seeing funny memes based on politicians (funny enough to get people arrested) as well as cartoons depicting the fights between parties? Apart from being hilarious, they also showed us that cartoons are indeed a reflection of the world we live in. Real life is no longer funny, cartoons add that touch.
(The writer is a comic creator, illustrator and animator)