Political cartoons or by their other name editorial cartoons
is the form of illustration that works in the media of newspapers, it is a
commonly known to have a meaning of serious and important issues yet will have
a comedic element to them. In this essay I will write about this form of
illustration and focus on the artist Chris Riddell within it who is the
political cartoonist for the Observer and is a well-known children’s book
illustrator. This essay will be split up into four separate segments that will
include: How and why Chris Riddell is successful in the political cartoon
industry, what types of influences Riddell creates from his work and how his
influences has helped in his work, The major sources of Riddell’s income as
well as his target audience and his clients and any controversial issues his
work will present. The last one should have a lot of information on them
considering political cartoons are involved in a lot of controversial ideas.
During these five points I will also discuss the techniques Riddell uses in his
work and I will talk about it in context. Finally I will then end this essay
with a conclusion stating how being a political artist has effected Riddell.
Chris Riddell started off his career to success early on when he was a student by making a commission to illustrate The Book of Giants for the company Sainsbury’s, he managed to get this commission through the help of his tutor Raymond Briggs who introduced Riddell to his own publisher.[1] After his finished his course at Brighton Polytechnic he was able to start his career as a political cartoonist thank to the editor of The Economist who recognised his work and asked him to create a cartoon on a weekly basis for that newspaper. According to The Cilip Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards’ Press Desk “It is a testament to his success at the genre that he remained on the staff for eight years.”[2] During those eight years Riddell had also worked for other newspaper companies such as being a business cartoonist for the Observer and a political cartoonist for the Independent. In 1995 Riddell became a political cartoonist for the Observer where he created the Antrobus strip which maybe is where he became his most successful considering one of these strips for the Observer won him the Macmillan award for Best Labour Election Cartoon in 1997. [3] This particular illustration that he won with is named Trust me which is meant to show Tony Blair overshadowing John Major by having Major stand on a soapbox while Blair is on an ornate pulpit.[4] With the art process I think that Riddell is probably happy with how his Blair image came out considering he has said on occasions how hard it is to draw Blair by describing it as “Fiendishly difficult”.[5] Other ways why he is successful is because of his political work at the observer but also in the field of children’s illustration where he has worked alongside with the Writer Paul Stewart to create the popular book series The Edge Chronicles which, by 2005 had sold over 2 million copies.[6] Other ways he has become as well known is because he has won 2 other awards other than the Macmillan award which are both the Kate Greenaway prize two children’s books that he helped with, one was Pirate Diary and the other was Gulliver.[7]
There has been a few people that has influenced Chris
Riddell in his lifetime, one of these people was Josh Tenniel, the illustrator
behind Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Chris Riddell said in an interview with the Guardian “As a child, I used to love copying
the Alice illustrations. A particular favourite, and one I never tired of, was
the drawing of the White Rabbit checking his pocket watch, an umbrella stuffed
under one arm and a manic look in his eye.”[8]
You can see how Riddell uses his practise as a child in his actual work,
especially with his black and white pieces where you can see how he used tones
in his work and how he drew the fur of animals such as his work G8 Polar Bear where you maybe be able
to see if you compare the two that Riddell’s use of fur is very similar to that
of Tenniel’s where the lines that’s representing the hairs in the spots where
the fur we be darker as it will be the character’s shadow while the other part
that is in the light won’t show any of the hairs. 
There was one more major artist that
influenced Riddell art and his name was William Heath Robinson who was the
illustrator of the book The Incredible
Adventures of Professor Branestawm where
he created 76 detailed images for it[10]and
was said by Chris Riddell to be one of his most loved illustrations by the
artist.[11]
Robinson was known for his work being ‘ingeniously or
ridiculously over-complicated’[12]
which can see in one of his many illustrations for the book in fig. 7 where the
line work is so fine done so well you can see every detail on the picture and
you might be able to tell that Riddell has used this to help him in his own
work such as his images in the edge chronicles series such as the map of
the edge (fig. 6) considering both of the drawing use fine line work in the
drawings to create really detailed pieces of work. A difference between these
art styles though is within the tonal range where Robinson’s style uses a lot
more darker tones than Riddell works who uses lighter tones.
The main source of Riddell’s income will be probably for his
political illustrations for The Observer which he has been working at since
1995 and his work for multiple children’s book writers, most notably Paul
Stewart who Riddell collaborated with to create the Edge Chronicles. Other
major sources of his income could be the children’s books he has created
himself such as the Ottoline book
series and the illustration work he did for the book Pirate Diary: The Journal of John Carpenter which was written by
Richard Platt. This might work as his major source of income because both of
the books Ottoline and Pirate Diary have, as I mentioned
earlier, won awards for his art in them so this could probably mean that they
could become more popular so will sell much better.
Chris Riddell’s work for two main groups as his target
audience, the first group is the people who read the Observer who are normally
middle class people who are over 18. The second group of his target audience
are the parents and the kids who are aged 8 – 12 years old that read the Edge
chronicles which is quite surprising considering how dark and cynical the books
are.[13]
His illustration helps target this audience for children’s book because when
the parent sees the book they might recognise his work, especially if they are
someone who reads the observer and would think their children will like it.
