Cartoon by Oguz Gurel

Our January newsletter is out! In our first newsletter of 2022, you’ll find highlights of the past month, news about our upcoming projects and of course the most popular cartoons of January. Read it here; if you want to receive it directly in your mailbox each month, subscribe.

Thais Linhares is an award-winning artist and writer from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She creates literature, cartoon and comics. Her work focuses on human rights and social justice.

Jean-Baptiste Zappetti (pen name Zap) has a background in Plastic Arts at the Aix-en-Provence University. He has been working as a cartoonist since 2016, mixing traditional drawing with photographic elements elements.

Cartoon by Miguel Morales Madrigal

Last week, French president Emmanuel Macron announced the creation of a European House of Press and Satirical Cartoons in France. Good news for editorial cartooning, of course. I am of the opinion that every country should have a center for political cartooning, or a center for journalism and press freedom, with a section dedicated to political cartoons.

But controversy has arisen as to the location of the new House of Cartoons. Not surprisingly in a country as centralized as France, Macron has designated the new center will be located in Paris. France-Cartoons, the association of French cartoonists, has protested against this decision. They would like to see the new center located to Saint- Just-Le-Martel, a small village in the French countryside which is famous among cartoonists.

Saint- Just-Le-Martel already has an international cartoon center. They organize a yearly festival, which is hugely popular among cartoonists. All of the village is involved in this festival, which brings together cartoonists from all over the world. France Cartoons has called upon cartoonists to sign a protest letter to the French government. You can read more about this on the blog of US cartoonist Daryl Cagle, who is also disappointed by Macron's decision.

To be honest I'm not sure how I feel about this issue. In the spirit of full disclosure: I've never been to the annual salon in Saint- Just-Le-Martel. I've intended to go many times, but life has got in the way. Maybe if I had seen the festival in action, met the villagers and felt the atmosphere, I would also call for a reversal of Macron's decision.

But looking at it analytically from an international perspective, the benefits of locating the new center in Paris seem to outweigh the infrastructure and goodwill of people already present in Saint- Just-Le-Martel. As I see it, one of main problems facing political cartooning today is a lack of prestige. What I mean by that is that political cartoons are no longer taken as serious (which sounds like a paradox) as they once were. Sure, dictators and extremists still take them quite seriously, and still go to great lengths to silence cartoonists. But, with the exception of a short-lived 'je suis Charlie' in 2015, the general audience doesn't seem to care that much about political satire anymore.

I do not believe this is because political cartoons are becoming obsolete, or have any less (potential) impact than they had a century ago. Rather, I think this has to do with other factors, a lot of which I (and others) have written about before: the precarious economic outlooks for cartoonists as media continue to pay less and less, the tendency of newspaper editors to choose timid cartoons over sharp ones and fact that cartoonists fall between being an artist and a journalist, but are not quite either.

An international House of Cartoons is a great way to bring back some of the shine that cartooning has lost. Exhibitions, lectures and debates to put political satire on the agenda of journalists, policy-makers and the general public. And to me, at least, Paris seems a logical choice for a truly prestigious House of Cartoons.

Tjeerd Royaards
Cartoon Movement editor

Join us next week for a brand new episode of Cartoonist 2 Cartoonist! CM editors Tjeerd and Ema give constructive feedback on submitted cartoons, to help you get better. You still have a couple of days to send us your work. We'll be live on Instagram on Wednesday January26 at 6.30pm CET.

Hassan Omidi is a artist from Iran. He has worked as a cartoonist for 22 years.

Some politicians/dictators are great to caricature. One example is Donald Trump; to draw him you simple need an orange blob for the head topped with a yellow wave for the hair. But Vladimir Putin is another example of prime satire material. Although Trump was probably more popular among cartoonists, Putin has the distinct advantage of being in power longer, circumventing bothersome things like elections or term limits.

Like Trump, the thing that makes Putin such a suitable candidate for caricatures is that you can do a lot with his face, while still having him look like Putin. In part, we can do this because the whole world knows the face of Putin quite well. The other part (which is also quite helpful) is that Mr. Putin has some quite distinct facial features for us cartoonist to play with. Most prominent among these are his long nose and eyes that are slanted up and the mouth with thin lips that resides very low in his head (close to his chin). Since he continues to dominate world headlines (with his domination schemes), we had a dig through our archives to find some of our favorite caricatures of good ol' Vlad.

Spanish illustrator Asier Sanz (famous for his collages) made this Putin Salad some time ago:

More recently, Jordan cartoonist Emad Hajjaj drew this tank-shaped Putin:

Russian cartoonist Sergey Elkin also often plays with Putin, drawing him here as a missile.

But perhaps the most outrageous caricatures of Putin are by Ukrainian artist Oleksiy Kustovsky, such as the Putin-octopus below. You can see some more of his caricatures here.

This caricature by Pedro Silva clearly shows and exaggerates the features that make Putin so recognizable.

This digital portrait by Moroccan cartoonist Adnane Jabir is more realistic and manages to capture Putin's trademark expression of indifference and disdain.

And here's another one that nails Putin's facial expression, this one by Pedro Ribeiro Ferreira.

Pedro X. Molina approach to Putin's face uses upward diagonals with an interesting result.

The film industry is looking for the next Bond, so here's a suggestion by Marilena Nardi.

The last caricature we want to share is one by Fadi Abou Hassan. It shows how you can even do a Putin caricature when you only draw the mouth.

This is of course just a small sampling of the Putin cartoons we have. You can see many, many more here.

Hamid Ghalijari is an illustrator, cartoonist and painter from Iran. In addition, he works as a concept artist and character designer for various companies.

Cenk Alparslan is an award-winning cartoonist and graphic designer from Ankara, Turkey. He is also a teacher at Atılım University.

Ameen Alhabarah is the first cartoonist from Saudi Arabia to join Cartoon Movement. He works for various newspapers and magazines and has received several awards for his work; he was the first Saudi cartoonist to receive an honorary award in the PortoCartoon World Festival (2021). You can follow him on Instagram.