Cartoons For Great Family Fun

One of the first cartoons was when a Neanderthal picked up a piece of chalk and adorned the walls of his cave with cartoons, he had just discovered one of the best ways to express his feelings.

There are so many ways to make fun of well-know people which sometimes gets them more fame (as with those hilarious "Spitting Image" video clips which you can see on YouTube).

The excavated walls of Pompeii are still festooned with 2000-year-old graffiti and images, starring prominent notables of that day and age, especially a lady named Julia, who had a predilection for muscle-bound gladiators! So fun was made of the notables in those days long gone!

The idea of caricaturing a prominent personality has come down through the ages, in the form of a sketch, and a number of us cannot open up a page without going straight to our favorite cartoonist to see who is being lampooned in which ruthless manner at the moment by our favorite poison pen.

Any caricature is meant to entertain, to make the common man think — while feeling amused at the same time as being a political, social, ethical and communal commentary upon some action, incident or occurrence which has taken place in the country or in the city, at the moment. It might also be a running serial, which always breaks off at an important point of the adventure, making one either to know what is going to happen next. Next installment is going to be in tomorrow's paper!

In Regency times, Hookie (the Duke of Wellington)'s victories, the Prince Regent-"Prinny's" extravagances, his affairs, and every single royal scandal was lampooned by the cartoonists, so that even the most illiterate person could understand what was going on, even if he could not read the words. John Bull and the Corsican monster were easily drawn in exaggerated lines, so that one knew that it was still a case of "rule Britannia Britannia rules the waves."

Drawings by Cruikshank's in the 18th century were very popular, and in fact, many of Charles Dickens' characters were drawn by this very famous cartoonist. His caricatures were meant to depict the characters of the day, with a minute attention to detail as for costume, behavior, and even social characteristics. In Edwardian times, popular beauties like Lily Langtry, Mrs. Keppell and Daisy Brooke were painted and drawn by painters on postcards and these postcards were sold to the average public for a couple of pence each.

Apart from this, these artists were busy commenting about the political and the social situation, through images for the newspapers, journals, and Punch.

Remember Betty Boop and Jiggs?
It was in the 1920s, that these sketches began to be serialized. Edgar Rice Burroughs' world-famous creation Tarzan, Phantom, Mandrake, Blondie, Betty Boop, Dick Tracy Annie and Jiggs were avidly read by every single person from 8-80, and that tradition is still going on to this day. We have a new medium, the Internet, when artists put images on their websites, for the whole world to enjoy. You can also find vintage caricatures (1920 — 1930) on the Internet, so if you are looking for Tanguy et Laverdure or Tin Tin, you can always find them up on the Internet.

Political caricatures are still going strong, especially when they start up a raging controversy, and then the cartoonist apologizes the very next day. Well, he has managed to convey to the public that his president is a chimpanzee shot dead by overanxious policemen, and thus one would need somebody else to sign important agreements!

Such provocative sketches are still going strong in newspapers— especially the New Yorker—and journals today!