Riddell’s biggest clients are the editors of the observer
who uses his work for their newspapers on a weekly basis which, as I said
earlier, he has done for nearly ten years. I think that he has other major
clients as well such as any children’s book writers that will want to use his
art style, which is meant to be known as savage but with a bit of
sophistication,[14]
in their books they would want to create. Considering he has won multiple
awards for his children’s book illustrations including the NESTLE gold award
for his work in the OTTOLINE series and had won two Kate Greenaway medals.[15]His
work has also been commended at the National Art Illustration Award and has
been shortlisted twice for the Kurt Maschier award[16]
so this shows that his art has been shown in many different areas so multiple
writers will have a chance to see his work to know if they want him for their
book.
Political cartoons have a way where they can “enrage and connect with an
audience in a way unique to their medium.”[17]
And because of this there is a large amount of controversy within it, some
so bad that they have “sparked protests, death threats and even assassinations of
famous cartoonists”.[18]
The controversy was also bad enough that, because of the workplace insulting
the prime minister, the observer had to change their newspaper layout which
caused them to remove a large amount of the cartoons in the paper which then
caused more controversy for the Observer. Luckily Chris Riddell was not one of
the artists who no longer drew cartoons for the paper because of this,[19]
yet with his cartoons there have been a couple of illustrations he has created
that can cause controversy.
One of these
illustrations is one of the drawings he did for the book The Sleeper and the Spindle where is shows an image of a woman
being woken up from her sleep by the kiss of a queen, this may cause
controversy with the conservative community because it shows people of the same
sex kissing and some of the conservative commentators can get agitated by this,
especially since authors like JK Rowling has had this problem when she
announced one of her major characters was a homosexual.[20]
However this can also be seen as positive considering it has been praised by
people such as the CEO of Diversity Role Models who said that this illustration
is useful because it is letting children understand more about what different
types of relationships there are and will help them understand “young people
with same-sex
parents and can therefore reduce bullying.”[21] Another
piece of controversial work that Chris Riddell has done and is making the illustrations
for the book of the controversial comedian Russell Brand named Trickster Tales, this could cause some
controversial issues for the artist considering who he is doing the work for,
and in the book series it is meant to be Brand’s retelling of fairy tales and
from the review of the first book The
Pied Piper of Hamelin, which calls the wording of the story “wearingly offensive”[22] it makes it sounds worse for the
controversial side for Riddell however the reviewer did praise Riddell for the
artwork calling him “one of the finest draughtsmen working today”[23] making it sound less controversial by making the characters in the story look more human than the text implies.
With
his political work, for example his drawing of Tony Blair and George Bush
(fig.) it shows that it could cause controversy because it is insulting both
the prime minister and president at the time, however because of how he drew
it, it made it harder for him to get in trouble for it. His art style did this
by instead of making the illustration display an image of anger and savagery,
it would be shown as gentler and kinder towards it which Riddell believed would
make it more upsetting, this shows that instead of him drawing a feeling of
anger towards the image he would draw it with more of a feeling of pity towards
it. This protects him because if he had drawn it with more savagery they could
defend themselves with anger but since it is drawn more kindly they can’t
really defend themselves against an illustration that shows pity toward them.[24]
If you compare the art of Riddell’s that could be controversial with one of the
most controversial pieces Gerald Scarfe has done, in this case, his cartoon of
Benjamin Netanhayu, the Israeli prime minister which was so bad that Rupert
Murdoch and the acting editor of the Sunday times, Martin Ivens had to
apologise for the cartoon.[25]
In Scarfe’s it depicts an image of the prime minister building a wall out of
the disembodied limbs of Palestinians, the image is quite graphic with the use
of the cement being the blood and the anguished faces of the people in the
wall, this particular illustration has been called a “typically
robust cartoon by Gerald Scarfe”[26], which is different from how
Riddell’s art works which as I said before is more gentle
and softer.
To conclude this essay I have given a good insight into the
world of political illustration and Chris Riddell’s part in it, showing that he
has been a major part of The Observer’s political cartoons especially since
they had to remove all of the other cartoonists due to controversial reasons
except for him. With all the information I have shown in this essay I believe
being a political cartoonist has been a major beneficial job for Riddell for
many reasons including working at a major newspaper company for over 10 years
which he won an award for one of his political cartoons. Another reason it has
been an essential job to him is because it allowed him to be introduced to
multiple children’s book writers and has won many awards from working with
these writers and creating his own children’s books. Other reasons are that
thanks to the style of art he uses in his work he doesn’t get affected nearly
as much as other political cartoonists when it comes to the controversial
aspect of this field. This essay has also shown that the actual world of
political illustration is a stressful job with all the work they have to do
considering they have to create a drawings on a weekly basis while making sure
the actual work is entertaining for the audience and that the cartoonists will
have to deal with all the problems of dealing with political figures that get
angry at some of the cartoons these illustrators create.
