Mickey Mouse at 80 - Brez Besed

This month, Mickey Mouse celebrated his 80th birthday. In the catalogue of the II. Mednarodni Bienale (Ljubljana, 1971) I found a Mickey Mouse cartoon, drawn by no one less than the great Ronald Searle. I think this cartoon is even more topical today than in 1971. "Brez Besed" is Slovenian and it means "without words" or "without comment". This picture isn't mentioned in Around the world in 80 Mickey Mice by The Guardian. Thus, I present the cartoon to you:

Mickey Mouse by Ronald Searle ... Brez besed

The 1971 organizing committee, under the patronage of the former President of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, wrote:
"We are meeting again in order to tell one another - without words, but with some laughing and a bit of moist in the eyes - a thousand stories. The cartoon has virtually no limitations, and a tiny bit of its freedom is caught in our present Biennale...
... It is not rewarding to heap up words about an exhibition WITH NO COMMENT. Let it be so that the words will be searched for and found by those who will visit the Biennale and, we hope, say: "It was pleasant to keep silent with them."

Catalogue cover (1971)

Browsing through this catalogue with excellent cartoons, I recognized the work of some other great cartoonists:

Claude Serre, France:

Miroslav Bartak, Czech Republic:

Oto Reisinger ,Slovenia:

and many other gag cartoons...

Learn more:
Around the world in 80 Mickey Mice (the Guardian)
Brez Besed cartoonbook file

Time to surf. My favourite cartoonblogs. And yours?

click here for national cartoon sites by country - cartoons around the world

(updated 5 Nov 2011)

Here are my personal favourites and other blogs that may be interesting for the cartoon lover.

If you know other interesting cartoon-related blogs or if you want to promote your cartoon blog, you can leave a link in the comment part of this article. Please write some information about the link.
I'll try to regularly update this article with other links and put a link to this article in the sidebar.
If you link to the blog of ECC Cartoonbooksclub, of course I'll link to your cartoon site or blog!

Cartoon newsletters : selection of best free cartoon newsletters

Mike Lynch Cartoons (USA, Mike Lynch)
Mike Lynch is a magazine cartoonist nd the National Cartoonists Society Representative.
Mike has a cartoon book collection and publishes daily on his blog. He's very kind and always willing to give an answer on a comment or question...
You'll find regurarly (vintage) cartoon book reviews on his blog. Most articles concern caption gag cartoons. Mike has 3 cats I believe, my family too...

Caricaturque (Turkey,Kemal Ozyurt)
Reference blog. News about caricaturists, cartoonists, catalogs, competitions, exhibitions, magazines, museums, news, websites & blogs

Drawn (Canada)
Drawn! is a multi-author blog devoted to illustration, art, cartooning and drawing. Its purpose is to inspire creativity by sharing links and resources. Albert Einstein said, “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources,” but what the hell did he know anyway?

Humour Art (Korea,Oh Young-Sik)
Blog by Young-Sik Oh, president general of Humour Art Korea. I can't read Korean, I'll have to do it with the pictures and Google Translate.

Humorgrafe (Portugal, Osvaldo Macedo de Sousa )
Um Blog de Informação sobre Humor e Caricatura. Cartoon's news

Illustration Art (David Apatoff)
David Apatoff really likes great pictures. Celebrating great art in humble places: the glorious talents of the artists who illustrated stories, advertisements and comics in the 20th century.

Caricaturi Dum Dum (Romania, Paul Stoica)
Romanian cartoon news.


Other... (alphabetical)

Ben Heine Art - The Blog (Belgium, Ben Heine)
Ben Heine is a young Belgian cartoonist and journalist, studied Art and Communication. On his blog you'll find cartoons, caricatures, potraits, poems, articles, photos, political art.

Bodard Caricatures (France, Bodard Christophe, caricature)
Great caricatures! Just take a look...

Christian Jacot -(Belgium)
Christian Jacot, known as 'JACRI', was born 'with a pencil in his hand'. His disciplines range through comic strips, advertising, caricature illustrations and painting to establish his reputation as a cartoonist.

Cartunion (USA/Minnesota, Andrey Feldshteyn)
International Cartoonists' Club - Cartoon forum

Grietcartoons (Belgium, Griet Blockx, gag cartoons)
Young Belgian cartoon talent...

