Francisco Goya y Lucientes sketched several series of cartoons which he obviously meant to be taken seriously. These are the "Caprichos" and "The Disasters of War." He satirizes superstition from his point of view as an "Enlightened" intellectual in the first collection, and the second collection is self-explanatory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disasters_of_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprichos

Francisco Goya y Lucientes sketched several series of cartoons which he obviously meant to be taken seriously. These are the "Caprichos" and "The Disasters of War." He satirizes superstition from his point of view as an "Enlightened" intellectual in the first collection, and the second collection is self-explanatory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disasters_of_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprichos

Nelson,

Many thanks for the detailed post. If possible, please post a sample cartoon by

Francisco Goya y Lucientes.

On my answer above I posted many samples of the two collections I named. There are others too, but these are the best known by Goya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprichos

Nelson,

Many thanks for the link. I like the sketch by Goya showing a donkey looking at a book filled with sketches of donkeys.

Dear James

Certainly.

A cartoon is a humorous drawing or not accompanied by the caption, extremely critical character portraying a fairly synthesized form something that involves the day-to-day life of a society

"I'm seeing hope." Thus used to say Blackbird, celebrating the beginning of the end of the military dictatorship in Brazil that would persist until 1985. The character, a hungry and politicized Northeastern bird was one of the most famous creations by Henrique de Souza Filho, the Henfil, immortalized as a cartoonist, comic book artist, comedian and writer.

Nelson

Great answer!

In Portugal we have the portuguese Portugal Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro... fantastic artist!

Here is a cartoon by R.K. Laxman for The Common Man, a daily cartoon strip in the Times of India. Message: times have changed with airline travel. Earlier, passengers would dress up to travel. Now dressing up is a burden.

Yes, Cartoons are not merely drawings, but they have specific messages to convey and that is the great skill of a cartoonist.

Cartoons to be taken seriously? For me it depends. A message is just a message until it hits you.. For sure cartoons are made to 'hit' people (reader).

Most of the cartoons directed at adult audiences have a serious message in the context or the subtext. So they should indeed be taken seriously.

Yes, cartoons have serious message in humour or in satire. It is interesting, in Great Britain, politicians annoyed with liberties of cartoonists enacted law not to make cartoon of human body, the cartoonists of Punch devised new ways, they started to make cartoons of vegetables resembling politicians, for instance finance minister, resembled onion.

Anyway, cartoons are way of communication on serious topics.

Cartoons are a beautiful illustration of reality. It is not an easy skill and one has to be gifted to draw cartoons. If we go through the art of making cartoons, we realize that in a very subtle and friendly manner, they give the message to the reader. I believe it is a very serious skill.

Dear João Garcia,

Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro was truly a genius at finding humour in ordinary situations and often conveying a telling message with his drawings. His biography is available at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Bordalo_Pinheiro

For a sample cartoon potraying an ordinary situation where one is listening to a heated discussion, see the attached image.

@ James and Viswaath, as you both have mentioned, indeed R K Laxman and Balasaheb Thakare have been great Indian cartoonists, who always packed very serious messages in very small spaced cartoons and in a palatable and skillful way. Cartoons are easy to visualize and digest than large textual messages.

Attached to this post is a sample cartoon by Satish Acharya. Many thanks for Sumodan Pk for pointing this out.

This is not Bal Thackeray's cartoon. It is Satish Acharya's. Please read the signature.

Samples of Thackery's cartoons:

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/gallery/bal-thackerays-cartoons/8/8543.html

I use cartoons in some of my lessons normally in PPT presentations as they will illustrate a point in very few words. The humour makes it easier for the students to remember the point and lighten what may be a lengthy piece of instruction. Visual learners benefit from the pictorial representation and it provides an useful starting point for discussions. Choosing the cartoons is the most difficult part but worth the effort.

In some cases not only a cartoon does not make the audiences laugh, but even it may makes them cry. This is because of the deep fact concealed behind the humorous appearance of the cartoon.

