A good editorial cartoon can say in one image what an essay needs pages to explain. The 45 cartoons below, collected from the international platform Cartoon Movement, use irony, exaggeration and visual metaphor to question social expectations: how women are expected to dress and behave, how money shapes healthcare and love, how religion and politics are used to justify control, and how people are judged for who they love.
They come from cartoonists in many countries, including Cuba, Colombia, Jordan, Egypt, Latvia and the United States, and many were drawn for an international audience rather than a single newspaper. Some are gentle, some are angry, and several deal with violence, sexuality and religion. As works of satire and art, they are shown in full. Where a cartoonist’s signature is legible, their name is given in the caption.
How satirical cartoons make their point
Political cartooning has a long history. William Hogarth’s prints in the 1720s are often cited as its precursor, James Gillray mocked King George III and Napoleon at the end of the 18th century, and Thomas Nast’s cartoons helped bring down the corrupt Boss Tweed ring in New York in the 1870s.
The tools have changed little since then. Cartoonists exaggerate a feature until it becomes impossible to ignore, borrow familiar symbols such as Lady Justice, a cross or a wedding cake and turn them against their usual meaning, and place two unrelated things side by side so the viewer sees a link that is usually hidden. Most of the cartoons below use one or more of these tricks.
About Cartoon Movement
Cartoon Movement was founded in 2010 by Thomas Loudon and Arend Jan van den Beld and is based in The Hague in the Netherlands. It runs an online platform for editorial cartoons and comics journalism and receives dozens of cartoons a day from more than 220 freelance cartoonists in over 80 countries. Media outlets can license the work, which gives cartoonists, some of whom work under censorship at home, an international audience.
The cartoons
A dishevelled man, signed by the cartoonist Ebert, swigs from a bottle while his trouser legs burn away in rainbow-coloured flames and pool on the floor. The image is open to more than one reading, but the rainbow suggests an identity that leaks out however hard someone tries to drown or hide it.
Two brides in white gowns reach toward each other across a huge dark cross, which keeps their hands apart. It is a direct comment on religious opposition to same-sex marriage, drawn with the bright rays of a holy image behind the cross.
A man in a white thobe and headdress talks, but his speech bubble is empty and enormous, and it is the veiled woman beside him who has to carry it on her back. The cartoon, signed “Giac”, is about who gets to speak and who bears the weight of those words.
A shopper scoops pills from bulk bins into a basket as casually as if they were sweets. The target is the habit of treating medication as an everyday consumer product rather than something to use with care and a doctor’s advice.
Under the heading “Homosexuals in the Middle East…”, a man runs while a crowd shouts a homophobic slur and films him on their phones. The Jordanian cartoonist Osama Hajjaj uses the crowd’s smartphones to show how public shaming has moved online.
Three small drawings of the Earth: in the first two the continents are in their familiar places, in the third they have merged into a heart. It is one of the gentlest cartoons in the set, a wish for a world without borders.
The Cuban cartoonist Ares draws a woman in a full burqa whose eye grille is the only opening, while a tiny winged woman flies free above. The contrast asks what freedom of movement and choice looks like for women who are covered by law or custom.
A naked woman lies pinned to the ground under a huge man’s shoe. It is a stark image of domination, and the heavy shoe stands for whatever force, social or physical, keeps a person down.
Colombian illustrator Elena Ospina redraws Lady Justice, the blindfolded figure with scales, but the blindfold has slipped and the heavier pan holds the male symbol. The point is clear: justice that is supposed to be blind is weighted in favour of men.
A giant high-heeled shoe printed with the EU flag steps on a Russian flag on one side and crushes a boat full of migrants on the other. Signed “Osal”, it criticises how Europe’s power falls on those least able to resist it.
Two pregnant women stand side by side: one, labelled “1st World”, cradles a normal bump; the other, labelled “3rd World”, carries a bomb with a lit fuse. The cartoon points at the very different futures children face depending on where they are born.
Two tiny figures sit on separate islands, unaware that the islands are the tips of a single underwater heart. It is a quiet image about loneliness and the connections people fail to notice.
Death with his scythe and a uniformed soldier pull a crying girl in opposite directions, with a pool of blood beneath her. It is a painful comment on how girls are caught between violence and the men who claim to protect them in conflict zones.
A small car trails a cloud of black exhaust that becomes a dark space full of skeleton figures, including a child. The message about air pollution and its health costs needs no words.
Egyptian cartoonist Amr Okasha contrasts two men opening their shirts: an ordinary man reveals a heart, a decorated general reveals a gaping mouth. It is a sharp joke about the appetite of military rulers.
A woman in a mini skirt and face veil stands between two men pointing weapons at her: one objects to the veil, the other to the skirt. The cartoon shows a woman criticised from both sides, whatever she wears.
Ares draws a businessman holding a shell to his ear while his suit is stained with dark splashes. A shell is said to carry the sound of the sea; here the sea seems to be oil, and the man listens without noticing the damage.
“Career Ladder” by Latvian cartoonist Gatis Sluka shows a bed whose mattresses rise like stairs, with a man smirking from the bottom as a young woman arrives. It targets the idea that women advance at work through sexual favours, and the men who demand them.
In two red panels, a man walks toward a glowing heart, only to find that the heart forms part of a scorpion’s tail. It is a warning about love that turns poisonous.
A man with a clock for a head and a pendulum heart, signed by Trayko P., releases a bird of clock hands into the sky. Time, the drawing suggests, keeps flying away while the heart swings back and forth.
A six-panel strip by Skelf follows the circle of blame after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing: the Prime Minister condemns the attack, ISIS claims it, Saudi rulers are said to fund ISIS, the UK sells arms to Saudi Arabia. The last panel simply asks “Wait… what?”.
