page_title: Political cartoon
section_title: Cartoonist's magazines
hierarchical_section_title: Political cartoon / History / Cartoonist's magazines
caption_attribution_description: English: Editorial cartoon in 1942 in the New York newspaper PM by children's author Dr. Seuss (Theodore Seuss Geisel) with the caption 'Waiting for the Signal From Home', portraying Japanese Americans in California, Oregon, and Washington as a fifth column loyal to Imperial Japan, receiving explosives, prepared to conduct sabotage against the United States when directed by their mother country. Public fears like this, excited by the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan on the then-neutral U.S., led to the internment of 120,000 ethnic Japanese U.S. citizens during World War 2. Geisel, who published many patriotic cartoons during the War, supported internment, saying: "But right now, when the Japs are planting their hatchets in our skulls, it seems like a hell of a time for us to smile and warble: "Brothers!" It is a rather flabby battle cry. If we want to win, we've got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not. We can get palsy-walsy afterward with those that are left."
context_page_description: A political cartoon, a type of editorial cartoon, is a graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine artistic skill, hyperbole and satire in order to question authority and draw attention to corruption, political violence and other social ills.
  Developed in England in the latter part of the 18th century, the political cartoon was pioneered by James Gillray, although his and others in the flourishing English industry were sold as individual prints in print shops. Founded in 1841, the British periodical Punch appropriated the term cartoon to refer to its political cartoons, which led to the term's widespread use.
context_section_description: The art of the editorial cartoon was further developed with the publication of the British periodical Punch in 1841, founded by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells (an earlier magazine that published cartoons was Monthly Sheet of Caricatures, printed from 1830 and an important influence on Punch). It was bought by Bradbury and Evans in 1842, who capitalised on newly evolving mass printing technologies to turn the magazine into a preeminent national institution. The term "cartoon" to refer to comic drawings was coined by the magazine in 1843; the Houses of Parliament were to be decorated with murals, and "carttons" for the mural were displayed for the public; the term "cartoon" then meant a finished preliminary sketch on a large piece of cardboard, or cartone in Italian.  Punch humorously appropriated the term to refer to its political cartoons, and the popularity of the Punch cartoons led to the term's widespread use.
  Artists who published in Punch during the 1840s and 50s included John Leech, Richard Doyle, John Tenniel and Charles Keene. This group became known as "The Punch Brotherhood", which also included Charles Dickens who joined Bradbury and Evans after leaving Chapman and Hall in 1843. Punch authors and artists also contributed to another Bradbury and Evans literary magazine called Once A Week (est.1859), created in response to Dickens' departure from Household Words.
  The most prolific and influential cartoonist of the 1850s and 60s was John Tenniel, chief cartoon artist for Punch, who perfected the art of physical caricature and representation to a point that has changed little up to the present day. For over five decades he was a steadfast social witness to the sweeping national changes that occurred during this period alongside his fellow cartoonist John Leech. The magazine loyally captured the general public mood; in 1857, following the Indian Rebellion and the public outrage that followed, Punch published vengeful illustrations such as Tenniel's Justice and The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger.
caption: 1942 political cartoon by Dr. Seuss
exif: {}