When they say Cartoon Database, they mean Press Cartoon Database.
The website itself contains enormous quantities of cartoons, but the clunky (think Old Skool Web “1990’s stylee”) interface makes them difficult to get at. The Search box is only available on the front page, so keep it open in a separate tab or window.
It’s not really organised for casual browsing, it’s best if you know what you’re looking for beforehand.
[Quote:] This is the online database of the University of Kent’s Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature. It is free to use, and is maintained by the University as a research tool for academics and others interested in the history of British political and social cartooning.
This database is principally a guide to the Centre’s holdings of cartoon cuttings and original artwork. It contains more than 120,000 catalogued cartoons, mostly from the last hundred years. It is the largest cartoon database in the world, but still represents only a fraction of the Centre’s holdings.
The vast majority of these cartoons come from the Centre’s collections, but extra material has been added from the collections of the National Library of Wales, the LSE Library, and the John Rylands University Library.
The Centre has added cataloguing and contextual information to the cartoons, but the database is consulted by thousands of academics and researchers, many of whom have detailed specialist knowledge. In 2006 the Centre recognised this expertise by enabling users to edit the database themselves.
Here’s a sample from the entry for Les Gibbard:
When Margaret Thatcher won her first General Election in May 1979, Gibbard was prevented from attacking her, on the grounds that it was “too tough and ungentlemanly to attack a lady at the start of her honeymoon.” However, by the time of the Falklands War the Guardian had no qualms about his attacking the Prime Minister. As Gibbard recalled, “looking for some way to express my anger at the pointless waste of human life on both sides I turned to the famous cartoon by Philip Zec, which nearly had the Daily Mirror closed down during the Second World War.” Gibbard recaptioned it “The price of sovereignty has increased - official”, and the Guardian carried it on 6 May 1982.
As Gibbard noted afterwards, “I was unaware of the furore caused by it until I returned home later the following day to barrage of phone calls asking me how I proposed responding to being called a traitor.” It turned out that Thatcher had attacked those in the British media who were slow to back the campaign, and the Sun had followed her lead by accusing Les Gibbard - among others - of treason. “What is it but treason”, the paper demanded, “for The Guardian to print a cartoon, showing a British seaman clinging to a raft…isn’t that exactly calculated to weaken Britain’s resolve at a time when lives have been lost, whatever the justice of her cause?” The matter was raised in the House of Commons, and the Sun’s leader-writer was ousted from the National Union of Journalists for unfraternal behaviour.
Gibbard has also contributed caricatures to the Daily Mirror, and cartoons to the Daily Sketch, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Mirror, Evening Standard, Time Out, Melody Maker and others. From 1973 to 1975 he worked as an animator for Richard Williams’ studio, and from 1976 to 1977 produced his own animated political cartoon series Newshound for Granada TV’s Reports Politics. He has also key-animated the stories of Beatrix Potter, Wind in the Willows, Famous Fred, The Bear and others for TV. In addition he drew weekly political cartoons for Channel 4’s A Week in Politics from 1982 to 1986, and for BBC TV’s Newsnight, and On the Record from 1988 to 1995. Gibbard left the Guardian in 1994.
(My linkage & highlighting)
Unfortunately, try as I might I could not find the controversial Gibbard cartoon in the database. How cool is that?
Historical note: Les Gibbard’s “Newshound” spots for Granada TV consisted of 60 seconds of b/w line animation. Les and his assistant (Jeff? Geoff? Someone please fill in the blank here!) had to work like demons to produce this minute of cleaned up animation in the 3 days of the week not taken up with editorial meetings, shooting, editing and shipping the footage from London to Manchester. Yes, it was all done on film in those days.
One day of the week was left for resting and drinking. I painted the backgrounds for the title sequence of Newshound. (No picture available.)
Here’s another Les Gibbard cartoon from the Falklands era:
