Chris Madden Cartoons

A searchable archive for licensing

Physical activity v. mental activity

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Well read physically lazy person cartoon

Well-read mind cartoon

A cartoon from a series featuring a life coach and lifestyle advisor called Mrs Walton.
In the cartoon she is cautioning someone that “A well-read mind is a sign of a lazy body.”

The cartoon is partly about the cultural divide between physical and mental activity, and the various attitudes of superiority that are generated by both.
Drawn: 2012
Cartoon reference number: a904

Crossing bridges cartoon

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Crossing bridges cartoon

Crossing bridges cartoon

A cartoon from a series of ‘wellness’ cartoons featuring a life coach and spiritual advisor called Mrs Walton.
In this cartoon she is advising someone that “Just because there is a bridge it doesn’t mean that you have to cross it.”.

The cartoon is about the way that people’s lives and attitudes are channeled in particular directions by the structures imposed by their societies.
A cartoon about life coaches and lifestyle advice.
Drawn: 2012
Cartoon reference number: a903

Confirmation bias cartoon

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Confirmation bias cartoon

Confirmation bias cartoon

A cartoon from a series featuring a life coach and lifestyle advisor called Mrs Walton.
In the cartoon she. is advising someone to “Never believe anyone who you agree with.”

The cartoon is about the fact that people tend to seek out opinions that agree with their own, thus reinforcing rather than questioning their own opinions, a phenomenon called confirmation bias.
Drawn: 2012
Cartoon reference number: a902

Shame on you – woke shaming cartoon

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Shame on you - woke shaming cartoon

Woke shaming cartoon

A cartoon about the tendency among some of the woke to attempt to humiliate and belittle those who think differently to them by ‘shaming’ them. The process of shaming is a convenient way to dismiss other points of view without engaging with it, and of dismissing the person whose view it is.

A cartoon about wokeness, tolerance, intolerence, shaming, shame culture. Published in the Critic magazine, June 2021.
Drawn: October 2020
Cartoon reference number: a900

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Philosophy cartoon – the big question

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Philosophy cartoon – the big question

Philosophy cartoon – the big question

An illustration showing someone contemplating the ‘big question’ (in the form of a question mark). Notice that the big question mark is too big to fit the image, symbolic of the fact that the biggest questions are too big to comprehend.

Drawn: 2020
Cartoon reference number: a887

Who is right and who is wrong?

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Right and wrong thinking people cartoon

Who is right and who is wrong? Cartoon.

The term “right-thinking people” is used by people who think that they are right, or more accurately, that other people are wrong.

A cartoon about the delusion of moral certainly and political certainty.
Drawn: September 2020
Cartoon reference number: a853

You can be whoever you want to be – cartoon

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You can be whoever you want to be – cartoon

A flaw in the aspirational concept of “You can be whoever you want to be”.

The cartoon illustrates a problem with the currently popular encouragement to schoolchildren that when they grow up they can be whoever they want to be.
The aspirational, motivational expression makes the assumption that everyone will strive for a worthy goal. I don’t think this is necessarily the case.
In fact the concept gives people license to aim towards whatever they desire, which wouldn’t be a good thing.

Drawn: August 2020
Cartoon reference number: a835

Conspiracy theory cartoon

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conspiracy theory cartoon

Conspiracy theory cartoon.

The cartoon shows a person holding a placard stating “Truth lies in following the evidence”.
Another person holds the same placard with the lower part ripped off, so that the part that he holds reads “Truth lies”.

\A cartoon about conspiracy theories truth, facts, fake news.
Drawn: August 2020
Cartoon reference number: a831

The blame game – cartoon

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I blame you cartoon

The blame game – cartoon.

A cartoon showing a protester with a banner proclaiming “I blame you”.

The cartoon is about people who need to place the blame for things on other people rather than on circumstances. This includes blaming people for their attitudes rather than analysing the circumstances that make people hold those attitudes.
A cartoon about protestors, political demonstrations, guilt.
Drawn: August 2020
Cartoon reference number: a830b

Conspiracy theory cartoon

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Conspiracy theory cartoon - road sign

Conspiracy theory cartoon – sign of the times.

A road sign with multiple roads leading to conspiracy theories.
One road leads to truth, but the road is closed.

The cartoon is about the current proliferation of (and acceptance of) conspiracy theories, as we now seem to live in a post-truth fake news world.
The climate of conspiracy theories is a sign of the times, hence the sign and the title of the cartoon, Sign of the Times.

Cartoon drawn: 30th July 2020

Cartoon reference number: a826
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Cancel culture cartoon

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Woke cancel culture cartoon

A cartoon about cancel culture and historical thought crimes.

This cartoon is about the current (2020) phenomenon of cancel culture. This is the concept by which a person is ostracized or shunned if they are judged to hold unapproved views or have attitudes that run counter to those of the arbiters of what are acceptable views. It is a subsection of woke culture.

