Cartoonists

"命は闇の中のまたたく光だ。"

"We depict hatred, but it is to depict that there are more important things. We depict a curse, to depict the joy of liberation."

"Children understand intuitively that the world they have been born into is not a blessed world."

"I believe that children's souls are the inheritors of historical memory from previous generations. It's just that as they grow older and experience the everyday world that memory sinks lower and lower. I feel I need to make a film that reaches down to that level. If I could do that I would die happy."

"It's difficult. [My female protagonists] immediately become the subjects of rorikon gokko (play toy for Lolita Complex males). In a sense, if we want to depict someone who is affirmative to us, we have no choice but to make them as lovely as possible. But now, there are too many people who shamelessly depict [such protagonists] as if they just want [such girls] as pets, and things are escalating more and more."

"You see, whether you can draw like this or not, being able to think up this kind of design, it depends on whether or not you can say to yourself, 'Oh, yeah, girls like this exist in real life.' If you don’t spend time watching real people, you can’t do this, because you’ve never seen it. Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves. Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans. And that’s why the industry is full of otaku!"

"Most people depend on the internet and cellphones to survive, but what happens when they stop working? I wanted to create a mother and child who wouldn't be defeated by life without them."

"If it is a dying craft we can't do anything about it. Civilisation moves on. Where are all the fresco painters now? Where are the landscape artists? What are they doing now? The world is changing. I have been very fortunate to be able to do the same job for 40 years. That's rare in any era."

"Actually I think CGI has the potential to equal or even surpass what the human hand can do."

"Every morning, not in recent days, I see my friend who has a disability. It’s so hard for him just to do a high five; his arm with stiff muscle can’t reach out to my hand. Now, thinking of him, I can’t watch this stuff and find it interesting. Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is. I am utterly disgusted. If you really want to make creepy stuff, you can go ahead and do it. I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself. I feel like we are nearing the end of times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves."

"Man, staying at home is for chumps! You could shake the man's hand! YOU COULD TOTALLY SMOOCH HIM MAYBE. maybe not but still!"

"I collect power supplies like other men collect meaningful relationships! THAT IS TO SAY, AT THE RATE OF ABOUT ONE A YEAR"

"If you find you are not understanding my explanation for a joke, hit "F5" on your browser and the page will refresh and I will explain it again."

"I speculate that the genesis of the chicken-joke lies in some situation such as the one illustrated above, but over time the original context of the joke was lost, which left the chicken sadly decontextualized."

"They are "sexcellent". That is a pun for you, you will find lots of puns on the internet! Also: blonde jokes."

"Good luck distinguishing which sign is the REAL sign when my entire front lawn is covered with thousands of little green signs - each with a different number! Ahahahah! I'll be EVERY address in the whole freakin' township! And what are you gonna do about it? Hopefully, NOTHING!"

"Don't worry, it's very clear that the painting was done by a human, most likely a human with one eye removed and a feverent if incorrect understanding of design and anatomy."

"Of course it's easy to get on public transit! It's public transit."

"I saw The Mountain Ghost last night and they were really good but also scary! Actually they are called the Mountain GOATS and do not feature scary g-g-g-ghosts. Luckily."

"I'm totally applying assumed Creative Commons rights."

"I'm suddenly worried people will think that I believe their religion can be summed up on four sex-obsessed sentences."

"You're supposed to whore yourself out! Nobody will judge you! ACTUALLY EVERYONE WILL JUDGE YOU THAT'S HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS"

"We're all already aware of boobies; it is the general state of most people in North America! THANKS, MEDIA AND THE MALE GAZE"

"Strange things in the neighbourhood (partial list):"

"Failure is just success rounded down."

"If something knocks you five degrees out of whack, the journey of a thousand miles that begins with a single step ends up thousands of miles away from its intended destination."

"It seems to me a core element of belief in God that a choice is a choice and it eliminates all other choices."

"What the feminists and their ventriloquist puppet husbands are talking about doing with Government-Funded Daycare is raising children as if they were a herd of interchangeable swine. No surprise coming from a gender which has no ethics, no scruples, no sense of right and wrong."

"I'd rather live in the gutter embracing reality than live like a king embracing unreality."

"If you really want to do it nothing and no one is going to stop you, if you don't really want to do it, nothing and no one is going to help you."

"I'd rather take a major financial hit being honest than get rich by lying."

"Reality is reality. It is the way things are, not the way you want them to be in your head."

"Pointing out that there's a turd lying on the carpet is not the same as shitting on the carpet.(p. 75)"

"I take it as a given that God's knowledge of the Cerebus storyline dwarfs my own as God's knowledge of everything dwarfs my own. (#2, p. 9)"

"[A]n attractive lie is always going to be more popular than a hard truth. (No. 11, p. 27)"

"Because I say what is empirically true: nothing exists except God, I am deemed to be insane. (ibid, p. 28)"

"In my experience women are like cats. When you don't want them you can't get rid of them and when you do want them it's like trying to pick up lint with a magnet. (p. 267)"

"The first five years that I did Cerebus I could have made more money baby-sitting (that isn't a joke). Five years. Think about it. (p. 20)"

"In any creative field--any creative field--you must first understand that you have no value whatsoever. Your work has no value whatsoever. You are completely worthless. Whatever potential you have is just that--potential--and when you are discussing self-publishing a comic book, you have about the same chance of success as 10 thousand others. (p. 21)"

"...there is very little about self-publishing a comic book that can be taught, but everything about it can be learned. (p. 21)"

"Stop trying to impress some art-school teacher with a stick up his butt whose opinions you never respected from the time you entered his class until you left it 10 years ago. Draw like you. (p. 27)"

"Get out of your own way. (p.28)"

"The greatest mistake you can make is to say that your work is better than a lot of the shit that's out there. No doubt. But being better than shit is not exactly a shining credential. (p. 30)"

"No companies are ever going to pay you enough money to sue them successfully. (pp. 50-51)"

"Oscar: In a society where dissenting viewpoints are suppressed, those viewpoints are potent and dangerous... Where dissent is tolerated, it rapidly becomes quaint and is viewed as un-sophisticated; people merely amuse themselves with the expression of contrary opinion. (p. 41)"

"Cerebus: The valuable lesson is that you can get what you want and still not be very happy... (p. 296)"

"Anything done for the first time unleashes a demon. (Cover and title of Cerebus #65, August 1984, collected in Church & State I, p. 7 and 273)"

"There is another Set of Gentry more noxious to the art than these, and those are your Picture-Jobbers from abroad, who are always ready to raise a great Cry in the Prints, whenever they think their Craft is in Danger; and indeed it is in their Interest to depreciate every English Work, as hurtful to their Trade, of continually importing Ship Loads of dead Christs, Holy Families, Madona's, and other dismal, dark Subjects, neither entertaining nor ornamental; on which they scrawl the terrible cramp Names of some Italian Masters, and fix on us poor Englishmen the Character of Universal Dupes."

"After the March to Finchley, the next print I engraved, was the Roast Reef of old England; which took its rise from a visit I paid to France the preceding year. The first time an Englishman goes from Dover to Calais, he must be struck with the different face of things at so little a distance. A farcical pomp of war, pompous parade of religion, and much bustle with very little business. To sum up all, poverty, slavery, and innate insolence, covered with an affectation of politeness, give you even here a true picture of the manners of the whole nation... By the fat friar, who stops the lean cook that is sinking under the weight of a vast sirloin of beef, and two of the military bearing off a great kettle of soup maigre, I meant to display to my own countrymen the striking difference between the food, priests, soldiers, &c. of two nations so contiguous, that in a clear day one coast may be seen from the other."

"[T]he connoisseurs and I are at war you know; and because I hate them, they think I hate Titian—and let them!"

"Any two opposite colours of the rainbow (eg yellow and blue) , form a third between them, thus imparting to each other their peculiar qualities . The sight of what they were originally is quite lost, and instead, a most pleasing green is found, which colour, nature has chosen for the vestment of the earth, and with the beauty of which the eye never tires."

"Experience teaches us that the eye may be subdued and forced into forming and disposing of objects even quite contrary to what it would naturally see them, by pre judgement of the mind or some other persuasive motive."

"A great many people seem to delight most in what they least understand."

"On why our features sag, It is by the natural and unaffected movements of the muscles, caused by the passions of the mind, that every man's character would in some measure be written in his face, by the time he arrives at forty years of age."

"In pictures of comic character, rich humour, and moral satire, and particularly in displaying the human figure and countenance in its common and popular forms, he certainly excelled all other painters... Hogarth was certainly an artist of peculiar and distinguished talents. He stood alone in art, and formed a school of his own. He was at once the Pictorial Satirist, Moralist, and Historian of the age in which he lived. I use the latter term, from the conviction that his pictures will always be referred to with pleasure and advantage, as recording the features, costume, and corporeal characteristics of many eminent and illustrious persons, and of many public and private events of his time."

"He pleaded the cause of virtue—it was vice that he painted in disgusting colours; and though the judicious spectator may occasionally discover grossness in the production of this great Artist, yet they were such as scenes from nature produced, and such as the great Moralist always contrasted, by displaying virtue at the same time in the loveliest attire, and giving her the most attractive expression."

"William Hogarth was rather below the middle size; his eye was peculiarly bright and piercing; his look shrewd, sarcastic, and intelligent; the forehead high and round. He was active in person, bustling in manner, and fond of affecting a little state and importance: of a temper cheerful, joyous, and companionable; fond of mirth and good fellowship; desirous of saying strong and pointed things;—ardent in friendship—and in resentment. His lively conversation—his knowledge of character—his readiness of speech—and quickness of retort, made many covet his company, who were sometimes the objects of his satire; but he employed his wit on those who were present, and spared or defended the absent. His personal spirit was equal to his satiric talents; he provoked, with his pencil, the temper of those whom it was not prudent to offend; with him no vice nor folly found shelter behind wealth, or rank, or power."

"[H]is character as an artist is to be gathered from numerous works, at once original and unrivalled. His fame has flown far and wide; his skill as an engraver spread his reputation as a painter; and all who love the dramatic representation of actual life—all who have hearts to be gladdened by humour—all who are pleased with judicious and well-directed satire—all who are charmed with the ludicrous looks of popular folly—and all who can be moved with the pathos of human suffering—are admirers of Hogarth. That his works are unlike those of other men, is his merit, not his fault. He belonged to no school of art; he was the produce of no academy; no man living or dead had any share in forming his mind, or in rendering his hand skilful. He was the spontaneous offspring of the graphic spirit of his country, as native to the heart of England as independence is, and he may be fairly called, in his own walk, the first-born of her spirit."