Regardless of the fact that there are many cartoons such as cartoon portraits, comic strips, and animations which are drawn only to create a smile on the lips of audiences and entertain them, in my opinion the most important apostolate of drawing cartoons is to send a message which is hard to publish via any other way. There exist prominent examples of applying only one color in a black and white cartoon merely in order to convey a specific concept. For instance one can refer to the below links. This is not related only to our time or nation. Even before 19th century, when comic illustrations were published for the first time in magazines, history proves that in any nation of human beings when it is felt to criticize some issues which are somehow dangerous or forbidden to discuss formally or informally, humor and irony is a powerful tool to deliver the desired message. However, it should be noted that the impact of cartoons comparing with other methods applied in satire stories and jokes is doubled, since it applies the visual sense of the audiences.

http://m.todayhumor.co.kr/view.php?table=humorbest&no=793642

http://archive.radiozamaneh.com/english/content/heterosexual-glasses

http://zipline.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/oblivious-again.jpg

Oh yes, Gary, cartoons form a wonderful pedagogical advice. I remember teaching with a cartoon the genre of the picaresque novel, which is the reverse of the heroic tradition.

On the blackboard I would draw a ladder with a set of heroic values on every rung, and beside it, looking up at the ladder with his head upside down from under his four legs, there was a cartoon dog, a stick figure, which my students later told me they never forgot. This was long before powerpoint.

Bal Keshav Thackeray began his career as a cartoonist with the Free Press Journal in 1950 Mumbai and in The Times of India during the 1960s. One of his cartoons is attached to the next post. Sumodan Pk, many thanks for giving the link to Bal

Thackery's cartoons.

Here is a cartoon by Bal Keshav Thackeray.

From another part of the world, here is a cartoon by Mana Neyestani. Many thanks to Marzieh for giving the link to this and other Meyestani cartoons.

For the previous post, here is short biography for Mana Neyestani: Born in Tehran, Iran in 1973, Mana Neyestani trained as an architect in Tehran University, but began his carrer in 1990 as a cartoonist and illustrator for many cultural, political, literary and economic magazine. With the rise of Iranian reformist newspapers in 1999, he became an editorial cartoonist. In 2006, he was sent to jail because of a cartoon. Neyestani is now living in Paris, as a member of ICORN (the International Cities of Refuge Network).

See the attached image.

Cartoonist Charles Addams presents a skiing challenge in the attached cartoon.

My opinion is Yes, cartoons are serious business now. They have underline meaning and can be used to set agendas etc.

Of course they have messages. Their message should be decoded by the way. Their meanings however can be disputable; form the point of making a direct reference to the problem to the extent of highly ironic messages, and/or manipulations. Either cartoons, or pictures, images in general ( be they in movement or not), can of course convey meanings. Their effect and sensitiveness of course, lies on the individual representation of each one of them.

James, you ask should cartoons be taken seriously. However, the humor of syndicated comic strips has changed over the years. Cartoonists have come to take themselves more seriously. Compare, for example, yesteryear´s "Pogo" (Walt Kelly) the "Katzenjammer Kids," and "Nancy" (Ernie Bushmiller) with today´s "Doonesbury" (Gary Trudeau) and "Cathy" (Cathy Guisewite). Therefore, without completely suppressing a smile, we too take them more seriously. There is melancholy in comic strips of today (when they are not unabashedly stupid like certain strips that make fun of teenagers, their acne, and their foibles).

Bujar,

Good points. Just how well a cartoon conveys meaning depends a lot of the drawing, even if a caption explains the intentions of a cartoonist. I agree with you that meanings conveyed by cartoons is debatable.

Cartoons have hidden messages and unfortunately mostly cartoonists across using this skill to defame personallities which is the biggest reason to spread hatred among communities. I think cartoons should be taken as serious means of communication to bring about a change in socities rather to misuse them.

Unquestionably he sketched those collections with a serious intent, María. What Goya thought of as cartoons (the word he used was "cartones") could actually exclude humor. Look at the Cartoons for the Royal Tapestries, especially the ones for the four seasons. Only the one for springtime has a bit of humor (a young nobleman is about to startle a young woman by showing her a live rabbit he is hiding. He holds a finger over his lips to impose silence on the others). The best of the four is "Autumn": a noble sits on the wall eating grapes, while some laborers are out in the field toiling to produce them.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Lavendimia_Goya_lou.jpg/612px-Lavendimia_Goya_lou.jpg

"Goya´s principles of art revealed to both Baudelaire and [Antonio] Machado an aesthetic of violence, of the uncanny, and of the fantastic that was self-sufficient, and yet which painted an ethical portrait of man In society. Goya raised the purely formal and the purely ethical to their highest power." Thus writes María Eugenia´s teacher Paul Ilie in "The Surrealist Mode in Spanish Literature," Ann Arbor: U. Michigan Press, 1968, p. 21. I feel, James, that all Goya´s cartoons were meant to be taken seriously.

