As Prospect’s cartoon editor, I have the task of sifting through the many cartoons that we receive each month, before the editor makes a final choice of the ten or so we publish in the magazine. (And we always welcome cartoon submissions: email cartoons at prospect-magazine.co.uk). It is, as you’d expect, a fun job, involving a lot of laughing, something which cannot be said about the chore of sorting through the articles that we are sent. I often find that the cartoons en masse capture the Zeitgeist, highlighting the subjects that people are thinking about the most. At the moment, it seems to be carbon emissions, obesity and Facebook.
At the same time, there are the perennial topics for cartoons, or cliches if you prefer. But, while cliches and good writing do not mix, a hackneyed setting is no bar to a funny cartoon. In fact, the cliche often adds to the humour, with the joke lying in the updating of the familiar setting to recent events. Mostly for my own amusement, I’ve compiled a list of the top cartoon cliches, illustrated by some of the best cliched cartoons Prospect has published over the years. (Thanks to all the cartoonists involved for letting me use their work.)
The runners-up are: 20. Confessionals. 19. Medieval sieges. 18. “Back in 5 minutes” signs. 17. Adam and Eve. 16. Cavemen. 15. Fairy tales (especially the three bears, the three little pigs and Rapunzel). 14. Business meetings. 13. Ordering in a restaurant. 12. Witch hunts. 11. Hell.
And so, without further ado, here are Prospect’s top 10 cartoon cliches.
10. The Grim Reaper
by Benita Epstein
"Is there a Mrs Grim Reaper?"
9. Job interviews
by Marc Tyler Nobleman
"It's funny — I'm asked about my greatest weakness in so many interviews and yet I still haven't decided if it's my pathological lying and stealing or my uncontrollable bouts of blind rage"
8. Doctors’ appointments
by Andy McKay
"Your reflexes seem fine Mr Hart"
7. Heaven
by JA Holland
"But I was under the impression that we couldn't bring it with us"
6. Goldfish bowls
by Robert Thompson
"You'd better answer it. They know we're in"
5. In/Out trays
by John Caldwell
4. Gurus
by Jorodo
"A sitcom has to be quirky or formulaic. There is no middle way"
3. Smoke signals
by Paul Lowe
"We can't send at the moment, the system's crashed"
2. Psychiatrists’ couches
by Bill Proud
"But do you think you're naked?"
1. Desert islands
by Rupert Redway
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Brilliant, Susha!
Amazed to see that desert islands are still number one! I thought they died out years ago, along with the crawling through the desert scenario! Good to know there’s still life in the old cliche.
Nice to see goldfish bowls in there, though I can’t help wondering whether they were all by Rob Thompson?
Off to get my pen and add to the list now….
What a great article! I’m surprised that “Relate/Marriage Guidance” isn’t in there.
Susha, it’s a disease. I can’t help myself when it comes to the Grim Reaper. In the U.S. the list would include a general describing his decorations (”…and this is for…”)
Oh dear Susha, you must know what you’re going to get shortly. After Bob Mankoff announced no cartoons with pork-pie hat wearing characters would ever get into the NYKR he was swamped with…cartoon characters wearing pork pie hats. We’re just heading back to our secret cartoonist meeting place to plan our batches of desert island gags.
in my capacity as cartoon hauler into the panel at the readers digest i find we are infested with pirates. so it’s probably us maybe every magazine has its twitch response. the main cliche is cartoons about cartooning which has a safety valve element to it. nice idea susha. probably wont change too much next year as well
Dear Susha,
The late Malcolm Muggeridge described cartoonists as being conservative anarchists ’nuff said.
Also here in the US, gags concerning the obscene cost of medical care have become a cliche.
Don’t forget;
Aliens landing in a flying saucer.
Fish climbing out of primordial ooze and evolving, or not.
Barbarians making philosophical comments.
Man crawling in desert with vultures
Talking dogs and cats commenting on their existential situations.
Restaurant diners.
All of them refer to a basic life quandary of some sort. In that way they are no more clichés than are the equivalent descriptive words; more hieroglyphic signs. It’s what the artist says with the vocabulary that distinguishes them or not…in my opinion.
One of my favourites, the savages dancing around a missionary in a cooking pot, is so uncool these days that the New Yorker ran an article disavowing what had been a staple of their cartoons.
If you looked at them, they satirized the certainties of cultural superiority. The butt was most often the missionary or the explorers. This was true before the civil rights movement in the States.
