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.