"The ingenious Mr Hogarth [is one of the most] useful Satyrists that any Age hath produced."

"These derisive prints give only a distorted idea of a world which to Hogarth was always strange and uncongenial: that of the patron supporting an obedient circle and in addition favouring the foreigner to the detriment of a home-grown art."

"They said he could not paint flesh. There's flesh and blood for you."

"The Temple of Nature was his academy,—and his topography the map of the human mind."

"His engravings, though coarse, are forcible, in a degree scarcely to be paralleled. Every figure is drawn from the quarry of nature; and, though seldom polished, is always animated."

"[T]he matchless Election Entertainment... [i]n that inimitable print (which in my judgment as far exceeds the more known and celebrated March to Finchley as the best comedy exceeds the best farce that ever was written) let a person look till he be saturated... when he shall have sufficiently admired this wealth of genius, let him fairly say what is the result left on his mind. Is it an impression of the vileness and worthlessness of his species? or is it not the general feeling which remains, after the individual faces have ceased to act sensibly upon his mind, a kindly one in favour of his species? was not the general air of the scene wholesome? did it do the heart hurt to be among it? Something of a riotous spirit, to be sure, is there, some worldly-mindedness in some of the faces, a Dodingtonian smoothness which does not promise any superfluous degree of sincerity in the fine gentleman who has been the occasion of calling so much good company together: but is not the general cast of expression in the faces, of the good sort? do they not seem cut out of the good old rock, substantial English honesty?"

"Hogarth adopted a new line of art, purely English; his merits are known to the public, more from his prints than from his paintings: both deserve our attention. His pictures often display beautiful colouring, as well as accurate drawing: his subjects generally convey useful lessons of morality, and are calculated to improve the man, as well as the artist: and he teaches with effect, because he delights while he instructs. It has been said of him, that in his pictures he composed comedies; his humour never fails to excite mirth, and it is directed against the fit objects of ridicule or contempt. The powers of his pencil were not perverted to the purposes of personal attack; the application of his satire was general, and the end at which he aimed was the reformation of folly or of vice."

"It cannot, indeed, be truly said of Hogarth, that he improved the practice of the arts of Painting and Engraving, which he professed; but he merited the praise of having more powerfully exhibited their moral utility than any of his predecessors."

"Hogarth resembles Butler, but his subjects are more universal, and amidst all his pleasantry, he observes the true end of comedy, reformation; there is always a moral to his pictures. Sometimes he rose to tragedy, not in the catastrophe of kings and heroes, but in marking how vice conducts insensibly and incidentally to misery and shame. He warns against encouraging cruelty and idleness in young minds, and discerns how the different vices of the great and the vulgar lead by various paths to the same unhappiness."

"It is to Hogarth's honour that in so many scenes of satire or ridicule, it is obvious that ill-nature did not guide his pencil. His end is always reformation, and his reproofs general."

"In only one branch of painting, and that not the most honoured even in our own country, did we produce a unique, idiosyncratic national school. That is the school of narrative composition founded by Hogarth and perfected a hundred years later. It would be absurd to claim a place for him beside Titian and Velasquez, even beside Goya. He was in no sense a great painter, but he is a national figure comparable to Dr Johnson or Trollope, of whom we may well be proud... The school which Hogarth founded may be defined as the detailed representation of contemporary groups, posed to tell a story and inculcate a moral precept. The figures are not merely caught and preserved in certain attitudes; previous and subsequent events are implicit in the scene portrayed. Hogarth's moral lessons are commonplace, commonsensical: that extravagance leads to destitution, debauchery to madness, crime to the gallows, loveless marriage to infidelity and so on. It remained for the more delicate sentiment of the Victorians to refine on these maxims."

"He was pure Cockney, intolerant of everything foreign. English painting, so far as it has excelled at all, has done so in inverse relation to the influence of Italy and France. I do not know of any foreign painter except Svoboda who rivalled the English School in their own métier. Comparable Parisians of the nineteenth century tended towards the lubricious or the allegorical. There is one corner of the artistic field that will remain for ever England."

"Gad, sir, Lord Beaverbrook is right! A conference should be held at once for the U. S. A. to pay back the money Europe owes her."

"The scum of the earth, I believe?" "The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?"

"Very well, alone."

"Gad, sir, Churchill is right. The Govt. has evidently made an irrevocable decision to be guided by circumstances with a firm hand."

"That is all right. I had them on my list too."

"I have never met anyone who wasn't against war. Even Hitler and Mussolini were, according to themselves."

"Strube is a gentle genius. I don't mind his attacks because he never hits below the belt. Now Low is a genius, but he is evil and malicious. I cannot bear Low."

"It may well be, that the future historian, asked to point to the most characteristic expression of the English temper in the period between the two wars will reply without hesitation, "Colonel Blimp"."

"[Winston Churchill]...detested David Low's politics, while admiring his skill. Low was a New Zealand Communist who was a favourite of Beaverbrook's. I found his employment inexplicable. In his own quirkish way Beaverbrook was a true patriot, yet he employed people like Frank Owen, Michael Foot and, appropriately below all, Low. Competent and talented they undoubtedly were, but the harm they did in opposing Britain's rearmament programme against Hitler is appalling. One of Low's cartoons depicted Colonel Blimp, his favourite Tory butt, exclaiming over our belated, inadequate but desperately needed arms programme of the late 1930s: 'Gad Sir, if we want to keep our place in the sun, we must darken the sky with our planes.' I would like to have confronted these gentlemen with the sight of one of our stricken airfields in the Battle of Britain. Would they have adopted for their own use Churchill's earlier saying: 'I have often eaten my own words and found them on the whole a most nourishing diet'? I doubt it."

"Can't see my little Willy."

"Do you like Kipling?" "I don't know, you naughty boy, I've never kippled."

"For Heaven's sake, send help! There's a man trying to get into my room and the door's locked!"

"I want to back the favourite, please. My sweetheart gave me a pound to do it both ways!"

"'Isaiah' – what a funny name for a teddy bear!" "Well, you see one eye's 'igher than the other."

"Could you exchange this lucky charm for a baby's feeding-bottle?"

"I like seeing experienced girls home." "But I'm not experienced!" "You're not home yet!"

"I've been struggling for years to get a fur coat. How did you get yours?" "I left off struggling."

"Judge: "You are prevaricating, sir. Did you or did you not sleep with this woman?" Co-respondent: "Not a wink, my lord!""

"She didn't ask me to the christening, so I'm not going to the wedding."

"In the past the mood of the comic postcard could enter into the central stream of literature, and jokes barely different from McGill's could casually be uttered between the murders in Shakespeare's tragedies. That is no longer possible, and a whole category of humour, integral to our literature till 1800 or thereabouts, has dwindled down to these ill-drawn postcards, leading a barely legal existence in cheap stationers' windows. The corner of the human heart that they speak for might easily manifest itself in worse forms, and I for one should be sorry to see them vanish."

"A little work, a little gay To keep us going—and so good-day! A little warmth, a little light Of love’s bestowing—and so, good-night. A little fun, to match the sorrow Of each day’s growing—and so, good-morrow! A little trust that when we die We reap our sowing—and so—good-bye!"

"Life ain’t all beer and skittles, and more’s the pity; but what’s the odds, so long as you’re happy?"

"An interviewer had researched Lyttelton's other interests and asked him about "orthinology" (sic). Lyttelton said that he kept a straight face and answered the question but 24 hours later thought of what he should have replied: "Oh, you mean word-botching"."

"Now it's time to play a brand new game called Name That Barcode. Here's the first one: "Thick black, thin white, thick black, thick white, thick black, thin white." OK who's going to identify that?"

"Well as the vanquished charwoman of time begins to Shake-n-Vac the shagpile of eternity, I've noticed that we've just run out of time..."

"After tasting the meat pies, Samantha said she liked Mr Dewhurst’s beef in ale; although she preferred his tongue in cider."

"Coincidence is a wonderful thing."

"One musn't be misled by the amiable, bumbling persona. ... He is a toughly intelligent man moving confidently in any kind of surroundings from Windsor Castle to Birdland."

"Radio personality, humorist, writer, cartoonist, ex-Guards officer and aristocrat – Humphrey Lyttelton’s status as one of Britain’s favourite all-rounders sometimes overshadowed his true stature as a jazz musician. But jazz was always his first, abiding love. In 1936, as an Eton schoolboy, he fell under the spell of Louis Armstrong, taught himself trumpet and formed a band. After World War II, he spearheaded Britain’s trad-jazz revival, though he was always more in it than of it. Bored by the purists’ dogmatic style, he broke ranks in 1953 by adding a non-trad saxophone to his group. At the concert, outraged zealots responded with the banner: ‘Go home, dirty bopper!’ But as the title of one of Lyttelton’s books put it, I play as I please; what pleased him was imaginative, swinging jazz with plenty of emotional energy. This was evident from the washboard whimsy of his early recordings and his jovial forays into calypso, to the jump-band vigour of the mid-1950s that evolved into the smooth, hard-driving mainstream which he continued to the end of his life. In a career spanning over six decades, till his death in 2008, he encouraged and inspired many of the most prominent jazz musicians in Britain."

"Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes."

"I enjoy my life. The fame part of it freaked me out for a little while, and there are definitely times when it's not so great to be special and known by everybody — you know, when you're wearing the wrong thing, or just in a vulnerable place. But I'm good with my life now."

"There are two thoughts that will ensure success in all you do; (1) Don't tell everything you know, and (2) until Ace Ventura, no actor had considered talking through his ass."

"If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret."

"I like people. They're entertaining. I just may laugh at different things than most people. I laugh at mistakes. I laugh at how you recover from mistakes."

"I think we're past the time in history where you have to come out and say, "you know I'm just happy all the time! I'm a joker, I'm a crazy man!" you know kind of thing. I think people understand I can turn that switch on but I'm also a sensitive, normal human being with feelings and I know how to express those too."

"Comedic actors can be looked at as a lower form because we have to put ourselves in a lower place than most of the audience. I think lofty emotions are somehow considered more special. The best stories in the world to me are the ones that elicit a real emotion, but have humour."

"Now fear is going to be a player in your life, but you get to decide how much. You can spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying about the pathway to the future, but all there will ever be is what’s happening here and the decisions we make in this moment, which are based on either love or fear. So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect, so we never dare to ask the universe for it. I’m saying I’m the proof that you can ask the universe for it — please! ... My father could have been a great comedian, but he didn’t believe that was possible for him, and so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant, and when I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job, and our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love."

