The Kaktus Cartoon Award 2025 is open for submissions. The theme this year the The Solution. Artists have always been an important voice during times of upheaval. Cartoonists, with their often unconventional and humorous contributions, can highlight problems, question preconceived opinions, and thus make a valuable contribution to the debate. So today, we ask the cartoonists of this world: What is the solution?

You can send in your work until July 9 for a chance to win 2500 euro and be included in an exhibition.

Samaneh Rouhollahi is a cartoonist from Iran. She has worked with several newspapers and magazines in Iran and is also working on a comic series titled Zhuli. Check out her Instagram to see more of her work.

Chicane is the pen name of London-based New Zealand cartoonist Mark Winter. His award-winning work is published, exhibited and screened globally. He has twice been the recipient of the Sir Gordon Minhinnick Memorial Trophy for ‘Cartoonist of the Year’ in New Zealand’s annual Media Awards. In the UK, he contributes to a variety of publications, including Private Eye and New Statesman.

Humor is often at the center of complex legal cases regarding freedom of expression and its limits. How can judges navigate the gray areas between satire and defamation, provocative jokes and incitement to discrimination, or parody and copyright violation? How do international free speech standards protect the rights of cartoonists, comedians and ‘ordinary’ social media users, in this respect?

These issues lie at the center of the toolkit What's in a Joke? Assessing Humor in Free Speech Jurisprudence, whose first edition has just been published by the Forum for Humor and the Law and Columbia Global Freedom of Expression. The toolkit was authored by Alberto Godioli (University of Groningen), Sabine Jacques (University of Liverpool), Jennifer Young (University of Groningen) and Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández (University College Dublin), in dialogue with experts from UNESCO, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, ARTICLE19 and several free speech organizations.

Dowload the toolkit here.

This publication is primarily intended for judges and other legal professionals, with the aim of facilitating a well-balanced approach to humorous expression in light of both human rights law and academic work on humor and satire. At the same time, it might also be of interest to humor creators of all types, by raising awareness of current trends and existing free speech provisions.

Ann Kiernan is an award winning political illustrator and visual artist based in Berlin. Check out her website to see more of here work.

This posts was originally published on the DELIAH Substack.

Cartoon Movement is taking part in a project called Democratic Literacy and Humour (DELIAH). But what is DELIAH? In short, it's an EU-funded research project spanning four years (2025-2029) that examines the relationship between democracy and humour. The somewhat longer answer is, however, probably more insightful. In this article, we show you what DELIAH will be doing in the next four years and what the outcome of the project will (hopefully) be.

DELIAH is funded by Horizon Europe, the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation. The DELIAH project was proposed in answer to a Horizon call that focuses on culture, the arts and cultural spaces for democratic participation and political expression, online and offline.

DELIAH has a broad approach, acknowledging the multifaceted nature of humour. The project is divided into what in EU jargon (you'll be hearing more of it if you continue to follow the project) are called Work Packages (WP). The WPs are smaller research projects that focus on different forms of humour and research questions. DELIAH has eight such WPs:

WP 1 - Meta-analysis of humour practices and democratic attitudes in the European context

Our starting point sounds academic, but our meta-analysis will provide a solid base for the rest of the project. What is already known about the relationship between democracy and humour and how can we build on this?

The outcome will be a public database (mainly aimed at scientists) and a summary report. The report will also serve scientists, but we also plan to make the conclusions accessible in an engaging way for a broader audience.

 

WP 2 - Conducting focus groups to discover discourses of and evaluate responses to humorous stimuli

One way to build upon WP1 will be a hands-on examination of how Europeans in different countries respond to humour. We will set up focus-groups in different countries and show each group the same, or similar (because some humour is often language or country-specific), examples of different types of humour to see how they react, before discussing these examples with them. The resulting report should provide valuable insights into how Europeans look at humour.

 

WP 3 - Disparaging humour and democracy: Best practices for free speech jurisprudence and content moderation

Disparaging humour, meaning humour that mocks and belittles vulnerable individuals and groups, is often at the center of complex legal cases, where judges have to draw a line between safeguarding freedom of expression on the one hand, and countering incitement to discrimination or violence on the other. Besides, social media platforms and content moderators often struggle to find a balanced approach to jokes or memes that might be considered harmful or discriminatory by some users.

How can courts and online platforms ensure that humor (including provocative or potentially offensive jokes) is preserved as a vital component of democratic debate, while at the same time protecting the rights of targeted communities? What options are available to foster democratic participation, beyond the mere decision to remove content or keep it online? In light of both human rights law and humor research, this WP will create a toolkit helping judges and online platforms develop a fair and consistent approach to disputed humorous material.

 

WP 4 - Analysing the rhetoric of far-right: humour online and the role of democratic literacy

This WP will result in a toolkit on how to increase democratic literacy that can be used by educators and by organizations active in the field of democracy and free speech. We’ll also write policy recommendations for educators, policymakers and social media companies.

 

WP 5 - Understanding laughter scandals to create conceptual and translational tools for democracies

Our findings will be used to create a toolkit for educators and to write a white paper for policy makers on how to address such controversies.

 

WP 6 - Analysing humour and fostering democratic participation in times of conflict

Our goal is to formulate policy recommendations around humour practices in relation to disinformation, anti-democratic propaganda and civic participation.

 

WP 7 - Analysing gender and stand-up comedy in the 21st-century Anglophone world, online and offline

This WP will result in a database of relevant comedians working today (which will be restricted to use by request, due to its sensitive nature), a bibliography of current research into stand-up comedy and gender, and a white paper outlining how such stand-up comedy has contributed to informal kinds of democratic speech and participation.

