The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Political Cartoonist at Guardian with somthing literary:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/pic...

I do not think he is a political cartoonist there - he only does fiction /reading cartoons - weekly for Guardian Books.

This is listed as one of his cultural cartoons, but I wanted to designate him accurately because of in the U.S. the political cartoonists have seemed to rate a little higher status then the others. I wasn't sure if it was the same in the U. K.

Accurately would be as cartoonist about books. His cultural cartoons are all he does for the Guardian. He does science cartoons for the New Scientist I think.

I think political cartoonists are probably better revered here too although I am never sure why as they mostly do crude caricatures - Gauld’s work is much more original.

I think of Tom Gauld as a cultural/social, rather than political, commentator but I’m only aware of him through his work for the Guardian.
PolitIcal cartoonists tend to be separated out & seen as more serious - coming from a tradition of satire where the aim is less to amuse & more to critically reframe a situation.

If anything I’d say political cartoonists seem to get away with being less serious and more gratuitously crude on the punching up argument that it’s OK to be offensive (in the Guardian’s longstanding cartoonists’s case, often racially so) as long as the targets are powerful and are your political opponents. Though he produced one offensive cartoon too many and the paper let him go last year.

Gauld on the other hand produced cartoons almost entirely about books and reading and is very good.

Yes, there are poor practitioners in every field.
I like what I have seen of Gauld’s work, literature & language being major themes. I particularly enjoyed Marvello the Amazing Grammar Mouse. Of his books on other themes, Mooncop - last cop on the Moon - appeals.

Glad to see we are moving from criticizing my occupation designation and more towards the appreciation of Tom Gauld. If you want to troll, me point out my irresponsible behavior of misspelling/mistyping something and being too lazy to edit the mistake. But the topic was Gauld and his work. He frequently makes me smile but I rarely see a link even though his content is quite literary. I thought I might give some of those that don't see his work a smile since we are an international group and the book club comment by Batman making an excuse for not keeping up with the reading struck me as just perfect. But what we need is more Gauld. At the risk of overdoing the freebies, I am adding two more links. One of my favorite Gauld cartoons is linked on the Huffpost and has too do with an art gallery and then there is Tom's page with all sorts of links to more material and other good stuff.

I am old-fashioned and when I think cartoons, I am thinking my youth and there was a difference between political cartoons and those on the funny pages and it wasn't just their location in the paper. My memories are of Blondie, Nancy, The Family Circle, Andy Capp, The Katzenjammer Kids ,Gasoline Alley, Lil Abner, Prince Valiant, and Mary Worth. I wanted to distinguish between those and Tom Gauld's work. Nowadays it is different with strips like Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes, and The Far Side paving the way so GY was right in making a distinction, but not at the expense of the content of the post, so here are some more Gauld gems.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tom-ga...

https://www.tomgauld.com/

And please if you criticize me, please add a line in appreciation to Tom's work.

Sam wrote: "Glad to see we are moving from criticizing my occupation designation and more towards the appreciation of Tom Gauld. If you want to troll, me point out my irresponsible behavior of misspelling/mist..."

Apologies if you felt I was finding fault with your description of Gauld as a political cartoonist. That certainly wasn’t my intention. I was trying to give my view as to why political cartoonists may be seen as ‘higher status’ due to their subject matter. It is not a view I personally share.

I did look at a few articles about Gauld & was interested to see he cited W Heath Robinson as an influence. Even though Heath Robinson had been dead for more than 30 years when I was a student, his illustrations of elaborate machinery built to perform simple tasks were popular posters in halls of residence. I can see elements of his style in Gauld’s work.

Here’s one of Gauld’s cartoons, topical for those of us in colder climes
https://www.theguardian.com/books/pic...

Paul wrote: "If anything I’d say political cartoonists seem to get away with being less serious and more gratuitously crude on the punching up argument that it’s OK to be offensive (in the Guardian’s longstandi..."

Although that approach/the lack of subtlety's roughly in keeping with the history/traditions of the genre, thinking of Hogarth etc

Sam wrote: "Glad to see we are moving from criticizing my occupation designation and more towards the appreciation of Tom Gauld. If you want to troll, me point out my irresponsible behavior of misspelling/mist..."

I tend to skip the cartoons but liked what I've seen of his work, and that Batman one is great! Reminded me of Glen Baxter.

His books have come up on my feed quite a few times so he's obviously fairly widely read - and the friends who've reviewed him hail from elsewhere in Europe inc Ireland and Spain as well as the U.S. Baking With Kafka and Revenge of the Librarians seem particularly popular choices.

Yes agree political cartoonists are traditionally and currently - at least in UK - the least subtle of all. Passes me by I must admit as a result - politics is a nuanced subject and crude caricature undermines trust in democracy.

Thanks to this thread, I'm buying Tom Gault books for all the young readers on my holiday book list, as well as one for myself!