"I've learned many great leasson from my father. Not the least of which was that you can fail at what you dont want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love."

"We have to say yes to socialism — to the word and everything [...] Medicare for all, ending student debt, a different approach to the war on terror, ending mass incarceration."

"Everything should be considered. That's all. I think that's all people want. All people want is to be considered."

"Untold American lives have been ruined by the presidency of Donald Trump. The rule of law is imperiled, our unity has been shattered, the service sector has been obliterated, and major cities are suffering. Black Americans, who have endured half a millennium of wickedness and brutality, now face more injustice and death."

"Imagine if you could actually be that happy? That would be powerful, man. People would be tunneling under the street to avoid you. They'd go "Oh, man — is that happy guy still out there?"

"Madness is never that far away. It's as close as saying yes to the wrong impulse. The people who stay sane are the people who can make those quick decisions: "Should I stick my fingers into the fan, or leave the room right now? "Should I run the blade of this razor across my tongue, or just finish shaving and move away from the sink?" But you don't because luckily most of us have that little voice inside our head that says, "Uh uh uh, turning the car into oncoming traffic...is counterproductive!""

"I think nine times out of ten the worst impulses we get are when we're behind the wheel of a car. That's why I don't think its such a good idea to have a gun … in the glove compartment. Cause chances are, if it's there, sooner or later, you're gonna use it — 'course, then again, what are you gonna do when someone cuts you off on the freeway? Just let them go? Yeah — you pretty much have to shoot them, y'know, otherwise they won't learn nothin'."

"Communication, hardest thing in the world. Y'know, I can look at you guys, I can communicate to you all night, but, one-on-one, I'm terrible. It's just, there's certain things about communicating that really bother me. Like whenever I meet somebody new I say, "Hi! How are you!" Most of the time when people hear that they'll say, "Good! And yourself?", or "Fine! Thank you very much!" But sometimes they like to surprise you, "I've got no dream, man! I'm all dead inside!""

"I wish I could do some really weird stuff for you guys, you know?"

"(Parodying Informer by Snow)"

"You can criticise me all the way to the bank"

"My singles' number one and Shabba don't rank"

"You are a bastard. Hi @JimCarrey do you know the history of #RosaPark?"

"I'll have to calm down a bit. Or else I'll burst with happiness."

"Maybe my passion is nothing special, but at least it's mine."

"A person can find anything if he takes the time, that is, if he can afford to look. And while he’s looking, he’s free, and he finds things he never expected."

"I only want to live in peace, plant potatoes and dream!"

"Those damn Moomins. I don't want to hear about them any more. I could vomit on the Moomintrolls."

"I was brought up to believe that cricket is the most important activity in men's lives, the most important thread in the fabric of the cosmos."

"Before we were old enough to practise at the nets with the Burslem men, we played most of our cricket on waste land that had been trampled flat by the clogs and boots of generations of miners."

"The 4D style, or cosmic comics and relativistic humor, is based on Einstein's theory of relativity which I came up with 20 years ago. 4D works use the idea of the fourth dimension, time, playing on such surrealistic and amazing subjects as motion relativity, space curvature and time dilation."

"Caricatures speak through visual language and are therefore understandable by all people. They trigger a laugh which is also an international language and reaction. Caricatures can decrease violence and converge cultures. They aim to promote peace, and teach us to be moderate and laugh at our problems."

"As long as copyright is breached in Iran and international works are being freely published in magazines and newspapers, no one feels any need for Iranian works."

"Politically I am neither left nor right! And this kind of political-ethical standpoint-- being in the middle-- usually brings about seclusion and isolation! But now I do not mind it anymore and, instead, I work more and more in my self-made solitude!"

"Paper is my best friend and paper seller is my worst friend!"

"The world starts with a Big Bang and finishes with a human-made atomic Big Bang!"

"We all laugh and cough with the same language and will die with the same language as well!"

"It is a strange paradox: Humans drown in the water, fish drown in the land."

"Erasers remind us there is no faultless human."

"Sweetness of life depends to its bitterness."

"Our lives consist of two numbers: date of birth and date of death."

"The death of our close friends and relatives proves that how close the death is to us!"

"I finally did not understand if we are living to survive or we are living to die!"

"' Don't write, Ralph. You'll bring shame on your family. ' -- Hunter S. Thompson --"

"Maybe he is the Mark Twain of the late twentieth century. Time will sort the bastard out and I leave it to others more qualified than me to assess and appraise his monumental literary legacy."

"Americans love DON'T. Thou shalt not. The bedrock of received knowledge - the Ten Commandments. The God fearing pioneers who still had a long way to go. GO! DONT GO! GO. FUCK YOU GOD! We're on our way..."

"I was in a slightly befuddled state by this time and the potent combination of watery beer and whiskey was bringing on a severe attack of drawing, as always happens when I start seeing unusual faces through a haze of controlled drinking. My body becomes a protective casing and lets me observe through the two keyholes on the front of my head."

"'Happiness is a Small Politician' - my mantra then and forever more."

"I don't think that at the time, or now, come to think of it, I gave a damn. Foolishly, I wanted truth and idealism, but there was none to be had."

"Each boat is worth the price of a new university and they are watched by gin-soaked yachting types, male and female, in captain's hats lounging in deckchairs inside Perspex covered enclosures at the front of yet more expensive, floating country houses representing nothing more than elegantly vulgar expressions of dodgy wealth. The America's Cup."

"Beware of privilege. It stinks of rotten rotten fish heads, many of which were lapping the shore beneath the jetties."

"By this time trapped inside the drug's reverie I could have sprayed out Michelangelo's Last Judgement on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. A yacht would be a beggar's handcart by comparison."

"Those Fear and Loathing drawings were only possible for me because of the America's Cup six months earlier, which injected the the drawings with the eerie sense of being there to record the sensations. It was a regurgitation, a psycho-artistic vomit - a creative, cathartic cleansing of my inner being."

"It was a carefree period and we took to it like genuine lowlife."

"Let me say it here and now. For all Hunter's mindless self-indulgence, which is legendary and crude, he always impressed me with his blind, selfless urge to cut out the crony bestiality of modern society and the political economy that scarred the era."

"What actually happened was that Rolling Stone paid me fifteen hundred dollars for the use of all the drawings - about twenty four of them - and then offered to buy the originals from me, which my agent urged 'was a good move!'. He sold the whole damn treasure trove to Jann Wenner for the princely sum of sixty dollars per drawing. I rue the day I let him convince me."

"Where is Winnie the Pooh without it's illustrations?"

"I am an artist, I trade in uncertainty and superstition and cant. I invent dark visions of impossible situations that can never be resolved."

"Funny thing about Americans. They are the first to adopt weird lifestyles and radical views but they are the most conservative race on earth."

"Whores get bow-legged and bankers get mean, which is strange when you think that that if whores get bow-legged, bankers should get generous, but they never do."

"Today we are sacks of shit bundled into flying tubes with a security warning secreted inside every orifice."

"We thought that we had suffered all our wars and now we could enjoy a time of peace and tranquillity. However, people never learn and a newer type of war was to envelope us. We seem doomed to repeat all our mistakes and find that we are being groomed, and doomed, by the legions of war, Odin's messengers, who would have us believe that aggression is the only way forward. Now we live in a war zone, the entire world."

"Hunter Thompson wasn't Joseph Conrad, Jimmy Carter wasn't Harry Trueman. But strangely, Richard Nixon was Richard Nixon. I'm no Pablo Picasso but there's no harm in straining. After all, the charm of any activity is in the trying and so rarely in the finished article."

"One can derive the same fun from print-making as from making mud pies and great subtlety can be achieved through the use of transparent inks, half-tone screens and even accidental colour combinations, which is often where the art hides."

"At least my mural of Leonardo da Vinci still exists on the wall of their offices, which were subsequently taken over by Expedia. They had the wall insured."

"America is ripe for lies and lethargy. The pure mountain air is going and gone. It is a huge burden and a sadness for us all."

"Americans live with the certain knowledge that the source of their greatness has not yet been released."

"A wasp in a wig is altogether beyond the appliances of art."

"It is a curious fact that with Through the Looking-Glass the faculty of making book illustrations departed from me. … I have done nothing in that direction since."

"Please let me know to what extent you have used, or intend using, the pruning knife."

"The nine Wise Words are full of wisdom, besides being decidedly funny."

"How true it is that some have greatness thrust upon them! - and you may be quite sure that it was none of my seeking."

"Tenniel is the man."

"Mr. Tenniel is the only artist, who has drawn for me, who resolutely refused to use a model, and declared he has no more needed one than I should need a multiplication-table to work on a mathematical problem!"

"Tenniel raised the political cartoon to a new level of dignity and importance."

"Tenniel, who had started as a child prodigy, nearly ended as one. When a boy, fencing with his father, he lost the sight of one eye. But the remaining one saw more than most."

"We worked together for seven years. Tenniel and other artists declared I would not work with Carroll for seven weeks! I accepted the challenge, but I, for that purpose, adopted quite a new method. No artist is more matter-of-fact or businesslike than myself: to Carroll I was not Hy. F., but someone else, as he was someone else. I was wilful and erratic, bordering on insanity. We therefore got on splendidly."

"To have known the man was even as great a treat as to read his books. Lewis Carroll was as unlike any other man as his books were unlike any other author's books. It was a relief to meet the pure simple, innocent dreamer of children, after the selfish commercial mind of most authors."

"In More Romps there is plenty of healthy spirit, but just a suspicion of vulgarity, against which Mr. Harry Furniss would do well to guard in his future illustration of childish revelry."

"The artist's tact in meeting the author in the wood where things have no names kept their association alive for the seven years that Carroll was puttering with the book [Sylvie and Bruno] and that Furniss was supposed to be looking at the pictures."

"Muhammad isn't sacred to me. I don't blame Muslims for not laughing at our drawings. I live under French law. I don't live under Quranic law."

"I am not afraid of reprisals, I have no children, no wife, no car, no debt. It might sound a bit pompous, but I'd prefer to die on my feet than to live on my knees."

"I conceived this story [ MW ] with the intention of presenting readers a picaresque drama that distort the traditional atmosphere of my stories leave them stunned."

"I wish that all the ills of society - conformism, laziness, indolence, betrayal, violence, lust, rape - and especially the evils of politics will be represented in the form of an absolute depravity."