A blond boy looks into a mirror and sees a black boy with the same clothes and the same smile. The cartoon, signed “Adene”, is a simple statement that the person on the other side of a racial divide is a reflection of ourselves.
Three wedding cakes are topped by two brides, a bride and a groom, and two grooms, and in each case the figures are pushing each other away. The joke is that marriage looks much the same whoever is on the cake.
American cartoonist Stephanie McMillan, whose work focuses on the environment, sets a woman in a poisoned landscape of dead animals and green sludge. One voice says we cannot dismantle industrial capitalism; the reply is that without it we would not have antidepressants.
A pope figure reaches up to post a ballot into a huge box while tiny women wait below. Signed “Giac”, it questions the influence of religious authorities on decisions, such as abortion laws, that affect women’s lives.
Ares again: a woman pours a liquid onto the exposed brain of a man sitting at a desk. It is a comment on manipulation, the idea that someone’s thoughts can be watered by whoever stands behind them.
A man in black robes points at a woman lying on the ground with a sign reading “No” and calls her a terrorist, the bloody sword still in his hand. The cartoon attacks the way authorities label peaceful protest as terrorism to justify violence.
The doors of a hospital emergency room carry a dollar sign inside a red cross and stickers for credit cards. The cartoon criticises health systems in which treatment depends on the ability to pay.
A spider’s web turns out to be a vast office, with each worker trapped in a cell at a computer. Signed “Osal”, it is a picture of office life as a trap.
A large bald man in red holds his long black beard, which wraps round the mouth of a woman in a red dress and gags her. The beard stands for conservative religious authority, silencing women’s voices.
A hand from a cloud wags a disapproving finger at a man admiring lipstick kisses on his mirror. The cartoon pokes fun at religious disapproval of ordinary human desire and vanity.
A bearded man winds up identical figures in burqas on a conveyor belt as they roll off a production line. The drawing shows women turned into uniform, wind-up products by the people who control them.
Three places of worship, a church, a synagogue and a mosque, sit above a scene in which their prayers are turned into fighter jets, bombs and fighters. It suggests that religion is too often used to fuel conflict between people of different faiths.
Ares draws a man in a suit peering over a high red brick wall at a woman on the other side, who hugs herself. It is a picture of separation, whether by politics, class or a border.
A small figure carrying the male symbol like a flag sits on top of a woman’s head, which is crumbling away. The face is modelled on Steve McCurry’s famous 1984 photograph of Sharbat Gula, the “Afghan Girl” who appeared on the cover of National Geographic in June 1985.
In a cartoon signed “Falco”, a veiled woman’s shadow is fully covered while the woman who casts it is naked. The image plays on the gap between the public role people are forced to perform and the private self underneath.
Another cartoon by Falco shows a woman in a black niqab with her eyes closed, and a speech bubble that is entirely black. Her voice, the drawing suggests, is covered as completely as her face.
Signed by the cartoonist Kap with Mohammed Alleyan, this cartoon shows a couple about to kiss under a heart filled with banknotes. It is a jab at relationships in which money matters more than love.
Two staircases sit side by side: a tall blue one for men and a short pink one for women, which stops at a wall. Signed “Rodrigo”, it is a clear image of the glass ceiling.
A young girl walks to school with her backpack past towers in which women in black veils are shut away, like Rapunzel. A long black veil hangs from a window, the way Rapunzel let down her hair. The cartoon contrasts the freedom of education with a fairy tale of confinement.
Amr Okasha draws a well-fed businessman in a hospital bed receiving a blood transfusion from a thin, starving man hung upside down. The chart at the foot of the bed rises; the economy of the rich, he suggests, is fed by the poor.
A head made of flying birds dissolves into the sky, while the person’s hands are chained. Thought, the cartoon says, can escape even when the body cannot.
A tired doctor leans on his desk while giant Visa and MasterCard cards sit in the patient’s chair. In this view of healthcare, the doctor no longer sees a person, only a payment.
A powerful woman stands in a single red high heel while a large family crowds into a worn-out brown boot. It reworks the nursery rhyme about the old woman who lived in a shoe to contrast wealth and poverty.
Lady Justice stands blindfolded with her scales, while a poor woman struggles past carrying heavy scales of her own. It suggests that the burdens of justice fall unequally, with the poor carrying the weight.
Reading a cartoon critically
Satire is powerful because it simplifies, and that is also its weakness. A single image can make a problem unforgettable, but it leaves out the details, the exceptions and the other side. The best way to enjoy cartoons like these is to ask a few questions: who or what is the real target, which symbol is being turned upside down, and what would someone on the receiving end say in reply?
Many of the cartoons here deal with women’s freedom, religion and power, subjects on which reasonable people disagree. They are not a verdict on whole cultures or faiths; each one is one artist’s argument, made as sharply as possible. That is what editorial cartoons have always done, and it is also why cartoonists around the world are still sometimes threatened or prosecuted for their work.
Why humour carries criticism so well
Humour gives criticism a way in. A reader who would skip an angry article will often stop for a drawing, laugh, and only then notice what it is saying. A joke can also say things that would be risky to state directly. For cartoonists working under strict governments, an image that can be read in more than one way is sometimes the only safe way to speak at all. That mix of laughter and discomfort is what makes the cartoons above stay with you.
Related articles
- Social Commentary Illustrations Told Through Visual Contrasts
- Social Satire Illustrations That Invite a Closer Look
- Humorous Illustrations with a Social Commentary Edge
Sources: Cartoons published via Cartoon Movement (individual artists credited in captions where signatures are legible); Wikipedia: Cartoon Movement; Wikipedia: Editorial cartoon; Wikipedia: Stephanie McMillan; Wikipedia: Afghan Girl.
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