Nelson,

Here is one of the Doonesbury cartoons by Gary Trudeau (this cartoon conveys a social

message relative to graduate students).

From the beginning, cartoons have raised doubts about social foibles and norms. The attached pdf file contains an example of a cartoon that attempts to connect Heisenberg's uncertainty and personal relations.

James, in the Doonesbury cartoon, do you see what I meant by the melancholy underlying the humor? Cartoonists take themselves more seriously than they used to. Incidentally, have your noticed the latest "Time" magazine cover (these covers have increasingly resorted to cartoons)? On the mortarboard of a graduating senior is the notice that his degree landed him a job! This is the opposite situation from the Doonesbury cartoon.

Somewhat off the subject, have you researched animated cartoons? Their long life from Mickey Mouse to the full length superhero movies teaches a great deal about cartoons in general.

Nelson,

Another good post! Yes, I did notice and I was surprised at the high level of melancholy in the posted Doonesbury cartoon.

The situation is completely humourless in the cartoon that portrays an application of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in human relationships (see the attached uncertainty.pdf in my previous post). The one thing one can say in the way of possible underlying humour in the Heisenberg uncertainty cartoon is the highly likely mis-application of the Heisenberg principle.

Many thanks for pointing out the "Just Hired" Time magazine cover. Before you mentioned it, I had not seen it.

Nelson,

For many, mathematics is considered a serious subject. And yet there are many very humorous cartoons about mathematics. In this case, the cartoonist finds humour in fairly dry and fairly serious math-oriented situations. See, for example, the attached math cartoon: psychiatrist listening to the square root of minus one.

James, I think the cartoon you attached misapplying the uncertainty principle is riotously funny. On its face Alice´s uncertainty seems serious, but the misapplication is so ludicrous as to produce laughter. If Alice and her beau were subatomic particles like quarks, their lack of bonding would be serious. But since they are full-sized people, microphysicists roar with laughter. I am not a scientist but have studied Heisenberg.

This cartoon illustrates a very important lesson about humor in general and cartoons in particular: the reader has to be informed a priori about the social or scientific principles behind the cartoon. Otherwise it will fall flat. A cartoon resembles a private joke writ large and laid bare to the public! If we did not know the historical circumstances behind political cartoons drawn in Lincoln´s time, their humor would escape us.

On the philosophy of humor (and irony), I think that the best book on the comic is sill Henri Bergson's "Le Rire," translated as "Laughter." I have relied on it in many, many publications.

James, another proof of what I said above (the need for a cartoonist´s audience to be "in the know") is the non-existent square root of minus one visiting his shrink. If you didn´t know that mathematicians deemed that number imaginary, the cartoon would go over your head. Thanks for supplying this second cartoon.

I think that we should take cartoons seriously precisely because they are easily 'cognized'. The exaggerated features of cartoons make them a very powerful source of stimulus for younger people - as well as the old.

Young children often find 'unconventional faces' a source of confusion and often become apprehensive. I believe that this is because the underdeveloped visual cortex of the child is struggling to synthesize the features into 'a face'.

Given the power of cartoons to be recognizable by children makes them a potentially powerful educational tool. Also, there is the possibility that cartoons may be used to stimulate the minds of people with various forms of dementia.

Of course, the property of cartoons to be easily recognized and understood means that they can be used as a device for manipulation.

Christopher,

Many thanks for the wonderful post! Yes, I agree with your insight that cartoons are easily 'cognized'. And, definitely, this makes cartoons a very powerful educational tool.

Cartoons have had a deep cultural history and influence.

Cartoon graffiti from Ancient Rome and other sites show how influential they were in antiquity. They played a role similar to the role the 'satirist' poems and tracts had in cultures that were more verbal rather than visually oriented.

They have always played a large role in education, mostly informal... but also a formal role as an inspiration and catalyst for classroom or group interaction.

I have a complete collection of all Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes comic cartoons. I have likely viewed and read each one hundreds of times now. They are often the last thing I read at night. They still leave me laughing and discovering hidden gems of meaning and insight some 20 years after they were penned...

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes#mutable_1124373

Can someone tell me how to post an image file to one of these posts?

I tried to link to a cartoon for my post above, but can find no help within Research Gate to do that. I notice from James Peter's post above, that there is a post file function to the ResearchGate site but I cannot locate it.

Thanks for the help.