"Now I feel a great regret. My style inadequate forces me to complete the work without being able ..."

"When Superman and Batman came to Japan, it was right after the war, right? Together with the G.I.s. In other words, our height and theirs was completely different. We were totally overwhelmed physically, and got this complex about being unable to compete with White people. It was just then that Superman arrived, the White man’s representative, and I thought who the hell does he think he is? And then Lois Lane, the classic American beauty. Even her outfit and her makeup were like a foreign woman’s. Of course today Japanese make themselves up more like foreigners than foreigners do. Ha ha ha."

"Ha ha ha. But at the time, everyone in Superman looked like an alien from another planet. Compared with that, Mickey Mouse was just an animal, and so was easier to use. That’s the side I got consumed with. So just maybe, had I felt more in common with Superman, my drawing style would have been different."

"The children face problems such as violence, abuse, suicide etc. that medicine can not heal. It will never help these children psychologically and be his support ...? Even when they are in difficulty, in principle they do not speak with adults, or confide about their true intentions. However, expect some serious messages from adults. I will continue to send messages through manga. Children avoid them what force or what they want to impose anything. That is why I will continue to look for those things that [...] inspire their hearts."

"The new readers have mentality, fashions, feelings completely different from those of previous readers. Should I draw comics following my first readers in their growth? Or should I stop doing the cartoonist? ... More or less every three years a cartoonist for children is cornered. I, too, every three years, living a crisis. So I decide and I get back to work for my new readers as if they were the first. ... This is why I am certain that the good work that will draw able to make happy readers of all time."

"The science fiction and manga readers had the same ... Most fiction writers then had had some experience in the comic and some of it had even been absorbed completely ... I can not understand why those who love science fiction also loves the manga and vice versa. There are two kinds characterized by a biting satire and at worst are called "extravagant". ... Both are aimed toward the future, and therefore contain romantic adventures for young people."

"I feel there is sensuality ... eroticism in the primary things that move, like animals and insects. Being able to inspire the movement to still images ... gives me the joy of the creator that breathes life into things that do not have life. The movement must be sufficiently round and sweet ... so express its eroticism. In creating cartoons I always think of an ideal, but ... half the finish to doubt the rightness of what I'm doing. So I put all my expectations always work next. * * [...] I often say jokingly that comics are my true wife and that the cartoons are my lover. The fact that I am fully dedicated to animation, my lover ... is because it allows me to express in a sublime ... the interesting metamorphosis of a changing body. For me, the greatest fun, no doubt, lies in the draw and give movement to change processes. Always look in my cartons this metamorphosis."

"I am convinced that comics should not only make people laugh. For this in my stories found tears, anger, hatred, pain and end not always happy."

"Long ago, many of the small hells that took place in the camps right next to my house showed the joy of living, and tirelessly despite everything"

"What I try to appeal through my works is simple. The opinion is just a simple message that follows: "Love all the creatures! Love everything that has life"! I have been trying to express this message in every one of my works. Though it has taken the different forms like "the presentation of nature," "the blessing of life," "the suspicion of too much science-oriented civilisation," anti-war and so on."

"Comics are an international language, they can cross boundaries and generations. Comics are a bridge between all cultures"

"I first followed the comics of Tagawa Suihō and Yokoyama Ryūichi. But suddenly, once I became devoted to Disney, I set out to copy and master that stuffed-animal style, eventually ending up with how I now draw."

"Those American comics themselves were heavily influenced by Keaton’s comedies, Mack Sennett, those sorts of films from the golden age of comedy. The gagmen that appeared there, for example Roscoe Arbuckle or Ben Turpin, there were lots of comics that used their style, their faces just as is. Especially Chaplin with his bowed legs and over-sized shoes. Those sorts of features were used directly in comics. In that era, all American cartoonists imitated the stars of comedy. That is what I worked so hard at copying, and so that’s why my comics are bowlegged and big-shoed. At the level of content too I was deeply influenced by the strong social caricatures of Chaplin’s comedies, the tears mixed with the laughter. The biggest influence of all was the rhythm."

"Around 1945, daily life might have been hard, but the reputation of Disney was at its highest. The voices of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck had stabilized, Snow White and Bambi were huge hits and had received a number of international prizes. It really was like the brightness of a rising sun. And then Japanese children after the war had no choice but to face the flood of Disney comics that accompanied the brainwashing of “American democracy.” That was their merit as propaganda against the Japanese."

"Tezuka (1928–1989) was a frail child with a limp who spent his spare time drawing insects. By high school he had seen several doctors, most notably one who treated drawing-related arm injuries. Ironically, he chose to study medicine because of the physically and financially straining prospect of being a cartoonist, but he continued to draw throughout his years at Osaka University Medical School. His first book of manga (Japanese for comics), which he published in 1947 at the age of 19, sold 400 000 copies."

"After graduation, Tezuka became a full-time cartoonist and hit the big time with Astro Boy, about a robot boy who is rescued by a sympathetic doctor. In 1963, Astro Boy became the first homegrown animated cartoon to air in Japan, giving birth to the billion-dollar anime industry. Tezuka had created one of Japan’s most enduring post–World War II cultural exports. But in the late 1960s people started to complain that cartoons were rotting kids’ brains and teachers began enforcing a “no comics” rule in the classroom. Tezuka’s cutesy animated television shows, so novel in the 1950s, became laughable during the 1960s. Tezuka responded by creating some of the most outrageously racy, controversial, morbid adult-oriented comics, ever."

"Tezuka Osamu was born the eldest son of three children on November 3rd, 1928, in Toyonaka City, Osaka. An extremely witty and imaginative boy, he grew up in a liberal family exposed to manga and animation. As a boy he also had a love for insects reminiscent of Fabre, and, reflecting the level of his interest in the insect world, later incorporated the ideogram for "insect" into his pen name. Having developed an intense understanding of the preciousness of life from his wartime experience, Tezuka Osamu aimed to become a physician and later earned his license, but ultimately chose the profession he loved best: manga artist and animated film writer. Tezuka Osamu's manga and animated films had a tremendous impact on the shaping of the psychology of Japan's postwar youth. His work changed the concept of the Japanese cartoon, transforming it into an irresistible art form and incorporating a variety of new styles in creating the "story cartoon." Changing the face of literature and movies, his work also influenced a range of other genres."

"His enduring theme that of the preciousness of life, formed the crux of all of Tezuka Osamu's works. Tezuka Osamu, creator of a great cultural asset and gifted with an unbeatable pioneering spirit combined with an enduring passion for his work and a consistent view to the future, lived out his entire life tirelessly pursuing his efforts, passing away at the age of 60 on February 9th, 1989."

"Tezuka is a hero in Japan, a pioneer on equal standing with the world’s other great illustrators and animators, including Walt Disney. This high status is a result of his prolific output, innovative style and the role he played in elevating manga to a form of art. Tezuka’s legacy continues to grow in Japan and abroad as new reissues or translations of his more than 700 publications are released — from tales of robot “Astro Boy” to the troubled world of doctor “Black Jack.” Then there are the ongoing exhibitions of his work at museums across Japan, including the Tezuka Osamu Manga Museum in his hometown of Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture."

"Tezuka amazed all with his attention to detail and drawing abilities, and some teachers were so impressed that they nurtured his talents through the difficult years of World War II. In 1944, when all students were required to leave school and join the war effort by working in factories, Tezuka would draw manga and leave it in the toilets for other workers to read. But one memory from his childhood would linger longer than the others: the firebombing of Osaka. The devastation of that event, and the war that caused it, left a lasting mark on the young artist."

"Tezuka could never completely abandon medicine. Although he never actively practiced, he became a licensed doctor later in life, and one of his most famous manga series stars the rogue genius doctor, Black Jack. But life as both a doctor and an in-demand (though underpaid) young artist was difficult. Tezuka struggled to meet deadlines and commitments. His family feared for his health and begged him to focus on medicine, but he had become too successful, and too passionate, to stop."

"Tezuka continued producing work at an astounding pace right up until his untimely death from stomach cancer at 60. Nothing could slow him: not censorship, the demands of various editors nor changes in drawing trends (even when more realistic — i.e., more time consuming — illustrations became popular)."

"Tezuka was born in Toyanaka City, Osaka, in 1928. Though he attended medical school and became a licensed physician, he chose not to work as a doctor and instead devoted himself to writing and drawing manga and making animated films. Over the course of his long career Tezuka became a defining force in shaping the genre, publishing more than 700 manga running to more than 150,000 pages. Early Tezuka characters had large eyes, inspired by their American counterparts Betty Boop and Disney's Bambi. Large eyes have since become a stylistic hallmark of the whole genre."

"For Tezuka, a doctor is not just someone who heals the body, but someone who appreciates the value of life, and inspires others to value it as well. In Tezuka's Buddhist cosmology all life is sacred and nothing is more valuable than creating or continuing life."

"Would we have manga without Tezuka? According to Gravett, the question "is rather like asking if we would have French-language comics without Herge, or American comic books without Jack Kirby. Tezuka was pivotal and a huge inspiration [for manga artists].""

"He had few opportunities to talk with foreigners in Japanese. And Tezuka was an intensely curious person, because he was drawing so much. He always needed stories, he always needed information. Because he often had in parallel three or four stories that he was working on. He was like a sponge. He was a real intellectual, kind of unique, differentiated a little from other manga artists in the sense that not only had he gone to college, but he had gone to medical school. He was a licensed physician. He had read German literature, Russian literature, American literature, Japanese literature. He was from a completely different orbit. An anomaly in the industry, and he remains so. So I think he was always interested in what’s going on in the outside world, and I think with Jared and me, since we both spoke Japanese very well, he found some value in a friendship with us. He was very nice to me, I must say. He changed my life. I only knew him from 1977 to when he died in 1989, so a relatively short time. But I often wondered how is it that he had time to even think about some things. Like sometimes he’d send a postcard, or sometimes he’d call, he wanted to know something like, “what do you think about this?” And then he would always say something like “when you going to get married?” Something like that, like a father almost, because he was older than I was. I’ve often wondered how he had time to think about it, or write. I have letters that he wrote, I don’t know how he had time."

