Words and Pictures

Comics have found markets and fans all over the world across generations and reading levels. This success is largely because comics are accessible to most readers, easy to understand, quick to consume, and entertaining. Many cartoons are enjoyed simply for their humour, however, comics also serve important social functions. Comics provide readers with an instant form of commentary on current affairs, popular trends, and famous individuals, and as historical sources they tell us about past societies. Political or editorial cartoons provide a wealth of information about historical events and opinions, and even satirical and situational cartoons can offer insights into folklore, cultural values, and language trends.

Explore this display to see examples of caricature, political cartoons, manga, and comics spanning the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries from the Mount Royal University Archives and Special Collections. We hope it brings a smile to your day!

Laughing at Misfortune: English Caricature and Satire

Satire is a form of literature that criticizes people, ideas, institutions, or societies in a humorous or scornful way, often to make a political point. Caricature is a form of satire relying on visual metaphors that grotesquely exaggerates the physical features or ideals of a subject. Political cartoons in particular make use of exaggerated visuals combined with allusions to current events and popular opinions, to create caricatures that satirize, lambaste, or criticize. Modern cartoons, whether they are a single frame, a newspaper strip, or an entire book, can trace their earliest roots back to the art form of caricature.

The 18th century is considered to be the golden age of satire in Britain, but the tradition of visual satire can be traced further back to the political and social shifts of the Enlightenment. The social upheavals of the 18th century, such as revolutions in France and America and the worsening political rivalries between the Whig and Tory parties, contributed to the rise and popularity of caricature and visual satire in England.

Caricature was an important method of spreading news, particularly among the lower classes. Caricatures were relatively cheap to produce and purchase, and their visual nature and symbolism made their political content understandable to people from a wide variety of educational backgrounds. Caricatures were widely accessible to many members of British society regardless of differences in education and income, and helped to keep them informed as well as entertained. Caricature was also used as a tool by individual artists or political groups to sway or persuade the populace on political matters.

French Happiness versus English Misery - 1793 - 0317-01

This satirical print by Scottish painter and caricaturist Isaac Cruikshank is a humorous commentary on the French Revolution. The print compares four emaciated Frenchmen on the left, with four gluttonous Englishmen on the right. The French are fighting over a single frog while surrounded by starving animals and images of death, destruction, cruelty, and poverty. The English, on the other hand, are feasting and surrounded by images of wealth and prosperity. The print is a critique on the failings of the French Revolution and encourages viewers to uphold traditional British social structures.

The Near in Blood, the Nearer Bloody - 1793 - 0317-02

This print, also created by Cruikshank, depicts the Duke of Orleans, Philippe Egalite, holding an axe above the head of King Louis XVI of France. To the right, Marie Antoinette and Louis' son, the Dauphin, kneel pleading for the king's life. The print is a commentary on Egalite's perceived betrayal of kinship and class loyalty by voting in the National Convention to depose Louis.

Three of the most prolific caricature artists of the 18th century were Issac Cruikshank, Thomas Rowlandson, and James Gillray. Cruikshank (1764-1811) was a Scottish-born caricaturist and printmaker, primarily known for his politically-themed work that criticized the French Revolution, Napoleon, and esteemed London institutions. Cruikshank’s prints often reflected the opinions and values of his patrons, since his prints frequently communicate conflicting views on the same issues. Cruikshank's work as a caricaturist was a family affair; he designed and etched images onto copper plates and his wife, Mary McNaughton, did the hand colouring and lettering. Cruikshank’s two son, Isaac (Robert) and George, also became well-known political caricaturists. He and his sons are credited as being prototypical examples of comic books due to their frequent use of speech balloons, sequential narratives, and slapstick comedy.

Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) was a caricaturist, printmaker, artist, and illustrator primarily known for his political and social satire. Rowlandson was mostly employed by a single publisher, Rudolph Ackerman, and focused on humorous social observations, class comparisons, and the satire of individuals. Rowlandson’s work was considered to be particularly grotesque and bawdy compared to Cruikshank and Gillray.

James Gillray (1756-1815) was a prolific and popular social and political satirist, and is considered to have been the main rival of Issac Cruikshank. Gillray’s work was sold exclusively by printmaker and publisher Hanna Humphry, whose shop he resided above. Gillray’s work is known for its dramatic and lively scenes, as well as its derogatory and violent criticisms. Gillray was particularly critical of King George III, and created a series of broadsides which depicted George as the rude and uneducated ‘Farmer George’.

The Flower of the City - 1809 - 0317-03

This print satirizes a specific individual, Charles Flower, the Lord Mayor of London. The print was created by Thomas Rowlandson and published by Thomas Tegg. It depicts Flower as a wilting sunflower, rising from a tub of rancid butter and wheels of moldy and rotten cheese, referring to his background as a dairy merchant. The leaves and stem of the sunflower are inscribed with the mayor's purported qualities such as 'pernicious', 'lecherous', 'odious', and 'narrow minded,' and are accompanied by a belittling poem.

The Funeral of the Constitution - ca. 1829 - 0317-04

This satirical cartoon published by Thomas McLean, was possibly created by caricaturist Isaac Robert Cruikshank, son of Isaac Cruikshank. The print condemns the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 by depicting its supporters, the conservative statesmen Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, and Robert Peel, preparing a grave for the English constitution in a Hamlet-inspired foreground scene. The back-right depicts the constitution's funeral progression, and the back-left depicts the Pope, monks, and Irishmen celebrating Catholic emancipation, while prominent Anglican cathedrals are renamed or burned.