Bibliography
1.3. 5. 11. 24. Riddell, C. Biography, British
Cartoon Archive, Available at:
2. 6. 16. Riddell, C. (2005) Press Desk, The Cilip
Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards’, Available at:
4. Fig. 1. Riddell, C. (2011) Election
Cartoons, The Guardian, available at: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/pictures/image/0,9353,-10804183519,00.html?redirection=lowercase
7. Florensiesis. Beyond The Deepwoods, Fantasy
Book Review, Available at: http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/Paul-Stewart-and-Chris-Riddell/Beyond-the-Deepwoods.html
8. 9. Riddell, C. (2005) Through the Looking
Glass, The Guardian, Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/jul/09/art.booksforchildrenandteenagersm
10. Now Read This. (2012) The Incredible Adventures
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12. Robinson, W. William Heath Robinson (1872 –
1944), Chris Beetles Gallery, Available at: http://www.chrisbeetles.com/artists/robinson-william-heath-1872-1944.html
13. Riddell, C. Literature: The Edge Chronicles,
TV Tropes, Available at: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheEdgeChronicles
14. Fig. 3. Fig. 5. Holbern, M. (2014) Chris
Riddell, Observer political cartoonist: teaching resource from the GNM Archive
March 2014, The Guardian, Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/gnmeducationcentre/chris-riddell-political-cartoonist-teaching-resource-gnm-archive
15. Riddell, C. About Chris Riddell, Panmacmillan,
Available at: http://www.panmacmillan.com/author/chrisriddell
17. 18. (2013) Political Cartoons Make an Art out
of Controversy, PBS Newshour, Available at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/daily_videos/political-cartoons-make-an-art-out-of-controversy/
19. Blog Team. (2010) Shortsighted Observer Found
Wanting, Procartoonists, Available at: http://procartoonists.org/shortsighted-observer-found-wanting/
20. 21. Fig.
8. Hudson, D. (2014) New Neil Gaiman book for children features a princess being woken by a kiss from a queen, Gaystarnews,
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22. 23. Tucker, N. (2014) Trickster Tales. The pied
Piper of Hamelin, by Russell Brand, illustrated by Chris Riddell; book review,
The Independent, available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/trickster-tales-the-pied-piper-of-hamelin-by-russell-brand-illustrated-by-chris-riddell-book-review-9828246.html
25. Scarfe, G. (2013) Stephen Pollard: Sunday Time
cartoon was “disgusting”, BBC News, Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21241785
26. Fig. 11. Scarfe, G. (2013) ADL Slams Sunday
Time “Blood Libel” Cartoon Published on Holocaust Memorial Day, Calls for
Immediate Apology, The Algemeiner, Available at: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/27/sunday-times-doubles-down-on-blood-libel-cartoon-calls-it-typically-robust/
Fig. 2.
Tenniel, J. (2013) Looking in Wonderland: Sir John Tenniel’s Illustrations to
the Alice Books, The Herbert, Available at: http://www.theherbert.org/whats-on/events-exhibitions/looking-wonderland-sir-john-tenniels-illustrations-alice-books
Fig. 3.
Anonymous. Machine Gun Wielding Nazi Goose, FunnyJunk, Available at: http://www.funnyjunk.com/Machine+gun+wielding+nazi+goose/funny-pictures/4914011/
Fig. 6.
(2014) Edge Chronicles RPG, Traditional Games, Available at: https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/36343881/
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Camelotrose. (2014) The Ingenious Pick-pockets
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Fig. 9. Brand
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Fig. 10.
Riddell, C. Tony Blair and George Bush, Blogspot, Available at: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1bKeHtnp17k/UXRRA_BB-lI/AAAAAAAAAAM/yGfR4vD2yJo/s640/image+2.jpg
[1] http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/artists/chrisriddell/biography
[2] http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/pressdesk/press.php?release=pres_green_bg_0405.html
[3] http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/artists/chrisriddell/biography
[4] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/pictures/image/0,9353,-10804183519,00.html?redirection=lowercase
[5] http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/artists/chrisriddell/biography
[6] http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/pressdesk/press.php?release=pres_green_bg_0405.html
[7]
Florensiesis
[8] http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/jul/09/art.booksforchildrenandteenagers
[9] http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/jul/09/art.booksforchildrenandteenagers
[10] http://www.comicsreview.co.uk/nowreadthis/2012/10/26/the-incredible-adventures-of-professor-branestawm/
[11] http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/artists/chrisriddell/biography
[12] http://www.chrisbeetles.com/artists/robinson-william-heath-1872-1944.html
[13] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheEdgeChronicles
[14] Holbern,
Margeret
[15]
PanMacmillan
[16] http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/pressdesk/press.php?release=pres_green_bg_0405.html
[17] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/daily_videos/political-cartoons-make-an-art-out-of-controversy/
[18] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/daily_videos/political-cartoons-make-an-art-out-of-controversy/
[19] http://procartoonists.org/shortsighted-observer-found-wanting/
[20] Hudson,
David
[21]
Hudson, David
[22]
Tucker, Nicholas
[23]
Tucker, Nicholas
[24] http://www.cartoons.ac.uk/artists/chrisriddell/biography
[25] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21241785
[26] http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/27/sunday-times-doubles-down-on-blood-libel-cartoon-calls-it-typically-robust/
-'Professor_Branestawm'.jpg){kind=link}
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