"After Tezuka passed away there were so many memorial publications and documentaries. He was so lauded, it was a huge national event in Japan. And then of course inevitably after a certain number of years there’s this “anti-Tezuka movement,” simply because his influence was so great, at some point you have to revolt against him. Some people have said, “how could he possibly have done all that stuff? It’s not possible.” From the standpoint of Americans, they would think nobody could be that productive. You could not draw that amount of stuff. But of course in the case of Americans, they’re usually not aware of the Japanese production system that Tezuka was responsible largely for developing, how that operated. He was like a movie director: He had people who would fill in the bushes in the background, spot the blacks and that kind of thing, but he was in charge, he drew the characters and he broke down the story. He may have had all kinds of assistants drawing the squares on the page for the panels and spotting the blacks and doing background designs and stuff, but it was his work."

"Q: Tezuka passed away in '89. He didn’t live to see Evangelion or Pokémon happen. Of course it’s difficult to speculate, but what do you think he would think to see what happened since then?"

"[H]e also saw manga and anime as a vehicle for — not to sound too idealistic — international peace. And he really believed in international communication. He believed that better communication was the key to world peace. In today’s world that sounds almost naïve."

"Most of the time he was outside of the system in a sense because he was a manga artist. Manga were not as accepted as they are today. So he was this highly intellectual individual working in a field that doesn’t have a lot of legitimacy like it does today. So in that sense he could comment on things as an outsider. He tended to sometimes stake out slightly different positions. Let’s put it this way: sometimes he would modify his positions a little bit depending on who he was talking to. But he was very anti-war, anti-military, that is through and through in all his life. And actually it’s not just Tezuka, but also everyone in his generation. It was an ideology."

"Q: You could read some lightly anti-capitalist themes in some of his work, but it’s hard to say how much is just anti-authority."

"Q: There’s been this roller-coaster ride of Tezuka’s reputation in the West. He went from being unknown to being known as the “Astro Boy guy” to it being almost reversed and people knowing him for super dark adult comics. How do you think he ought to be remembered?"

"Q: It’s been pretty rare that we’ve gotten good adaptations of Tezuka’s work. Pluto is one of the rare ones that's really good. Why do you think that is?"

"I was born near the Po and it is the only respectable river in all Italy. To be respectable, a river must flow through a plain because water was created to stay horizontal and only when it is perfectly horizontal does it preserve its natural dignity. Niagara falls is an embarrassing phenomenon, like a man who walks on his hands."

"Minutes and seconds are strictly city preoccupations. In the city people hurry, hurry so as not to waste a single minute, and fail to realize that they are throwing a lifetime away."

"The party delegate was one of those gloomy, tight-lipped persons who seem to have been made for wearing a red scarf round the neck and a tommy-gun slung from one shoulder."

"Those were the days when there was a great deal of argument about that piece of international machinery known as the ‘Atlantic Pact’, which may have owed its name to the fact that between words and deeds there lies the breadth of an ocean."

"But the young people of today are benighted creatures born with telephone numbers imprinted on their brains, and where passion is concerned they have about as much grace as a pig in a cornfield."

"In the valley a bicycle is just as necessary as a pair of shoes, in fact more so. Because even if a man hasn’t any shoes he can still ride a bicycle, whereas if he hasn’t a bicycle he must surely travel on foot."

"‘Don Camillo, the system of teaching Christian charity by knocking people over the head is one that doesn’t appeal to me,’ the Lord answered severely."

"Italian humorist Giovanni Guareschi–a staunch anti-communist journalist and writer–coined a famous sentence to mock Stalinists “Contrordine, compagni!”, i.e., “Counter-order, comrades!”. It was the sudden announcement of an impromptu change in policies and ideas that activists ought to support with the same enthusiasm and dedication they previously displayed for their blatant contrary. Guareschi’s amusing assumption was that, no matter what, communists dully obey whatever kind of order comes from the party, inhaling the “official truth” (even typos in articles and manifestos) from a “third nostril” that nature provided them with."

"You are born with two things: existence and opportunity, and these are the raw materials out of which you can make a successful life."

"It is easy to prime the pump and have the words gush forth in a torrent of pious phrases but the proof of what we really want – regardless of what we say we want – is evident in the way we live."

"When they talk about “The men ruined this, the men did that,” it is a person, and their sex comes after what they’ve done. I believe that we say too much “We the women” and “We the men,” but should say “We the human beings.” There are really two types of human being -- the ones who care about environment, who want a more just society; and the other ones who care about greed and war. So it’s not a question of East and West, and American and Iranian, and women and men."

"The words are not the same and the feeling is not the same. You know, they say in France that translation is like a woman. She is either beautiful or faithful. So it’s better when she’s beautiful because when she’s too faithful it might be very ugly. This is French people. This translation, though, is very well made. This is my American editor, who knows me very well who has made the translation. But in any translation you lose a little bit."

"If the majority of people were right, we'd be living in paradise. But we are not living in paradise, we are living in hell. What does it mean? That means the majority of people are wrong. So I never believed what people told me."

"This is past, and it really comes from a very dark moment of my life. Dying is...When people say there is no alternative, there is always an alternative - to die, for example. It's a choice. You always have this choice."

"Well depressive, I don't know. If you have a little sensibility or a heart you have all the reason to be depressed once in a while. But the depression is like a motor for creation. I need a little bit of depression, a bit of acid in my stomach, to be able to create. When I'm happy I just want to dance.""

"Freedom of speech is very important because it is a fundamental part of our rights. Everyone must be allowed to say what they mean."

"Everyone can draw, and a drawing doesn't have any mistakes."

"Religious people are looking everywhere for blasphemy, but we cartoonists are just trying to make people laugh."

"Never give up hope, try with confidence; you will be successful."

"I waited so long to tell this story partly because when I started to make comics I didn’t want to be the guy of Arab origin who makes comics about Arab people…I didn’t want to be the official Arab comics artist. So I made a lot of comics in France which weren’t related to this part of me. I made a movie. But even during all that other work, I was thinking I have this good story, how could I tell it?"

"So the reader thinks: “My God, this man is saying horrible things in front of a child!”…It’s more sincere ... I wanted to try to describe the dark side and the positive side – if there was a positive side – all together ... I wanted to express the paradox that was in my father between modernity and tradition. It is a very common and human paradox. How can you be modern and progressive and still respect ancestral tradition? It generates conflict in the mind, I think."

"I don’t want to read modern comics, comics that are made today. I take care not to read too many contemporary comics, because I’m afraid it will influence me. Or it will complex me in a way. I see someone doing something great and I will say, “Oh, my god, I am shit — what am I doing?” So I prefer not to read them. Sometimes, when it appears to be incredible, I will read it — but I’m very afraid of reading modern comics. I read only old things and things I liked when I was young…"

"I tried not to generalize. But a lot of guys are like my father. He came from a poor family — the gap between where he started and where he ended up as a doctor was too big, and he was thinking he had a destiny! He was a little bit crazy. And he was so proud of this. He also hated Israel. It was a huge humiliation for him and his friends — the defeats by Israel. It was like a personal defeat. So he hated the United States, of course; he hated Europe because they had good relations with Israel. It was, like, biblical. As if Europe and the United States prefer the Jew to the Arab. And he wanted to say, “But I am as intelligent as them.” It was very strange."

"(What’s the last great book you read?) ...I tore through two volumes of “The Arab of the Future,” by Riad Sattouf — it’s the most enjoyable graphic novel I’ve read in a while."

"I am a great admirer of Hitler, and I am not ashamed to say so! I do not say that I agree with all the methods he employed, but he was a wonderful organizer and orator, and I feel that he and I have several things in common. Look at the amount of good we have done in just six months in Maharashtra. Actually, we have too much sham-democracy in this country. What India really needs is a dictator who will rule benevolently, but with an iron hand."

"Whereas RSS spokesmen can easily be put on the defensive with hostile questions, Thackeray is more clever. His approach is: if journalists call you "communal", "Hitlerian" or any other name, just accept it, and don't start spending your energy on trying to prove that you re a nice secularist whom the interviewer could respect. If you try to live up to his standards, you will never be able to satisfy him, so instead you should show that you don't care for his approval."

"I have great respect for Balasaheb Thackeray and we are the ones working to take his legacy forward. He is one of the most important and influential leaders in the history of our country. Throughout his life, Balasaheb stood for politics that furthered national interest and was against appeasement politics. I have also maintained decorum and dignity with every member of Balasaheb's family, irrespective of the political dynamics. But as an admirer of Balasaheb, I am pained by certain things. Today, it pains every admirer of Balasaheb, including me, to see the actions of those who claim to be torchbearers of his legacy. Mumbai and its people were so close to Balasaheb's heart. What would he have felt if he would have seen these people using those convicted in Mumbai bomb blasts for their campaigning? What would he have felt about these people allying with those who openly say they want to destroy Sanatan Dharma? What would Balasaheb have felt looking at these people aligning with those who celebrate Aurangzeb and abuse Savarkar. Can anyone claim to be upholding the legacy of Balasaheb after doing such things? Balasaheb always put principles above power. But now, it seems, power is everything for these people."

"People who live in totalitarian countries experience educational brainwashing and real fear of the government. They are not brave enough to stand out and express different opinions."

"I kept on reading, observing and reflecting on China’s political and social problems. Then in that year I suddenly felt a strong need to express my ideas. Comics is what I am good at, so I began to create political comics."

"I felt a narrowing of freedom of speech. The change was very pronounced when you compare Xi Jinping to previous eras of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao."

"This fear of the power of the totalitarian state is something normal people cannot understand."

"As a first-generation immigrant, I want to make the soil richer. My kid will grow up in a free world without fear and will be thinking like an ordinary American. I envy him very much."

"Throughout my my career – which began in 1990 right when the press became unionized – the themes have generally been social-political issues: police brutality, state terrorism, corruption, political maneuvers…And not just in Brazil, the themes I tackle looking abroad include war, armed conflicts, and torture. I’ve also done a lot about the Brazilian military dictatorship."

"The mainstream media’s side is money- it’s the same side as the financial markets."

"Journalism always takes a side, whether the journalist chooses to admit it or not."

"[Y]ou'll have people hijacking the Palestinian struggle as a chance for bashing the Jews, like European neo-Nazis who demonstrate against the occupation of Palestinian territories or the Iraq War. It’s important for the left to keep them apart from the legitimate struggle for the rights of the Palestinians; however, saying that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is a well-known tactic of intellectual dishonesty."

"What are your impressions of the US and Americans from your last three weeks? During my presentation [to the AAEC], I tackled some topics that criticize Americans and I know there is a difference between the American people and the foreign policy, but what really frustrates me is the carelessness of Americans. They really don’t, you know, care about others outside the country. They don’t know what’s going on in the other parts of the world. They do not care about their countrymen who die on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan. They didn’t learn from Vietnam."