Cancel culture is responsible for such phenomena as no platforming, where people with proscribed views are denied the ability to put their views forward for debate, particularly in universities.
It is often applied to people based on attitudes that they held in the past. By this criterium practically everyone on the planet should be cancelled, which is one of the points of this cartoon. The saying “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” comes to mind.
Cancel culture is often applied to historical figures from several centuries ago, particularly (at the moment) to those involved in some way in the transatlantic slave trade, and is manifested in the current campaigns to remove statues.
Cancel culture can be viewed as having a stifling effect on culture and debate, with its, to me, zealously censorious woke attitudes and its Orwellian implications.

Drawn: 7th July 2020

Cartoon reference: a815
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Cartoon about the fallacy of progress

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transport cartoon - traffic gridlock

Environment cartoon about transport systems
Philosophy cartoon about the fallacy of progress

A cartoon about progress, in which the progress (represented here by road transport) creates its own problems.
Is progress a good thing?

Cars at a standstill, gridlocked in a traffic jam symbolising progress (or the lack of it) in transport planning and the excessive use of cars as personal transport.
Also a cartoon about the philosophical question of whether progress is necessarily automatically a good thing.

Created: 2015.
Original version (with older vehicles) created: 1991

Cartoon reference number: env050b
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Finding meaning in art – cartoon

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Finding meaning in art – cartoon

The search for meaning – cartoon.

This cartoon is superficially about finding meaning in art, but it is in fact about deeper issues of the search for meaning in life in general.
People are psychologically geared to seek meaning, purpose and agency in things, including phenomena that may lack all of these qualities. Some aspects of religion are obvious manifestations of this.
The artist in the cartoon is saying ‘My work is about the way that the human mind seeks meaning in the meaningless’.

Cartoon drawn: 2019
Cartoon reference number: art112

See my book of art cartoons here.

Cartoon – so many paintings to do before I die

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Art and death cartoon

Time is the enemy of the artist (and of everyone else too).

An elderly artist working frantically to get all of his ideas down on canvas before he dies.
A cartoon about art and mortality, death and the restlessness of the creative mind.

Cartoon drawn: 2019
Cartoon reference number: art089
This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
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Profound art and banal art – cartoon

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Profound art and banal art – cartoon

Profound art and banal art – cartoon

Cartoon showing a painting of a vase of flowers (banal art) and a painting of a vase of dead flowers (profound art).

The painting of the dead flowers is judged as being profound because it alludes to death.
Original cartoon drawn: 2010
This version drawn: 2019
Cartoon reference number: art012
This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
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Art as a bid for immortality

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Art as a bid for immortality cartoon

A cartoon about creating art as a bid for immortality

The cartoon shows an artist working on a painting.
He is saying “While I’m alive I like to think of my work living on when I’m dead, but when I’m dead I probably won’t care one way or the other.”

The cartoon is about the way that people are often motivated in their lives to do things due to the awareness of their own mortality, and the paradox that once they have died they won’t care.
It is interesting to speculate on how much of human activity is motivated by this urge, and what position the human race would be in if we didn’t have the urge.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art014
This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
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Describing visual art in words

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Cartoon about the problem of trying to describe visual art in words

Cartoon about the problem of trying to describe visual art in words.

A cartoon about the way that words obscure as much as enlighten.

Original version drawn: 2007
This version drawn: 2019
Cartoon reference number: art006
This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
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Art gallery exhibit – cartoon – what is your greatest wish?

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Audience participation art cartoon

Cartoon about art that asks people questions.

A cartoon about audience participation art installations.

The cartoon is set inside an art gallery, showing an installation in which the participant has to write down their greatest wish.
A cartoon about art predicting the future of society and the world and about the fulfilment of people’s desires and wishes.

Drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art005
This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
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Erasing the offensive past, followed by erasing the offensive present.

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Erase the attitudes of the past cartoon

A cartoon about erasing the past because of its flaws, then erasing the present because of its flaws.

This cartoon is about the current trend (2020) for some groups to want to erase evidence of the parts of the past that they find offensive. This is manifested in the pulling down of statues of people who had links to the slave trade.
The point of the cartoon is that I think that such attitudes and approaches are misguided, as they require a (selective) moral purity that is impossible in a complex world full of complex people. The wish to erase the moral imperfections of the past would lead to the wish to erase the moral imperfections of the present, and in an imperfect world full of imperfect people the consequences of that could be a form of repression not dissimilar to some of the religious and political repressions of the past. Bear in mind that people are still capable of creating repressive societies in the misguided belief that they are doing a good thing – people don’t change, just their situation.
The imagery in the cartoon is based on the Bonfire of the Vanities – the burning of objects that the church considered sinful, such as books, art and mirrors which happened in Florence, Italy in 1497. It also relates to book burning by the nazis in Germany and the destruction of degenerate or subversive objects in other states ranging from communist regimes to the Taliban.