Conrad,

when you reply to a question, you will see

"Add attachment"

at the bottom of the reply window. Click on the "down arrow" V and then you will see a pulldown menu.

Link

Publication

File

Click on the File option and use the browse option to find the file you want to append to your message. The easiest way to do this is put a cartoon image on your desktop, then it will be easy for you to find and append to your message. I hope this helps you.

Thank you James.

I see that now. I never even looked at the Answer text box, just dived into the thread...

Conrad,

The attached cartoon tells a complete story: How to relax.

Indeed... an oft reaped theme.

Watterson's artwork is so good. He packed a lot into a panel.

Harold Foster´s "Prince Valiant" was also good art. There was nothing funny there: mere escapism into an imaginary Middle Ages.

Nelson and Conrad,

Great posts!

Here is the strip I tried to post earlier. It is the feature strip at GoComics today.

This still makes me laugh... Bit small... click to see image.

Conrad, if I were still a Spanish language teacher (that is how I started out), I would post your cartoon on my office door! In Spanish we have genders, in English no.

Dear James,

I think, it's a very interesting theme "A fool in the caricature of the 20-th century" To our proverb, "To teach a fool is like to treat a corpse".This fool is not hopeless.A caricature is aimed at changing, upbringing of a human being, is directed to future.

http://www.gidspb.com/музейная-коллекция-1/явление-дурака/дурак-в-карикатуре/

Cartoons are made for entertainment purpose.

It can easily attract the attention of anyone. If it contains any message which is valuable for us then we should take it seriously.

Regards,

Nitish

Nitish,

Perhaps one of the secrets of the potency of cartoons lies in their attention-getting character. Once a cartoon gains our attention, then the underlying message of a cartoon is possibly understood.

Humor is a gentle raillery, satire is a laughter through tears. Caricatures are mainly satire in a humorous cover- to make satire softer.

Precisely, Irina!

Every artistic product send a message to the receiver and cartoons are not an exception. In my opinion we need to teach how to read cartoons and animation to help children (and everybody) to understand them better, to take them seriously in order to laugh better (or not). So my answer is yes, they should.

@Larisa Fialkova:

Your post is excellent! The article you cited has a number of good cartoons that remind us about times gone past. The attached image of the bear trying to getting into a house that is too small for it, does indeed send an important message.

Seems like you have achieved some consensus James.

Has anyone made a good argument that cartoons should not be taken seriously?

If you take a look at "The Katzenjammer Kids" from the 1930s (and well as many others from the 30s and 40s), you will see many comic strips that should not be taken seriously.

In the cartoon copied here, the two kids tell mama, "We´re playing circus. You be the clown, mama." No serious intent here, and the drawings prove it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Katzenjammer1901.jpg

Conrad,

I grew up reading Punch magazine issues as well popular print media cartoons. Most cartoons convey some form of message that tends to encourage a smile. I am amazed at the range of cartoons, from very whimsical such as the mother-daughter-poodle cartoon to the more sober cartoons such as the bear bursting into a house that is too little for it. Cartoonists are tacitly playing the role of philosophers, it seems. But unlike classical philosophy, the philosophy conveyed via cartoons comes to us in dibs and dabs.

I think there is always room for one more whimsical cartoon that encourages a smile rather than a frown. And whimsical cartoons should be whimsical (no special message) and probably should not be taken seriously. A sample whimsical cartoon (it looks that way to me) is attached to this message.

I think the word 'serious' is causing a little confusion.

I likely should have written -- Has anyone made a good argument for dismissing cartoons?

Conrad,

Your Hobbes cartoons is great!

So far, a good argument for dismissing cartoons has not been given. Do you have a plausible (good) argument for dismissing cartoons?

James, your whimsical cartoon on the amateur equestrian reminds me that equine cartoons are frequent. I remember one published in the New Yorker. I can´t find it anywhere, but I remember its content: in the foreground stands a self-satisfied mare with her nose in the air. Behind her, two other mares are gossiping, and one tells the other, "Someone told her she looks like Katherine Hepburn!"

If anyone can locate that cartoon to reproduce it here, I will upvote him!

Nelson,

I found that cartoon you mentioned. See the attached image. Perhaps now you will also take a second look at the horse cartoon (from Punch) in my previous post?

Over the past two centuries, cartoons have been funny and telling in a drawing what a whole paper wasn't or isn't able to tell. A single cartoon has had the power to tell what is going on without the reading of an article. It hits the essence of a story or an event in a sense that almost everybody can understand without many words. A cartoon is like a bombshell, it explodes while telling its tale.