"What is your impression of American editorial cartooning? I met two kinds of editorial cartoonists. Some of them, they deal with local and domestic issues and they never focus on U.S. foreign policy. One of them is Tom Toles, and I feel like he is not serving the people. And the others deal with international issues and understand the oppression and the suffering caused to other nations. One of them is Kal in The Economist. Really, I've started to change my mind and, you know what? I am going to be an international cartoonist. On the professional level, I was really impressed with Callahan's work--he talks about serious issues. I was so excited to meet such an iconic figure. The one lady, Jen Sorensen, I felt like she deals more with international issues."

"(I'm drawn to) all the issues that concern Egyptian citizen. I deal a lot with women's issues, gender rights, but I think I focus a lot of my work on Egyptian citizens and, because I think any reform should start with the Egyptian citizen, trying to get them to participate in this process. The purpose of editorial cartooning is to awaken people. Some media outlets, whether in the United States or Egypt, distort the facts. And normally the media is controlled either by government, by investors, by the people who have the money. So cartoons, they should look into issues and make it clear whether it is black or white, or whether there is a grey area. People can look and distinguish between sincere and honest cartoonists and from other kinds that are not. Even an historian can be under pressure and to fake the writing of history. But cartoonists, we have the freedom to say what we want."

"I didn't start out wanting to be an editorial cartoonist. I loved drawing from the moment I learned how to make a crayon work. I'd tell picture stories with my mom years before I learned how to read. When I was 10, a visiting cousin left an X-Men comic on the coffee table and I was instantly hooked, and it wasn't long before I was drawing my own superhero adventures. It just seemed like a natural path for me. I would be a comic book artist someday and I'd be pretty happy."

"I work with the TV on, lots of news, and as the 2016 campaign got more ridiculous I got more angry. I started venting my frustrations at all these eroding norms by drawing cartoons of Trump and then posting them online for friends. The responses were very positive and almost seemed like group therapy for those who shared them. People got a laugh out of it; they felt better, even. After the shock of the election I just kept going, and then suddenly it was January and my sister and I were at the Women's March in Washington D.C. holding signs made from one of my cartoons. The positive feedback was coming every few yards and I made a decision right there to make this a project-I would draw these cartoons until this guy was out of office because there's no way I can't not do it. When someone in the future asks me what I did during all this craziness I'd have this to show them. I did this."

"And it's not just getting the anger out of my head (and sleeping very well having done so, thank you very much) but letting others know that they're not alone in feeling this way, that their anger matters and that things can change for the better if we remind ourselves there's more of us than all those who accept this normalized cruelty. I used what I had, my ability to draw, as a tool to speak up. I didn't plan to, I just figured out how. Anyone can do the same, just figure out what your tools are and get loud. And if you can piss off a few bullies in the process, even better."

"I’ve been drawing since childhood but I studied economics instead of art, I was really interested in political news and geopolitics. My favourite topic is political drawing/cartoon. It is a perfect way to combine my 2 passions: my interest for the news and my drawing skills."

"I work in political/editorial cartoon but also in children’s book illustration. They are 2 different genres, but I like changing from time to time what kind of topics I’m working on. According to my mood I will spend more time in one or another genre.I like to denounce with my cartoons, but sometimes it is also good to put some poetry in this complicated world and the children illustrations help me to focus in something more positive."

"In the political-cartoons genre I like Ares and (Angel) Boligan´s work for their graphic style. I also admire the work of Quino…In children´s illustration, I could give a lot of names also but if I had to choose only one I can say I really admire the work of Rebecca Dautremer. I’m fascinated by her work."

"I work a lot on environmental issues, ecology, justice, peace, equality ... because it seems important to show through caricature and humor, the imbalance that humans generate our actions.Cartoonists not fix the planet, but we propose starting points for other views."

"Cartoon is the fun way to express opinions and communicate, that's why I like it. When I illustrate textbooks I also try to make them have humor."

"I've been publishing professionally since the early 90's, I was lucky enough to get to work in a newspaper and that was a great school, like a second university."

"My main motivation is to communicate an idea and generate a personal dialogue or with the reader around each image. I think we draw to "rethink"."

"I try by means of synthesis to tell as many things as possible, to reflect our inconsistencies and those of our society or simply to play with the absurd. It's a job that I really enjoy."

"I value the political awakening of society and I hope that these protests are not in vain and bring changes. This is something unprecedented in our country, never before were there massive marches that lasted more than a month and also in the middle of a pandemic. There is a very complex crisis and a government that does not listen, closes in on dialogue and its only option is force. I am very concerned about the violation of Human Rights by the forces of the State… It is very serious, inadmissible in a democracy."

"Imagine every piece you are painting could be your last piece, or maybe you will not be able to finish it. All those emotions and passion blended into me doing my best art at that time,"

"I am dreaming every day about going back to Syria … but I will never return before that criminal regime is toppled."

"Yarmouk is called a camp, but it’s really a part of the city with buildings, streets, and all the normal services. Growing up there was something nice and something hard. A lot of people in a small area; many pupils in the school. We had a beautiful, funny life – hard, but beautiful. Sometimes hard memories become nice when you look back. When I remember it now, I have nostalgia about that time. I remember my friends, my neighbourhood, my street, my family home."

"When I was a child, I loved to draw. I drew everything, and I drew on everything – I was drawing on the walls, in school textbooks, on my body - everywhere. This is a child’s job! I loved drawing and when I was in school, my art teacher supported me and entered my work in a UN children’s drawing prize which I won twice, when I was 13 and 14. Those prizes gave me the power and the belief to continue drawing – I felt like I had something to say through my drawing. You can explain your story, your feelings, your ideas."

"when I was around 18, I started thinking about cartoons because I saw a lot in the newspapers, and on the walls of the camp. The walls were like our newspaper in the camp. Yarmouk was one big newspaper. In 1998 I published my first cartoon in a Palestinian magazine, then had exhibitions in the camp, in Damascus, Aleppo and Lebanon. I started connecting with newspapers – that’s how it goes. At the same time, I was also a teacher in an elementary school in Damascus."

"My early cartoons were about Palestine, Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. More political than funny because it was difficult for me to draw something funny. I always go towards tragedy and darkness because I draw what I’m feeling. I’m trying to explain about myself and my people."

"I’m still drawing now. Drawing in a safe place like Switzerland is good, you have total freedom. But you lose the sense of danger, the challenge. For me I did my best drawings under the bombs. I lost a big part of my power when I left Syria, but I still have the power of memory."

"I moved many times in Syria starting from March 2011 until December 2012 when I left. The last six months were very difficult to live under the bombs all the time. At that time, we would hear three sounds. The first was the sound of the shell when it was launched. The second was the sound of the shell above us in the sky. The third sound was the sound the of the explosion on the ground, or in a building. I was drawing all the time, but when I heard that first sound, I would lift my pencil and wait, thinking: ‘maybe this is my last drawing’. If I heard the third sound, that meant I was still alive. I’m lucky because I always heard all three sounds, but many thousands of Syrian people around me never heard the third sound."

"Before, my family was all in the same place, now everyone is spread around the world. I’m here in Switzerland, in Geneva, my brother is in Cologne in Germany, my parents and two other brothers are in Sweden, and another brother is in Madrid, in Spain. It’s not easy to connect with them. It’s good we have social media and video calls, but it’s not the same. My kids are speaking French now, my brother’s kids are speaking German, Swedish, another Spanish. When they meet now it’s not easy to connect with so many languages, different cultures, different educations. We will lose our family tree. The branches have been cut off and are drifting down the river in different directions. But Switzerland is very good for my kids, without any problems and without any bad memories, without any dangers in the future. For me, it’s okay. I’m working here, I’m still drawing, I’m feeling good – life is good – but the memories occupy my mind all the time."

"I’ve drawn other figures who have left everything else behind but take a window with them, because the window is their memory. I have my own ideas and feelings about the images, but I hope everyone who looks at them can see the effect of war on people."

"I hope all the people who have problems in their countries can get out. I support people who want to get out if they have dreams, if they want to protect their kids."

"Sometimes, to make a little bit of change in people’s lives they just need a tent or a little bit of food, a bit of support or a little education."

"When you have a cause, the best way to express yourself is artistically"

"I have great hope for the E-revolution … Twitter and Facebook are marvelous inventions and I use them to spread my work. I hope Palestinians will use these tools to gain their right of return."

"The tools of oppression have evolved over two years of warfare, from the police baton to gas."

"I’m only showing the harsh reality of the situation. I would love to show happy kids playing but this is not what is happening. At moments like these as I draw I am also crying."

"All the regimes in the world have taken advantage of the Palestinian situation. The Arabs have exploited it to cement their authority and the West has taken advantage economically. Everyone has played around with us. When you’re a card, you can never fully know who’s holding you."

"There is a big difference between revolution against oppression and terrorist activity. Revolution is among the most honorable things to sacrifice for. It doesn’t thrive on oppression and the murders of innocents. Whoever does this is preventing progress in their community."

"The silence of the international community in these situations allows terror to thrive … as educated people we have a duty to stand against this type of terror and those who support it."

"Firstly, I’m a human being. There’s no massive difference between a Syrian and a Palestinian in Syria. This is why I’m not surprised to see Palestinians fighting on both sides—most have tried to stay neutral, but all have been affected by the cycle of war."

"The expansion of [Israeli] settlement and the arrest of activists does not make me optimistic about real peace anytime soon. Everyone suffers from this political stupidity.” Hani adds, “The problem in these situations is never the people—it’s always the leaders who guide policy."

"The future is mysterious,” he says. “Now we’re seeing an entire generation lost to war. My hopes for the future are not personal; they’re for my people. My hopes are for peace, and only for peace. I’m married to a Syrian woman and our son carries two nations in his heart."

"I read a lot of newspapers, magazines, books. The news are the fundamental resource to find ideas for the satirical cartoons but also for generic themes, for gag cartoons. Now all the media can give us a big number of inspirations."

"In these years there are a great number of debates about similar cartoons. Many ideas are similar, of course, because the themes are recurring: war, peace, pollution, society, etc. Condemning all artists isn’t right. Many of them have in fact similar ideas, at the same time even if in opposite sides of the World. It’s although important for all the authors to truly check if the idea is truly an original one… Even if checking the whole web, catalogues and magazines could be a hard task indeed."

"plagiarism must be stigmatized, but it’s increasingly becoming some sort of “Witch Hunt” nowadays."

"I love the art of Kambiz Derambakhsh, for his graphic synthesis and his original ideas."

