cartoonists

"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."

"... 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.""

"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 ."

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

". "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!""

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

"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."

"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."

"[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."

"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?""

"[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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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"

"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!"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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