Once the insouciant irreverence of the cartoonists had been replaced by the serious cogitating of ideologues, the subject matter was banished, & the messenger discredited.
Other past favourites, also now outcast;
Caveman dragging woman by the hair.
Boss chasing secretary around the desk.
Again, many of the older cartoons made fun of contemporary attitudes towards sexual politics. Once these themes became subjects for serious journalism, the cartoonists’ contributions were banished, the assumption being perhaps that the “satiric mode of discourse” is of low intellectual status, which may be true but it antedates literature and, in these cases, was prescient.
I wonder if the same process might soon happen with the Indian smoke-signals theme. The cartoons are about the fragility of our interconnectedness but they show Native Americans in a comic manner (and those feathers! So stereotypical!) So…into the missionary pot with them….maybe.
Terrific piece, Susha.
When done well – like the excellent examples above, clichés work wonderfully. When the cartoonist finds a fresh angle to an old setup the magic still happens.
When a cliché flops, it really flops. That can make the cliché cartoon a real challenge.
The benefit is that the reader instantly recognizes the setup, the down side is, that makes it more difficult to really surprise or bring something fresh to the work.
The old yin-yang thing.
Now there’s a cliché.
Great article, Susha. I went down the list going “check, check, check”. I think I’ve done all of these at some point except goldfish bowls. So you know what you can expect in my next batch.
Susha,
Thanks for a very nice piece and quite a revealing list. And thank you for including my cartoon in the mix.
I can’t speak for everyone, but it’s my belief that those cliches are the building blocks that we throw at the writing blocks. Often, they’re the best way to break through.
I’ll be back on February 13th with a fresh stack of familiar cartoon props and backgrounds.
Susha,
I will send you an indian smoke signal cartoon forthwith.
Sorry, I mean “native American”
Didn’t Spike Milligan once say that the cliche was the ‘handrail of the crippled mind’? He must have have been thinking of cartoonists – in mor e ways than one. It may be a shaky handrail at times but it’s served us lot well over the years. I’m looking over that list to see what cliches I’ve missed out on and fill in those missing gaps!
Lovely list, Susha.
I think I’ve also done them all except the smoke signal one although i did do a jungle drums cartoon once which might squeak in at a pinch.
I remember hearing of Spike ranting about how awful he found ‘On the Buses’.
I think it genuinely pained him.
Thanks for the comments and for pointing out the notable omissions on the list. Group therapy sessions is another one I missed…
One more thought, Susha.
You say “At the same time, there are the perennial topics for cartoons—or clichés…”
I don’t think they are the same thing. Topics, or categories are just that. They aren’t necessarily cliches. For example, Business cartoons or Doctors office or Heaven or Hell or Therapy etc. would be simply topics a cartoonist may work on.
Clichés, on the other hand are much more identifiable or specific setups.
For example, in your list of ten, I would consider:
The Grim Reaper, In/Out trays, Gurus, Smoke signals, Fish bowls and Desert islands clichés.
The others are just subjects that are part of our lives and therefore get done often. I don’t consider them clichés.
Dear Susha,
Great piece.
Its always a good challenge to take the cliche by the horns.
Life is a cliche.
Viva el cliche, I mean, el che!
Brilliant, Susha. Nowt wrong with clichés. I’m a Northern one myself. John
An old punch cartoon I have never forgotten;
Two chickens and one says to the other….
“I feel finger lickin’ awful “
Dear Susha
A clever idea, cleverly done. You have much more fun doing it than I did when I helped edit the cartoons for Punch for a bit. There was so much dross to wade through. And that way only from the regular contributors.
I agree with Mike Baldwin (????) that they’re not really cliches, though. If you want to be a little pretentious, I suppose you could call them memes, or even tropes.
I wrote about the number two one (psychiatrist/psychoanalyst couch thing) on my blog (http://petersilverton.blogspot.com/) about how all our knowledge and understanding of the psychiatrist/psychoanalyst thing comes from cartoon. The beard, the couch, the certificate on the wall. Looking at the one you’ve chosen, another thing occurred to me: not only is there the (expected) confusion between psychiatrists and psychoanalysts (not a confusion that either group makes themselves) but also your choice is presumably by an English cartoonist yet copies the cliches/memes/tropes of the US thing.
My current favourite is from a recent New Yorker.
Psychoanalyst (no beard, but with notebook and certificate on wall) to patient sitting up on couch: ‘Look, making you happy is out of the question, but I can give you a compelling narrative for your misery.’