"I don’t think it would be possible to consider an author the absolute best, because each one among the best artists in the World are to remember for their own particular skills. I think that two of them, at the moment, are Vladimir Kazanewsky and Angel Boligan."

"I remember a simple, poetic, but wonderful cartoon of the great Cheval: a turtle walking slowly carrying on its shell a slug with a happy face, with the antennas folded back by the wind. It can be considered a good example of how drawings can be simple but give a precise idea of the relativity of things."

"I make my art on drawing paper, with Indian ink, watercolours and pastels. Nib and brush are my best friends."

"I think it’s important that this job doesn’t lose the old handcrafted tradition, and that artists try not to rely only on a computer. The risk that can be taken is some sort of similarity among all different styles."

"In the art world I love René Magritte, for his dreamlike and surreal view of life and the world around us. I also really do like pre-Raphaelite artists such as Dante Gabriele Rossetti."

"(My favorite artist that uses dark humor is) the French humorist Claude Serre, with a fine graphic style and a very hard black humor can be found in his series of cartoons, like “Humour Noir & Hommes en Blanc”. Another good example that can be easily found is the book “Idées Noires”, by Franquin. Very different from his usual style, but still a little gem that is not very known to the public."

"I like to tell my thoughts in a funny way and as short as possible"

"I was born 40 years ago in Isfahan, Iran. My childhood is not my life's favourite part. I was impatient to grow and get old enough to be able to control my own life. However, that period gave me a deep knowledge of how pain, sorrow, fear and inequality feel like. It gave me sharp eyes to identify them and be empathetic with people who experience those feelings. This is the main power of my art process. As a child, I felt deep love for animals, and I have been having many pets ever since. I loved watching cartoons and painting, and I wanted to be a big painter like Leonardo da Vinci; but I had not the chance to attend any art course until I was 18 years. I have never stopped making art after that. I married when I was 21 years with an animator, and he has helped me a lot in my art career during those years."

"In my early childhood, I liked to draw but my love for it decreased when I went to school. Our art teachers asked us to draw from a picture and never cared about our own thoughts and imaginations to be drawn. I liked drawing but not what I was asked to draw. When I was 18 years old, I attended an Iranian painting (miniature) course, but there I was not allowed to draw my thoughts too. So, I dropped from that course and attended a cartoon course; and then it was exactly what I was looking for. It was all about drawing your thoughts and feelings, and I had lots of thoughts to draw. While I was trying to learn drawing cartoons, I attended an animation course too and I found it so amazing. Those were the best art forms for me to share what I was feeling Then I became an animator and cartoonist."

"(My cartoons) convey a short, unique and humorous message. It is what I like to do. I spend lots of time in the first step of the creative process to find such an idea, then I write it as a short story. Only after that I decide which art form - cartoon, comic or animation - can express that story in the best way. The right choice can increase its chance to become viral. A short humorous content has more chance to be shared on social medias and thus reach and impact more people too."

"I want to mention artists who inspired me so much like cartoonist Quino and Yuriy kuzubukin, Pete Docter's ideas and animations, the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Charlie Chaplin's comedies. Their art talk about human deep feelings. mostly their pains and sorrows, social inequalities, what is life and how loneliness feels, loving nature and other creatures. These are the main foundational concepts of most of my artworks too."

"I was trained from the Plastic Arts, so in my work the form always plays an important role, accompanying the message with the subtlety, elegance or strength that the subject requires. In this regard, and aware that a cartoon is good when it has a good balance of content and form, after long years of work when it frequently achieves this, one can speak of evolution."

"From 2000 and especially 2006 until today, and thanks also to social networks, my work has had a greater presence both in Mexico and internationally."

"We are surrounded by absurd behavior, contradictions, manipulations and, just by looking around, I have dozens of ideas on how to make a drawing as a mirror and show the context."

"Thanks to globalization, new technologies and social networks, we know that what makes us laugh or saddens us, causes exactly the same reaction on the other side of the world."

"Every problem, private and local, is ultimately global in its nature. We are all, in one way or another, involved in the same politics, religion, taboos, extremism, intolerance, absurdity, as well as consumerism and technology that dictate our often-predictable behavior. I am not trying to pass judgment with my drawings, I only want to provide the evidence."

"Mexico is one of the most important economies in Latin America, but is no doubt better known as a cultural country with its plastic arts, monumental painters, writers, cuisine, colonial architecture and archaeological sites. All this is the heritage of humanity. But the violence and drug dealing are usually much more visible."

"The Charlie Hebdo case is disturbing for the entire guild. There are many taboos, intolerance and extremism. And our task is — to destroy them. I believe that clever and artistic, reasoned and convincing humor can push more and more walls in our world. And it can be done without insult or aggression."

"I am inspired to create an illustrated chronicle of the world in which we live."

"Terrorist attacks, global warming, digital technologies [Response to question about three things that have influenced our world the most in recent years]"

"Being from the “Star Wars” generation, trilogies are important to me."

"I have no idea what “the reader” wants or who they are; I’ve always drawn the strip that I would like to read and then hoped that someone else would find it worth reading, too."

"Every parent wishes their kids came with a Pause button. But they don’t have one, and you begin to realize that every age is fascinating. Still, I think I made these books to keep a piece of their childhoods with me. Later, I’ll get to show them how incredible—how small, goofy, and wild—they all were."

"Buenas Noches, Planeta is a short story about a stuffed little deer, that my actual daughter has, and when I asked her what's the name of your new friend she said "Planeta," which is planet in English, and I thought it was the weirdest, funniest, coolest name I have ever heard for a stuffy. So then the story came out of that."

"my favorite illustrators and cartoonists in history were published (in the New Yorker)"

"Kevin Johansen is an American-Argentine musician who was born in Alaska. We have been doing a show together for the last 10 years in which, while Kevin sings with his band, I sit right next to him on a desk and I draw. It's the nerdiest version of a rock star. And it's fun!"

"I always think that in a boxing match you should always put a normal person in there, to throw in some punches. You need something to just compare how good people really are at what they do!"

"Andrés Calamaro is a legendary, very famous, mythical musician in Argentina and in Latin America, and I have done cover art for him. I did one too for Kevin, for an album called Logo, and in that one I put a Zeppelin. And then, the cover I did for Calamaro for La Lengua Popular"

"La Editorial Común is a project in which we started publishing comics of cartoonists in Argentina. Argentina is strange country, and for some reason there's always been a lot of cartoonists and comic artists that come from there, and most of them end up working here in the U.S. or even in Europe. But those books sometimes are not published in Argentina. So maybe nobody knows in Argentina who José Muñoz is, or who Trillo is, or who know who Altuna is. They are very amazing cartoonists. And for some reason in Argentina a lot of their books are not available. So we started trying to do something about that, and also try to get hype for the boom of the graphic novel in Latin America, which had been happening over the last 30 years in many other parts of the world. And especially we wanted to do it in Argentina because people there are still kind of, you know, they have this idea that comics are just adventures and jokes. And that's kind of saying the same thing like good movies are just Chuck Norris films and Jerry Lewis. And those are good films! But now, La Editorial helps us get more of those books down there."

"So in my cartooning there's an influx of a lot of influences that are not only from cartooning, but to mention some: Hergé and Tintin, Quino and Mafalda, Art Spiegelman and Maus. And these works have influenced me more as a human being than as an artist. Also I could mention Woody Allen, Kurt Vonnegut, John Steinbeck as some others. A lot of my influences will show up in my daily strip, so I have strips were maybe Chaplin shows up, or strips where Snoopy shows up, or strips where I put a little phrase by Vonnegut or Steinbeck, or, you know, Harper Lee, stuff that I read while growing up. And knowing that they impacted me somehow. You know, Woody Allen, and Monty Python, and just all of that is in there, and also a lot of Latin American culture. So I am just this big salad full of different ingredients. And I generally don't think it's very nice when an artist tries to go like, "Hey, I just appeared out of nowhere! I am such an original." I mean, say thanks, man!"

"Macanudo is like a schizophrenic strip so it's everything I grew up reading, like Peanuts, like Calvin And Hobbes."

"The Simpsons is like a Bible for comic artists!"

"When I was about five or six, I got in big trouble at school for illustrating an age-inappropriate poem about the Queen. To my detriment, the art was so carefully and lovingly drawn that my teacher could see exactly who was depicted, and what was going on. I grew up in England where that sort of thing was frowned upon—unlike corporal punishment, which was actively employed—and it all ended very badly. But I definitely learned an early lesson in the breathtaking power of art."

"(Being able to draw) means that I have both an escape, and a voice."

"I spend a majority of my time thinking, and reading: Trying to find the angle that no one else would think to depict. I am always fearful of producing obvious things. While all art is at least tangentially political (the second you publicly place a mark on a piece of paper you will piss SOMEONE off), mine is deliberately overtly political. I take issues and events and try desperately to make sense of them. Like a columnist, I practice opinion journalism except I actually draw my conclusions, so to speak."

"My sketchbooks are a mess. I use them as sounding boards so there's a mixture of writing, word associations, and incomprehensible squiggles. Except when I am trying to perfect a caricature, the art in them is blisteringly rudimentary."

"I find that I can say so much more through humor. People are far more likely to absorb a message or opinion if it is wrapped in wit."

"If men be fighting over there [across the channel] for their possessions and their bodies against the Corsican robber [Napoleon], they are fighting here to be first in Ackermann's shop and see Gillray's latest caricatures. The enthusiasm is indescribable when the next drawing appears; it is a veritable madness. You have to make your way in through the crowd with your fists."

"To the task of political caricature, Gillray brought excellent working qualities. He had a plain straight-forward practical understanding, which never rose above the comprehension of the crowd—he never desired to veil his satire in subtleties, nor hide it in thoughts far-fetched and profound. The venom of his shafts was visible—nor did he seek to conceal his poisonous draughts in a gilded cup. All was plain and clear—and all was bitter and biting. The measures of the tories, and the plans of the whigs, were to him a daily source of subsistence and satire. He lived like a caterpillar on the green-leaf of reputation; and loved to crawl over those whom Fame had marked out as her own. He never desisted from either shame or remorse—public distress was his gain—private misery brought him bread, and out of the bickerings of men for place and power he had his per-centage. Our ridiculous expeditions, our modes of raising money, our fears, our courage, our love of liberty, and our hatred of France, were to him so many sources of emolument. He lifted a tax off all public—and even made Napoleon contribute."

"The golden age of English caricature, from 1780 to 1830, was dominated by an artist of genius, James Gillray, who lifted the art of political caricature to a higher plain."