 

WP 8 - Analysing uses of 'counter-humour' in media education and activism

Our goal is to develop potential humour intervention strategies, with attention to particularly vulnerable social groups (e.g., girls ands LGBTQ+ youth), in close collaboration with civil society initiatives and media education organizations.

As the project progresses, we’ll provide more in-depth coverage of the different topics and we will of course share all the outcomes, make them accessible and/or available for download.

If you have any questions or requests related to the DELIAH project, please contact us at [email protected]

Images by MORO, Engin Selcuk, Moz, Rahma Cartoons, Halit Kurtulmus Aytosly, George Riemann, Andrea Arroyo and Marilena Nardi

Valerii Momot is an award-winning cartoonist from Ukraine. Follow him on Instagram to see more of his work.

Cartoon by Raoui

Has your content ever been removed from social media? If you are a cartoonist based in the European Union, join an interactive workshop, hosted by Cartoon Movement and Cartooning for Peace, together with Appeals Centre Europe. The workshop will show you a new way to challenge social media platforms when they remove your cartoons.

The aim of this workshop to introduce you to a new organisation, Appeals Centre Europe, that allows people and organizations in the EU to challenge social media decisions on Facebook, Instagram (launching in May), TikTok and YouTube for free.

Register here

Date & Time: 23 May 2025, 11:00 - 12.15 CET
Online:  Zoom

Polovets is a cartoonist from Kazakhstan. Drawing since childhood, he uses the pseudonym Polovets and focuses on social, political, and cultural themes. Cartoon Movement is his first platform for sharing his work publicly.

Kamvas 16 (Gen 3)
Panel Size: 15.8" (Diagonal)
Resolution: 2560 x 1440 (16:9) QHD
Price: € 599

The Kamvas 16 is a 15.8 inch drawing tablet from Huion. We've (favorably) reviewed a number of Huion products in the past, so we were more than happy to give this tablet a try as well. A disclaimer up front: Huion provided this product to us for free, but they have not had any influence over this review.

The Kamvas 16 is not a standalone tablet; instead it's an external screen that you need to connect to your computer. You operate it with a pen, it offers no touch-screen capabilities. I know the majority of cartoonists these days will choose an iPad Pro instead, but if you're on a tighter budget, a drawing tablet like Huion produces does provide a more budget-friendly alternative.

What you get: the tablet, a tablet stand, various cables for different ways to connect the tablet, a pen with pen stand, instructions and a drawing glove

For the Kamvas 13, I was very positive about the option to simply use a usb-c to usb-c cable to connect tablet to laptop. Back then, I was less positive that this cable was not included and had to be purchased separately from Huion. I was pleasantly surprised that for the Kamvas 16, the usb-c to usb-c cable cable was included.

Simple set-up with just one cable

This made setting things up very simple: just download the appropriate driver and plug it in. In must admit that I was bit skeptical about this tablet, especially the size.Would an extra 3 inches really make a difference as compared to the Kamvas 13? I use the 13 a lot when I travel and although it's fine to work on, I do find myself often longing for more screen space. As it turns out, 3 inches extra does feel like a lot; in terms of drawing experience, I found working on the 16 felt almost as good as working on my Wacom of 22 inches.

With the Gen 3, you can also really see and feel that Huion's technology is improving. The screen feels nice to work on, the resolution is great and the accuracy of the nib is impressive. One issue I have, which is also the case with other Huion tablets, is that I sometimes have to click the button on the pen (which I use as a right mouse-click) several times to get it to work. Another bug I experienced was that at times the pen turned unresponsive in Photoshop and I had to mouse-click on the computer to get it to work again; this could be a minor bug solved by reinstalling the driver, but I did not have time to extensively troubleshoot it.

Overall, though, I was happy working on it. I was also pleasantly surprised by the sturdiness of the tablet stand. For a tablet of this size, it's nice to be able to set it at an angle. I was worried the stand would be flimsy, but it actually work quite well while being quite small (which is good for travel).

That brings us to the negative, which, ironically, also has to with the screen size. The skepticism I mentioned before about the screen size wasn't just about working experience, but also about transportation. The Huion 13 is ideal for travel; even with a protective sleeve (I use an old laptop cover), it fits nicely into a medium-size backpack. The Huon 16 however, barely fits in my (quite sizable) backpack, and that's without any sleeve. You can by a Huion sleeve for it, but it seems you would then have to carry it separately.

It kind of begs the question: who does Huion want to target with this tablet? If I were in the market for a Huion display for traveling, I would very probably choose the Kamvas 13. Not only is it way easier to transport, it's also less than half the price of the 16, currently retailing in Europe for € 279. The Kamvas 16 will set you back € 599. And on the other hand, if I have 500+ euro to spend on a drawing tablet, I would probably be on the lookout for something larger, maybe even saving up a little longer to get a 24 inch tablet.

In conclusion, I can honestly say that the Kamvas 16 is a good tablet, and a pleasure to work on. But size- and price-wise it feels like a bit of a miss. It's not quite large enough to justify using it in your studio (again, I think you'd be better off saving up for something with even more screen space) unless you have a tiny desk, but it's also not small enough to comfortably fit in your backpack for travel. And given the fact you'll be paying 300+ euro more or 3 extra inches of screen, the choice for the Kamvas 13 or a 13 inch tablet from another brand seems obvious.

Tjeerd Royaards