Jan Op De Beeck (Belgium, Jan Op de Beeck, caricature)
Sketching is fun! Jan is a world-top caricaturist. Enjoy some of his works.

Jean Barbaud Cartoons (France, Jean Barbaud)
Comics and airoplanes...

HeadsOnBoard in Joyville (Spain, Gabriel Corbera)
About vintage cartoon books, comics

Klaas Op De Beéck (Belgium, Caricature)

Klaas Op de Beéck (°1990) is a young caricaturist who loved to draw since he was a kid. In his father’s side of the family all familymembers are busy with art.

Nollet cartoons & creatie (Belgium, André Nollet, text cartoons, press cartoon)
André Nollet is a belgian cartoonist. He's a member of the ECC team in Kruishoutem.

S. Krüger - News and Events (Germany, Sebastian Krüger, caricature, portraits)
'The Official' Sebastian Krüger Blog.

thelitestuffcartoons.com (USA, Mark Doeffinger, cartoons)
cartoons created with an original point of view

The MAD Blog (USA, Tom Richmond, caricature/comics)
The blog of cartoonist and humorous illustrator Tom Richmond .

Toonzel - Avisek Cartoons (West-Bengal, India, Avisek Chowdhury)
Avisek is a part time cartoonist an shows a collection of his work.


Trianacartoons (Columbia, Camillo Andres Triana Cubillos, caricatures/graphic humor)
Illustrations, cartoons and caricatures ...

And other links...

Ferrom Cartoons (Costa Rika, Ferreol Murillo Fuentes)

World War 1 in Cartoons by cartoon historian Mark Bryant

World War I in Cartoons (UK,2006) by dr Mark Bryant:

Front cover: Kaiser WilhemII (1915)

In a previous article I wrote I found this book on a WWI book fair in Passchendaele.
This book by cartoon historian dr Mark Bryant deserves a prominent place on the bookshelf ,not only of the people interested in the Great War, but also of the cartoon collector because of its historical value and interesting point of view to approach history through the eyes of cartoonists and illustrators.
In the book are many cartoons of Bruce Bairnsfather, a cartoonist I didn't knew before (shame on me!). Visit the Bruce Bairnsfather site and you'll be convinced of his great talent.

"Well if you knows of a better 'ole, go to it!" (1915)
by Bruce Bairnsfather, one of the most famous cartoons
of the Great War

This is the book's summary I've read on the dust jacket:

In an age before TV and radio - and long before the coming of the internet and personal computers - the impact of cartoons and caricature was considerable,especially when the only sources of information and commentary were silent cinema newsreels, posters, newspapers and books - all largely black-and-white. So, not surprisingly, the Great War of 1914-1918 proved an extraordinarily fertile time for artists working in this field.To a news-hungry public, anxious about world affairs, it was the cartoon, with its immediacy and universal accessiblility -even to the barely literate- that could speak the message mere words could never convey. And in times of stress it is laughter that is often the best medicine

When Zeppelins blackened the sky,U-boats challenged the Royal Navy's supremacy at sea, and huge 'Big Bertha' guns shelled the muddy fields of Flanders, it was the antics of Captain Bruce Bairnsfather's immortal 'Old Bill' and the drawings of H.M. Bateman, Bert Thomas and others that kept up Britan's spirits and reassured the troops that all was well back home in dear old 'Blightly'. And who could take Kaiser Bill, Admiral Von Tirpitz, the Red Baron and all the mighty goose-stepping Prussians at all seriously when Allied cartoonists cocked a snook at all they held dear? The pages of Punch and its rivals in Britain, Europe, Russia, Japan and the USA made certain that, whatever was happening militarily, their reader's laughter guaranteed that is was never quiet for long on the Western Front.


The Central Powers also had a wealth of talent labouring to counteract the Allies' propaganda machine and prewar satirical journals such as Simplicissimus in Germany, ass well as others in Turkey, Bulgaria and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, rose to the challenge.
But cartoons of this, or any other period, are not necessarily lighthearted and the Great War gave rise to many vicious and hate-filled drawing on both sides - indeed the gruesome anti-German cartoons by Louis Raemaekers were even deemed powerful enough to call Holland's neutrality into question.

World War I in Cartoons is divided into chapters covering the war year-by-year, each chapter prefaced with a concise introduction thad provides a historical framework for the cartoons of that year. Altogether more than 300 drawings from both sides of the conflict, in colour and black-and-white, have been skilfully blended to produce a unique visual history of the great war.

