It’s been a while since I visited a museum on the list, so I was glad when Wist suggested we tackle one this weekend.

We chose the Cartoon Museum, just off of Museum Street.
The museum itself is dwarfed by the British Museum behind – but what it lacks in size it doesn’t lack in spirit.

On the ground floor, you can learn a little about the history of cartooning.

Caricature developed in Italy (Italian ‘caricare’ means to load, or exaggerate) and was spread to UK polite circles by young gents that had picked up their technique when on their grand tours.

William Hogarth had little time for caricature – regarding it a ‘foreign art’. He created a new form of picture story – and is widely regarded as the first comic artist.
Amateur artists Townshend, Bunbury, Woodward and Nixon transformed the art further – introducing a lighter, more playful tone. James Gillray perfected the art – becoming known for his power of imagination and cultural commentary.

I thought this cartoon (etched by an anonymous individual) was interesting – commenting on the belief that the English were a particularly suicidal nation, due to the gloominess of the English climate and the melancholy of the national character.

The first half of the twentieth century saw the heyday of the popular magazine, and cartoons sat centre-stage amongst many of these. William Heath Robinson was one such cartoonist who entertained the Great British public through two world wars, with his intricate cartoon contraptions (pre-dating Rube Goldberg machines in America.)

Henry Mayo Batemen was the first British cartoonist to draw with a dynamic and expressive line, that many found funny even without the caption. Here’s one:

Joke cartoons continued to appear in magazines and newspapers throughout the twentieth century.
Carl Giles work was one such success story in this genre, famed for creating the Giles family.

In the 1960s and onward, Britain began to leave behind the deference and social conformity that had dominated society during the world wars. Edgier cartoon satire began to appear, of which the most notable was Private Eye in 1961.
Artists including Ralph Steadman and Gerald Scarfe voiced their own discontent through angry, violent drawings.

The 2009 Ralph Steadman above is called “The Tea Lady – Working Drawing for a statue to be erected next to Churchill in Parliament Square”

For such a small museum, the quantity of beautiful cartoons really is quite astounding.

It was great to see the original sketchbooks of Simon Tofield, who created ‘Simon’s Cat’.

FIVE FACTS
#1. The wholesome comic ‘Boys’ Own Paper’ (which featured tales of sporting prowess and imperial adventure) was introduced after fears that the dark and lurid ‘Penny Dreadfuls’ would have negative effects on impressionable young adults.
#2. Precursors to The Dandy (1937) and The Beano (1938) launched by DC Thompson included The Wizard (1927), The Rover (1929) and The Hotspur (1937)
#3. Christian groups, fearful of the influence of American horror comics imported into the UK, decided to launch their own comic book in response. ‘Eagle’ subsequently raised the bar for the entire British comic genre.
#4. Bryan Talbot introduced what is regarded as the first British graphic novel in 1977 (surprisingly late!)
#5. The original name of the cartoon strip ‘The Bash Street Kids’ was ‘When the bell rings’ but was changed two years after launch.

I’ve already ticked the Design museum off of my 24 museums list, but I was so impressed last time, that I bought a membership. So I’m afraid a Design museum write-up might end up a regular feature.