The Daily Sketch
Cartoon lampooning promised Tory council
tax cuts, 2005
February 21 2005
(©Martin Rowson)
For the last 150 years, newspaper cartoonists
have responded to current events as quickly as the papers’ reporters.
Illustrated satirical journals became popular throughout Europe
in the 19th century. Sometimes they were subject to state censorship.
This irreverent spirit continues in British magazines like Private
Eye and Channel 4’s Bremner Bird and Fortune. As
ever, the activities of our rulers and the government’s latest
political ‘initiatives’ are immediately digested and quickly regurgitated,
with acid humour and serious comment.
Martin Rowson, whose political cartoons appear in various papers,
sees himself as a ‘visual journalist rather than any kind of artist’.
Rowson and his colleague on The Guardian, Steve Bell,
are two of today’s most perceptive ‘visual journalists’. They
continue a rich history of cartooning from various sides of the
political spectrum.
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