"There's something special about Gillray. I feel an affinity with him, because he was the first to have an obsession with politics and to do characters as intense as Fox and Pitt. My favourite Gillray is The Apotheosis of Hoche, a mock-elegy for a French revolutionary general. We don't remember now who Hoche was, but the print is so strong that it leaps out at you, including millions of decapitated heads singing the general's praises."

"Gillray was ballsier than Hogarth. He was so successful that he affected the Government's standing and kept the Jacobins at bay. Nobody could do that now. The nearest we get to it is Spitting Image or Rory Bremner. But it's essential to keep on trying, and in Gillray the savagery of the attack is what counts. I love his obsession with vulgar bodily functions. Everyone thought he was strange – he never justified himself. I find that interesting. My choice is the Toadstall upon a Dung-hill, where Pitt grows out of royalty. It's a good double swipe, at a politician and a monarch."

"Gillray too frequently lent his powerful talents to attack private character in a manner not justifiable."

"A powerful draughtsman, a master of the art of engraving, and possessing a vigorous imagination, he had but little to fear from Sayer. He was really an excellent engraver in line, dot, and aquatint, but these talents are all merged in his fame as a caricaturist, in which walk of art he still remains unrivalled."

"James Gillray was a patriotic Englishman and a commercial artist. Which took precedence hardly matters, for once the Terror began in France, and English life, liberty and property were threatened, his patriotic feelings and commercial instincts went hand-in-hand. The educated and monied customers of Mrs Humphrey's shop could be sure that their political views and prejudices would be reflected and reinforced. The excesses of the revolution were pilloried mercilessly, as were those Englishmen rash enough to express sympathetic views. The advent of Napoleon Bonaparte raised the stakes, heightened the danger. The true sensitivity of Gillray as an artist is seen in his response to Bonaparte, without in the least reducing his impact as a satirist."

"James Gillray...stands without dispute at the head of the English caricature tradition, and his boldly drawn prints are not merely masterpieces of caricature but also highly original examples of the etcher's art."

"You appear not to know that he was a reluctant ally of the tory faction, and that his heart was always on the side of whiggism and liberty. He did not "desert to the tories," but was pressed into their service, by an unfortunate concurrence of circumstances. He had unluckily got himself into the Ecclesiastical Court for producing a politico-scriptural caricature, which he had entitled "The Wise Men's Offspring:" and while threatened on the one hand with pains and penalties, he was bribed by the Pitt party on the other with the offer of a pension, to be accompanied by absolution and remission of sins both political and religious, and by the cessation of the pending prosecution. Thus situated, he found, or fancied himself obliged to capitulate."

"He never appeared to me to be that lover of low society and gross mirth which you describe; but silent and reserved he was, till he discovered that his companions upon any given occasion were frank and liberal. His own patriotism and free principles then began to peer forth, and occasionally rose to enthusiastic fervour. I remember being assembled with him and a few other artists, most of whom are since dead, at the Prince of Wales coffee-house (then newly opened): the purpose of the meeting was to form a fund and institute a Society for the relief of decayed artists, &c., where Gillray discovered no deficiency either of good sense, benevolent feeling, or gentlemanly propriety of conduct; yet there was an eccentricity about him, which being no unusual concomitant of genius, was felt to be agreeable. After business and supper were concluded, we drank toasts; and when it came to his turn to name a public character, the Juvenal of caricature surprised those who knew him but superficially, by proposing that we should drink David! (the French painter). He was by this time a little elated, having become pleased with his associates, and having drowned his reserve in the flow of soul, and, kneeling reverentially upon his chair as he pronounced the name of the (supposed) first painter and patriot in Europe, he expressed a wish that the rest of the company would do the same. This was after our artist had transferred his nominal allegiance to the Pitt party;—before David had been guilty of the worst of those revolutionary atrocities which stain his character, and while his artistical reputation in this country stood much higher than since we have had ocular opportunity of appreciation his professional merit."

"There have been artists before you who dabbled in caricature. There have also been caricaturists who dabbled in art. But you, sir, are the first considerable artist who made caricature his full-time occupation... You were the first to realise that the principles of art, selection and emphasis, could be adjusted to a new balance in a new type of draughtsmanship, neither the representation of reality nor mere grotesque invention, but the discriminating exaggeration of what is true... If Hogarth was the grandfather of the modern cartoon, YOU were its father."

"I cannot think of anyone with whom I should have had more rows—crusted old reactionary that he was... Gillray was a supreme caricaturist of personalities, with a clear sense of the cartoonist's function, which was, of course, to disturb complacency."

"The main objection [of the Victorians] to Georgian caricaturists was their indulgence in personality: their bitter attacks; scurrility; impugning of individual character; and ruthless exploitation of private vices to damn public figures. James Gillray was the main culprit. Even the Prince of Wales (later George IV) and Napoleon did not deserve the derision which Gillray regularly visited upon them. In 1851, the Morning Chronicle carefully distinguished between modern cartoons, which were satires, and Gillray's caricatures, which had been "libels" on the subject; they were unfair, damaging, and destructive."

"I first came across Gillray at about the age of eight. My sister brought home an Illustrated History of Britain, and I nicked it. The book was full of images by Gillray and other artists, and it became my primer in cartooning. I love Gillray's 'F*** you' attitude... I love Gillray's hearty contempt, especially when he shows Pitt as Midas shitting money on the Commons. Gillray really goes for it – he's full of scatological exuberance, and here he punches the solar plexus by saying money is shit."

"He attacked powerful people in a most ferocious way, with brilliant draughtsmanship. Gillray opened the whole thing up. I share his scatological humour and obsession with movements of the body. Gillray also seemed to notice every wrinkle and crease – he's equally good at extremes of girth and thinness. I love Pitt as Death on a Pale Horse in Presages of the Millenium, galloping over the "swinish" advocates of peace with France, because it's so wild. I once drew Mrs Thatcher as the top bitch at Cruft's, with Heath as a tiny turd on the ground beside her."

"Hogarth's honesty of purpose was as conspicuous in an earlier time, and we fancy that Gillray would have been far more successful and more powerful but for that unhappy bribe, which tuned the whole course of his humour into an unnatural channel."

"It was, indeed, Gillray who excelled all others, at this period, in the production of this sort of thing. Savage in temperament, and at times extremely coarse, he had extraordinary vigour."

"Gillray was morose and angry, a sort of savagely perverted moralist, to whom mankind was hateful."

"Certainly, the private life of James Gillray was disastrous; yet so clear-sighted was he, so ruthless in his regard for truth as he saw it (even in himself), that his drawings have a bitter verity almost unknown elsewhere in British art: a cruel rigour that makes him seem, in spirit, closer to the satirists of the Continent, where his art was, in fact, much admired. However remote the politics of Gillray's day may seem, to look at his caricatures is to be caught up, almost in spit of oneself, in the frenzies of this patriotic radical."

"Gillray tells us more about the eighteenth century than most written histories."

"[A]t the outrageous height of his career, he had been rightly regarded as the greatest exponent of lacerating caricature anywhere in Europe. Gillray revolutionised the art of satire, pushing himself to such extremes of savage, unfettered inventiveness that his admirers, and even his enemies, became addicted... [H]e is now increasingly seen as one of the finest British artists of his time. Cartoonists across the world are indebted to his brilliantly visual spleen. They include British practitioners Steve Bell, Peter Brookes, Martin Rowson, Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman... They recognise that Gillray's work, far from succumbing to the ephemerality of most topical cartoons, contains some of the most enduring and astonishing images from a turbulent period in European history."

"It is the intention of this book to offer as complete an insight into the works and times of James Gillray as may be consistent with the limits of one volume...and...not losing sight of the responsibility of rejecting such subjects and matters as, after consideration, seem either too ephemeral and uninteresting to deserve preservation, or too boldly coloured with the coarseness of an age which did not hesitate, in its most polished circles, to treat of subjects that modern refinement has decided to pass over in silence."

"It seems we make sitcoms work by luck rather than design. [The American method] They fund a sitcom expensively right up front because they know if they get it right it'll make everybody's fortune."

"[On pitching ideas to programme commissioners] When I am turned down, my first thought may be that the person concerned is an idiot. But perhaps he isn't. Perhaps what I am offering has simply got to be better."

"I feel there is terrible prejudice [...] I think it's to do with laziness and preconceptions principally laziness and fear on the part of the establishment. I have a reasonably wide knowledge of the black talent available on paper and on stage and am constantly amazed by it. I have a feeling that people in the seats of power in television entertainment don't know about it because they haven't bothered to explore it."

"Humphrey can't be left to do it on his own. It's not enough for the industry to say: "Of course, we're doing out bit for racial equality — we've got Humphrey Barclay, haven't we?""

"(to silent Partner). "Pray! have you no conversation?""

". "So, you're going to marry old Mrs. . Well, I think you're a dooced lucky fellah!" . "By Jove, I don't think the luck is all on my side! If she finds money, hang it, I find blood and—haw—beauty!""

". "I think, sir, if you would be so good as to go first, and break the top rail, my pony would get over.""

"When between six and seven years of age, some of Leech's drawings were seen by the great , and, after carefully looking at them and the boy, he said, 'That boy must be an artist; he will be nothing else or less.' This was said in full consciousness of what is involved in advising such a step. His father wisely, doubtless, thought otherwise, and put him to the medical profession at , under Mr. . He was very near being sent to Edinburgh, and apprenticed to Sir ."

"... His stay of nine years at never brought him nearer to the top of the school than the fifth form — the forms being at that time counted downwards, not upwards, as now. He had as a fellow-pupil the famous William Makepeace Thackeray, with whom he formed a friendship that ripened day by day, and never ceased until death parted them. It is said that Leech once had the intense happiness of hearing that when Thackeray was asked to name his dearest friend, he replied, after a few moments' thought, "John Leech.""

"A man of grave and almost melancholy cast of countenance, handsome withal, was ; quiet, reserved, and gentlemanly in manner, a hearty hater of posing, and noise, and publicity. Save at the weekly dinner, he consorted but little with his colleagues on Punch, with the exception of Thackeray: he was intimate, at one time, with Dickens, to whom he gave a walking-stick inscribed "C. D., from J. L.," which Dickens often carried; with , with Mowbray Morris, and with . He and had been fellow medical students at the Hospital, fellow assistants to that general practitioner who figures in Ledbury as "Mr. Rawkins,” but in later life there was not much in common between them. I fear Albert was a little too rowdy for Leech."