Early Evolutions: 19th century Manga

Cover (above) and pages (below) from volumes 17-20 of the manga series Kinka Shichihenge - 0083-08, 1865-1866.

The Edo/Meiji Period: The Edo Period (1603-1867) came to a close with the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate (military dictatorship) and marked the end of traditional Japanese government and society. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 saw the restoration of imperial rule and led to enormous change in Japan as the country industrialized and adopted Western economic and military models. The Meiji Restoration is often considered the end of feudalism in Japan and the start of the modern era.

Manga, often translated into English as 'whimsical pictures', is a Japanese form of comic or graphically illustrated literature. The roots of manga reach back to several early forms of Japanese woodblock printing that primarily relied on images with very little text. These include:

Akahon - picture books depicting fairy and folk tales that were popular with adults during the Genroku (1688-1704) and Kyoho (1716-1736) periods.
Tobae - a form of comical caricature of everyday life popular in Kyoto during the Hoei period (1704-1711).
Ukiyoe - a form of folk art, popular throughout the 17th to 19th centuries, that commonly depicted beautiful women, actors, sumo wrestlers, landscapes, and animals.
Ponchi, otsue, and kyoga - All terms that can be loosely translated to 'crazy pictures', and consist of series of witty or humorous pictures.
Shunga were a sub form of ukiyoe from the Tokugawa period (1603-1867) that were specifically dedicated to sexual and erotic imagery. Shunga were used as a form of sex education, particularly among young brides.

The term manga was first used by the ukiyoe artist Katsushika Hokusa in the title of his famous 15-volume work Hokusai Manga, which was published between 1814 and 1878. Early manga generally consisted of short, unconnected cartoons that didn't form a sequential story. However, the term has grown to incorporate all forms of Japanese comic art including caricature, political cartoons, syndicated panels, and strip and story-type comics. The related, and often confused term, anime, refers to animated cartoons on film or television.

Kinka Shichihenge, or Seven Transformations of the Golden Flower (0083-08), is a manga series that was published in Edo (soon to be renamed Tokyo in 1868) between 1865-1866, right at the close of the Edo Period. The series was published by Kinshodo and contains many woodblock illustrations by the famous illustrator Utagawa Kunisada.

The plot is centred on a type of supernatural monster, or yokai, from Japanese folklore called nekomata. Nekomata, translated as 'fork-tailed cat', is a type of evil spirit that can transform into people, animals, and other objects, and are known for being hostile to humans. According to legend, nekomata develop from regular house cats. As cats start to reach an advanced age, often around ten years old, their tail starts to split and they gain magical powers as they transform.

The above images comes from volumes 17-20 of the Kinka series, which in the MRU Archives' copy, have been bound together in a single volume. The larger image depicts two nekomata, walking upright and threatening humans with a sword.

Manga is representative of the high context communication style that is typical of Japanese culture, in which only some of the information being transferred is expressed directly, either verbally or through text, and further meaning is gleaned from the social context or from visual and auditory clues. Early manga typically had very little text and therefore relied on a large number of visual cues to convey meaning. Even as more text started to be incorporated, cues such as exaggerated facial expressions, gestures, eye glances, and verbal expressions continued to be used to provide readers with additional understanding that was not supplied by the text. Additionally, Japanese language also has a high degree of word play, puns, double entendre, homonyms, and onomatopoeia that has been incorporated into manga and contributes to its unique style. For example onomatopoeia, a word that phonetically imitates the sound it describes, are represented by a special form of characters in Japanese, called katakana, that are integrated into the artwork of a page. This creates a sense of building atmosphere or tension, and can represent the psychological or emotional state of the characters. This conveys a preciseness of emotion or action that is not found in western graphic literature.

These six colourful covers come from a collection of 19th century gesaku, also called gokan, created by Ryukatei Tanekazu and Ryukatei Senka. Gesaku is a style of manga literature that is playful, humorous, and mocking. Gesaku were designed to be a cheap and popular form of entertainment, and usually focused on accessible and inoffensive topics that would appeal to a large audience such as fables, legends, epics, and romances.

While typically light and humorous in content, gesaku, and manga in general, still tackled serious social topics and current events. Manga shaped political thought and opinion by satirizing and criticizing political leaders, government policies, and even the emperor and the imperial household. Manga's influence was particularly important during periods when slander and press laws censored speech and journalism, such as in the 1870s. Manga was initially exempt from these laws, occupying a grey area, where ideas and opinions that could not be voiced or written about could be expressed visually.

Manga journalism started to appear in the Meiji Period (1868-1912) as part of the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement, which was an anti-government social and political reform movement of the 1880s. Newspapers and magazines started to include satirical manga segments, and entire manga newspapers, such as Eshimbun Nihonchi ("Picture Newspaper Japan"), started to appear. These works were incredibly influential in helping to develop freedom of speech rights in Japan.

Flip through some beautifully illustrated gesaku/gokan pages depicting samurai, a gigantic bird, a gruesome beheading, and another nekomata devouring a hapless victim.

20th Century Cartoons

References

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Published April 2023 by Sade Dunn, Public Services - Archives and Special Collections Assistant.

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