Jim, I took a second and even third look at the "Punch" cartoon. The whimsy in these horsey cartoons largely stems from the fact that they gratuitously transport us out to the country. The same applies to the many whimsical cartoons focusing on hunting (for instance, the fox that ends up hiding in the bewildered huntress´s blouse).

Jan,

You have hit the proverbial nail on the head!

Nelson,

Okay, we definitely agree about what horsey cartoons tend to do.

However, there is a common element in your New Yorker cartoon and the Punch cartoon showing a riderless horse. That element stems from the obervations by a horse. In the New Yorker cartoon, one horse is making an observation about the horse influenced by Hepburn (always holding her head up). And then there is observation by the riderless horse looking back at its errant rider. There is no indication what riderless horse is thinking, but the cartoon itself is suggestive about what the horse is probably thinking.

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Jim, your horse is subtly smiling, showing his rear to his supposed master, and kicking a hoof at him.

My three mares are facially expressive as well: Katherine Hepburn flaunting her beauty, and one mare telling her uncomplimentary secret to the other

Christopher,

Is this a case where 6 pictures say more than 6000 words?

I think it depends on the the cartoonist and on the context. Many cartoons can give us an idea of gender relations in the society, attitudes to children's upbringing, inter-ethnic relations and other social problems. Today, when people are tired of politics a lot of ideological influence on audiences is achieved by mobilizing humor on TV and on the net. To give you just two examples: in 2006 when Israel was at war with Lebanon there was a real battle of cartoons posted by users in Israel and in the Muslim world. Another example is the current crisis in Ukraine: it has generated some poignant satire, including cartoons, deriding the deposed Ukrainian president, Russian forces in the Crimea and Ukrainian nationalists.

I think it depends on the the cartoonist and on the context. Many cartoons can give us an idea of gender relations in the society, attitudes to children's upbringing, inter-ethnic relations and other social problems. Today, when people are tired of politics a lot of ideological influence on audiences is achieved by mobilizing humor on TV and on the net. To give you just two examples: in 2006 when Israel was at war with Lebanon there was a real battle of cartoons posted by users in Israel and in the Muslim world. Another example is the current crisis in Ukraine: it has generated some poignant satire, including cartoons, deriding the deposed Ukrainian president, Russian forces in the Crimea and Ukrainian nationalists.

Dear Maria Yelenevskaya,

If possible, please post one or two cartoons that mentioned. To do this, click on the Add attachment tab at the bottom of a message, choose file (for an image file), and a cartoon image will be uploaded. Perhaps you can post a URL where such cartoons can be found. It would be helpful, if the cartoons you mentions have been archived.

My lovely Ukraine is a tragedy of folks. It has no in common with humor or satire. It's a human pain.As for your thread, dear James, I like H.de Balzac's thought, "Ill-natured temper is improved by humor"

Ukraine is sharp pain for a lot of people, including those who draw cartoons. Humor is a well known remedy against pain and stress.

James, you can find some of the cartoons on the Arab-Israeli conflict in chapter 5 of the book "In Search of the Self... " on my page in ResearchGate.

Dear Maria,

Many thanks for your marvellous post! Your book is a very moving account and it was a revelation for me.

The cartoons in chapter 5 say in drawing form what has happened. I completely agree with Irina Pechonkina's quote from Balzac: "Ill-natured temper is improved by humour".

Cheers and best wishes.

Here is a collection of very simple cartoons (each one tells a story) by Bernard Cohn. And that is one of the secrets of success of cartoons: telling a complete story with a bit humour or whimsey with a simple picture instead of a 1000 words (the captions are in French but you do not need to know French to understand what is hinted by each drawing).

To see the drawings, double click on the attached image.

Thank you for your kind words about the book, James! I also want to thank you for initiating this discussion thread. I think cartoons present important material not only for humor researchers but also for anthropologists, media researchers and linguists.

I can't think of any argument that makes sense to me that would dismiss the value of cartoons, James.

But I do think that some cultures are less oriented to representational visual cues than others, preferring an oral and written orientation. There are likely good reasons for this and a little consideration of the geographical and societal origins of various cultures may provide some insight.

I'm searching my deep memory for a Calvin & Hobbes panel that illustrates this point. I'll post one when my subconscious delivers...

Dear friends, I wish to add to the hilarious collection, one funny scene of my country :)

Lat is one local cartoonist. I like his exaggerated humor.