Learn more:
The official Bruce Bairnsfather site by Mark Warby - recommended!
Publisher Grubstreet.co.uk

Cartoonbook file

11th November, Armistice Day Passchendaele... the cartoon link

Passchendaele is only 15 km away from where I live. On Armistice Day last Tuesday I had a short visit to Tyne Cot Cemetary.

In Flanders fields...

Every time I visit this place, it gives me a captivating experience. "Where have all the flowers gone?" sang Pete Seger in 1961... "Where have all the soldiers gone", "where have all the graveyards gone..."... when will we ever learn...

After this visit I headed toward the WWI Book Fair in 'Passchendaele', only 2 km further, where hundreds of books of The Great War were exhibited.

Between all this books my eye fell on "World War I in cartoons" by cartoon historian Mark Bryant.

A cartoon book amongst all this serious war books? Yes, but this is a 'serious' cartoon book. It is a direct and truly authoritative history of the Great War, thoroughly researched and attractively presented. In a next article I will describe this magnificent book.

This is where the book fair was located...

Entry of the the fair...
this way please

Lots of military books...

At this book stall of "Tommies Guides -
The military book specialists" I discovered WW1 in Cartoons

Learn more:
The Battle of Passchendaele
Tommies Guides - the Military Book Specialist (Eastbourne, UK)

Review article World War 1 in Cartoons 

Matty Aslan

Paul Stoica from Romania sent us the cartoonbook file of 'Conice', a book of the Romanian cartoonist and animated film director Matty Aslan.


The geometric shapes have a rigorous structure which was not constructed as a joke.
But Matty is trying to prove us that a geometric shape can be changed into several satirical aspects.
For this experiment he chose the cone, which resembles, from a ludic perspective, with a pointed head, which expresses different life problems. The small volume of caricatures signed by Matty is called “Conice” (Conicals.) and contains 153 drawings.
And if the initial point of this comical transformation is the cone, each drawing represents a theme that has a prefix the cone (“con” in Romanian): con-flict, con-stellation, con-sult, con-fidant, con-fetti, con-trol etc.

Matty's autograph:

On the Romanian blog 'caricaturi-dum-dum' you find news and information about the cartoon art in Romania. This cartoon blog is an idea of Paul Stoica. Aside him stands a great cartoon caricaturist, Florian Doru Crihana, with drawings in some great museums of caricatures worldwide, with a consistent number of international prices, and with whom Paul shares the publication of this on-line magazine, to which they add also the support of some other caricaturists, depending on events.
Learn more:
Matty Aslan on Wikipedia
the Romanian cartoon blog: Caricaturi-dum-dum.blogspot.com
or if you don't understand Romanian, try this translated version:
Caricaturi-dum-dum in English

Cartoonbook file:

Nov. 1st - All Saint's Day: Requiem ? ... Honoréquiem!

All Saints' Day is a feast celebrated on November 1 in Western Christianity in honour of all the saints, known and unknown.
In terms of Western Christian theology, the feast commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in heaven. Specifically, in the Roman Catholic Church, the next day, All Souls' Day, commemorates the departed faithful.

Today is thus the best day to present to you an appropriate cartoon book "Honoréquiem" (1986)(*) by the French cartoonist Honoré Bonnet. It's a series of 35 brilliant churchyard gag cartoons. The book is sold out, but Honoré has some copies available:you can order a dedicated book here.


More about Honoré Bonnet and some other books he publised, you find on his site. Don't confuse him with Honoré Philippe who is another French cartoonist.





Thanks to mr Honoré Bonnet for his kind permission.

(*) The Requiem or Requiem Mass (informally, a funeral Mass),is a liturgical service of the Roman Catholic Church, Anglo-Catholic Anglicans, as well as certain Lutheran Churches in the United States.The common theme of requiems is prayer for the salvation of the soul(s) of the departed, and it is used both at services immediately preceding a burial, and on occasions of more general remembrance.

Learn more:
This book is available + other books of Honoré
Website of Honoré Bonnet
Bonnet Honoré on BDtheque
Honoré Bonnet's Blog (with recent work, publication etc.)

Cartoonbook file


René Magritte's "Manet's Balcony"... is it here some inspiration for the first cartoon above came from?