Single-panel or gag cartoons are a fascinating medium. They hold a lot of meaning in a very tiny space. Their ingeniousness lies in their snappiness and ability to capture the essence of a problem and make it somewhat humorous in a single image accompanied by text.
The interplay between text and image is what really makes this art form stand out. The two have to work together to deliver the intended message. In fact, the perfect cartoon is considered to be one in which the picture doesn’t make sense without the text and vise versa. It’s all about their relationship.
The history of cartoons is quite interesting. See, while humans have been drawing for millennia, the roots of a single-panel cartoon begin somewhere in the 18th century. That is when caricaturists, satirists, and other artists started publishing various vignettes in humor magazines and single-sheet publications.
Back then, of course, they weren’t called cartoons. The word described the drawings that fresco and tapestry painters would make on a piece of cardboard before putting it on cloth or walls. In time, it evolved to describe preliminary drawings in general and in the 1840s, it was first used to describe a funny image published in a paper.
The paper was a British magazine called “Punch” and on July 15, 1843, it published five satirical drawings about the government called “Mr. Punch's cartoons.” Over time, it spread to other countries and branched out in two major directions: political and gag cartoons.
The political cartoons were focused on poking fun at current day events and were the more popular of the two. They were used as covers of magazines and sometimes even sat proudly in centerspreads. The gag cartoons were more modest; just funny pictures that accompanied funny text. They didn’t depend on one another and usually hid themselves amongst other light-hearted stuff.
It was not until 1920 that the modern gag cartoon found its footing. That is when cartoonists started to use different methods such as visual puns to connect pictures to the words under the image. The joke was then not in the picture nor in the text, but in the connection between them. The reader had to ponder how they work together to get a giggle, which makes a greater impact.
Over the next few years, the art of cartooning flourished, with the stars of Peter Arno and Harold Ross shinning the brightest. For three decades, from around 1930 to 1960, the medium experienced its golden days. Major weekly magazines were publishing from 200 to 400 cartoons a month. Some of them were printed in color and took up a whole page. The cartoons found their place on mugs and cocktail napkins. Everyone loved cartoons.
But, of course, as the interest in weekly magazines declined in the '60s, so did the mass interest in cartoons. Soon, they found themselves in niche publications, where loyal audiences still appreciated their unique combination of visual art and text.
