Cartoon by Emanuele Del Rosso

As 2024 draws to a close, we can look back on a troubled year full of conflict, disasters caused by rampant climate change and the continued rise of autocracy around the globe. When it comes to cartooning, the Charles Dickens quote 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times' comes to mind.

The best of times, because we have never had so much inspiration for cartoons and because political satire is urgently needed to point out the absurdities and untruths of populism, to show where the path of warmongers will lead, and to paint the (admittedly) bleak picture of a world than has not managed to control our climate.

The worst of times, because opportunities to publish continue to dwindle for cartoonists. We hear more and more stories of wealthy dictator-buddies buying up newspapers and kicking out cartoonists. There is little to no opportunity for young cartoonist to find a spot to publish to develop their talent, which means there is no next generation of cartoonists standing in the wings to take over.

In the midst of all this, Cartoon Movement is luckily still standing. Fiercely independent, we continue to provide a platform for cartoonists all around the globe, paying them for their work. In this way, we support them financially (albeit modestly) and give a voice to those artists working in countries where they cannot publish their work.

To sustain our platform, we rely on the sales of cartoons (so if you're an editor, consider using our high-quality cartoons in your publication) and on special projects. In the past year, we've been fortunate to do some great projects, including:

A re-issue and update of Cartoons for human rights, a book illustrating all the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A cartoon competition about media freedom in the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia), culminating in a cartoon exhibition in six countries.

A global advocacy campaign for Education Cannot Wait (part of UNICEF).

Cartoon by Nahid Zamani

We also promoted political cartoons around Europe: we gave a workshop and live-drawing demonstrations at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, and also a workshop for young artists in Albania; we talked at panels at Lector in Fabula and at the World Democracy Forum in Strasbourg.

If you want to support us, we always welcome donations, but you can also simply subscribe to our daily cartoon newsletter to show us you care about political satire. We've recently hit our 1k subscriber goal for 2024, and we hope to at least double our number of subscribers in 2025. We hope that 2025 will be brighter than 2024; the one thing we can promise for the new year is that we'll be bringing you some of the best cartoons about whatever the new year will bring us.

Cartoon by Paolo Lombardi

We are taking a break for Christmas, so there will not be a daily cartoon and we'll be less active on social media in the coming weeks. We'll be back on January 2! We wish you all very happy holidays (if you choose to celebrate them) and all the best for the new year!

It's December, so it's time for our traditional top 10 list of the best cartoons of the year! In 2024, we received over 10,000 cartoons from our network of over 700 cartoonists. Around 250 of these were featured as an editor's choice on our homepage; many others were highlighted on our social media channels.

Picking the 10 best ones from such a large pool of high quality cartoons is almost impossible, so while the selection is by no means exhaustive or objective, these 10 images do reflect some of the most important news events of 2024, and were very popular with our audience.

In the first cartoon, from early January, Osama Hajjaj expressed the hope that 2024 would be better. It didn't exactly turn out that way, and he could basically create the same image for 2025...

The second cartoon on our list, by Austrian artist Marian Kamensky, proved to be more prophetic (unfortunately), and gives a succinct visual summary of current power relations.

The cartoon Gaza child by Yousef Alimohammadi isn't funny at all, but it does show how a good cartoon can confront you with the harsh reality while also showing how things should be.

One of the recurring topics we get a lot of cartoons on each year is International Workers' Day (May 1). Derkaoui Abdellah not only shows the inequality that continues to persist between capital and labor, but also connects this to the climate crisis and rising sea levels, the consequences of which will no doubt be felt the hardest by common workers.

Although the National Rally didn't win the French elections this summer, the cartoon by SWAHA does show how the radical-right tries to make their ideas more palatable to voters (in France evolving from Jean-Marie to Marine Le Pen, and then Jordan Bardella).

The lure of the far right in the European elections is also aptly captured in this cartoon by Thiago Lucas from Brazil:

The world was (and is) slow to call what is going on in Gaza a genocide. Z from Tunisia made this telling visual about the politics that surround the unspeakable humanitarian catastrophe that is still happening today.

Most of you will remember the first (and only) debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Although lost by Trump, it didn't cost him the elections, as most voters seem to prefer convenient lies to harsh truths. The cartoon is by Emad Hajjaj.

And this is what the new reign of Trump will look like, according to Paolo Calleri from Germany.

We of course need to end our top 10 with the major event of December, the fall of Assad. Alan Lauzan from Chile imagines Assad's arrival at the palace of Putin.

We have no doubt 2025 will provide our cartoonists with more than enough material to continue making scathing, sharp, witty, funny and confronting visuals. If you want to see more top 10s, check out the best cartoons of 2023 and 2022.

Moz has been a professional cartoonist for 15 years, publishing regularly in UK magazine Private Eye.

Gurkan Coskun is a cartoonist from Turkey, using his cartoons to satirize the quirks of everyday life, blending humor with a thoughtful lens on social issues and human nature.

Andy Bunday started out drawing caricatures for a series of the television show Spitting Image – many, many years ago... He’s produced political cartoons for The Independent, The Times and Tribune plus animated cartoons for various news websites. And he’s made several TV appearances, drawing cartoons live on air for CNN.

You can see more on his website: www.andybunday.com

Cartoon by Marian Kamensky

Our November newsletter is out: the world might be going to sh*t, at least we still have political satire! You can read our latest dispatch, filled with the latest news, new cartoonists and the best cartoons of November, here.