Drawn: 3rd July 2020
Cartoon reference: a813
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Living organic material in contemporary art – cartoon

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contemporary art cartoon genetic sculpture

Cartoon of sculptures created using organic material.

The concept behind this cartoon is that there is a way of incorporating living genetic material or dna into contemporary artworks so that the material manifests itself in some bizarre and unsettling way.

Cartoon drawn: 2019
Cartoon reference number: art044
This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
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Conceptual art cartoon – invisible art

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Conceptual contemporary art cartoon – invisible art

Contemporary art cartoon – conceptual art.

A contemporary art cartoon showing a conceptual sculptural artwork on a plinth where the material that the work is composed of is pure thought.

Cartoon drawn: 2019
Cartoon reference number: art055
This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
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Judging historical figures by contemporary standards

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statue toppling cartoon

A cartoon about toppling statues.

This cartoon is about the judging of historical figures by modern standards of ethics and morality.
The cartoon was drawn during a campaign of statue toppling in 2020 that started with the toppling of a statue of Edward Colston in Bristol. Colston made money in the slave trade. His statue was erected to celebrate his later philanthropic donations.
The cartoon attempts to illustrate the problem of judging historical figures by the moral and ethical standards of today by showing the absurd (and hopefully comic) situation of a statue being toppled because the person represented by the statue was not a vegan. Veganism is generally speaking a very modern lifestyle choice that would be unknown to historical figures.
It is also about the phenomenon of people sometimes committing disproportionately excessive acts if they hold their views with a high degree of righteous zeal.
It is also about mission creep – the current campaigns about statue toppling began with racism but may extend to other areas.

Drawn:11th June 2020
Cartoon reference number: a806
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Enlightenment entitlement cartoon

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Enlightenment entitlement cartoon

From the Enlightenment to entitlement – cartoon.

The cartoon shows a person in the Age of Enlightenment pondering on the fact that the earth revolves round the sun.
Another person, from the current Age of Entitlement meanwhile thinks that “The world revolves round me”.

A cartoon about the contemporary age of identity politics, entitlement and solipsism and self-centred world views.
Drawn: September 2020
Cartoon reference number: a852

Anti-enlightenment cartoon – the Endarkenment

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Anti-enlightenment cartoon – the endarkenment

From the Enlightenment to the Endarkenment – cartoon.

When I drew this cartoon I was very pleased when the term “The Endarkenment” came into my head as an original thought. I looked it up later and found that it’s been thought of before, to describe the same phenomenon.
I use it as a term for the current trend towards anti-rational thought, which includes anti-scientific, anti-historical and anti-establishment thought (I like to think I’m a bit anti-establishment myself, but definitely not anti-scientific or anti-historical).

The statue that is being toppled in the Endarkenment frame of the cartoon is based on the current phenomenon of the iconoclastic toppling of statues of establishment figures who are possibly linked to the slave trade (Many of them are, but the action is largely motivated by emotion, with little regard for historical context).

Drawn: September 2020
Cartoon reference number: a851

Culture wars cartoon – race and science in universities

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culture wars cartoon universities race and science

Culture wars cartoon – race and science in universities.

Culture wars are raging in universities and academic institutions across the western world. They are raging elsewhere too, but the culture wars in, say, the Islamic world, are different to the ones in the west.
The west’s culture wars often circle around subjects such as race and gender and identity politics that exist within the ‘woke’ analysis of culture.

At the time of drawing this cartoon the subject of race is very much to the fore, with movements such as BLM (Black Lives Matter) having a very high profile.
In academia many subjects in the social sciences are currently analysed through the perspective of critical race theory (CRT).
This cartoon illustrates a tendency to apply critical race theory to subjects where it has no relevance or where its relevance is overstated.
Drawn: September 2020
Cartoon reference number: a849

The Grim Reaper pursuing old people – a cartoon about mortality

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grim reaper pursuing elderly people

The grim reaper following elderly people – and getting closer all the time.

The personification of death in the form of the grim reaper pursuing an elderly couple.
The old people are slowing down due to old age and infirmity, thus allowing the grim reaper to catch up with them.
A cartoon about intimations of mortality and death.

Cartoon reference number: a088a
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The Grim Reaper with a baby Grim Reaper

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grim reaper and baby grim reaper in pushchair

The grim reaper with a baby grim reaper in a pushchair

The personification of death in the form of the grim reaper pushing a pushchair or baby buggy in which sits an infant grim reaper.
Part of the concept behind the cartoon is to show a link between birth and death.
It’s also meant to be humorous because it humanises the grim reaper.

Cartoon reference number: a751

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The grim reaper upgrades from a scythe to a combine harvester

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grim reaper buys a combine harvester

The grim reaper buys a combine harvester

The personification of death in the form of the grim reaper upgrades from his scythe to a combine harvester. The harvester is here a symbol of much greater ‘harvesting’ power than the scythe – in other words a means of achieving a much greater death toll, similar to a weapon of mass destruction.

Cartoon reference number: a750

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