Chris Madden Cartoons

A searchable archive for licensing

Apple are getting so big they may be turning into a monster

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apple logo monster - cartoon

Apple logo cartoon.
Apple are getting so big they are turning into a monster

Editorial cartoon showing the Apple logo transformed into a ‘monster’ with teeth, devouring a cell phone that represents the other phone manufacturers.

The concept is that Apple corp is getting too big and is creating an imbalance in the telecommunications industry.
This cartoon is about rapacious corporate gigantism, and not necessarily about Apple’s products – I’ve drawn almost all of my cartoons since 1985 on Macs, and have hardly touched a PC in my life, so I’m a big Apple fan.

WARNING. This cartoon can not be used for commercial purposes unless it is as editorial content.

Cartoon drawn: 2012
Cartoon reference number: a385

Barclays Bank chairman resigns cartoon

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barclays chairman resigns cartoon

Barclays chairman Marcus Agius resigns as the chairman following the libor inter-bank lending rate-fixing scandal

Cartoon about the scandal of banks rigging the libor rates to their own advantage.

Barclays Bank accused of “systematic dishonesty”.
Cartoon about financial malpractice and institutional corruption.

Cartoon reference number: a314

Bankers’ pay cartoon. Morality of banking

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bankers pay dollar sign painting

Banker’s bonus cartoon

Joke about bankers’ salaries

Cartoon showing a job interview in a bank.

The interviewer is asking “What is it that attracts you to a job in banking?”
On the wall of the bank is a gigantic picture of a dollar sign.
A cartoon about bankers’ bonuses, and the bonus culture, the ethics of capitalism and corporate greed.

Cartoon reference number: a312

Banking cartoons – bankers’ bonuses

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bankers robbers cartoon

Cartoon depicting bankers as bank robbers

A bank scandal cartoon – about the moral crisis in banking, evidenced by such incidents as the libor interest rigging scandal

Showing a banker as a thief, robbing from the public (or elsewhere).
The illustration represents a banker’s attitude to the public (The manipulation of the libor rate to the bank’s advantage meant that many customers had to pay more for their mortgages amongst other things).

A member of the public is shouting at the running banker “Stop thief!”
The joke is that the robber is running into the bank, whereas usually robbers are running out of banks.
Barclays Bank accused of “systematic dishonesty”.
Cartoon about finance, financial institutions, financial malpractice and institutional corruption.

Cartoon reference number: a310

Barclays Bank interest rate rigging cartoon.

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Barclays Bank interest rigging scandal cartoon

Barclays bank interest rigging scandal cartoon

An illustration about the scandal of Barclays Bank and other banks rigging the libor rates to their own advantage.

Showing a Barclays Bank logo defecating on the head of a customer.
The cartoon represents Barclays Bank’s attitude to its customers (The manipulation of the libor rate to the bank’s advantage meant that many customers had to pay more for their mortgages amongst other things).

Did Bob Diamond know about the practice of rigging the libor rate?
Barclays Bank accused of “systematic dishonesty”.

Cartoon reference number: a308

Banker cartoon

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cartoon - bank thieves operate in this area

Banking cartoon
Barclays bank interest rigging scandal

The scandal of traders at Barclays Bank and other banks manipulating the libor rates to their own advantage.

Gag cartoon showing a bank with a sign outside it reading “Warning. Thieves operate in this area”

Did Bob Diamond know about the practice?
Are bankers thieves?
Barclays Bank accused of “systematic dishonesty”.
A humorous comment about finance, financial institutions, banking corruption and libor rigging.

Cartoon reference number: a307

Olympic torch cartoon, Olympic sponsorship

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cartoon olympic torch ice cream

Cartoon – Olympic merchandising

Cartoon showing a stall selling ice creams in the shape of the 2012 Olympic torch

An official representing Olympic marketing is telling the stall holder that it is illegal to sell olympics-related merchandise unless you have permission from an official sponsor
The cartoon is a criticism of the profit motive as applied so ruthlessly and thoughtlessly to the olympic games.
Drawn: 2012
Cartoon reference number: a306

Thieves Operate in this Area! Cartoon about banking and the City of London

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thieves operate in this area - bankers - cartoon

Warning – Thieves Operate in this Area!
Cartoon about bankers and banking in the City of London (or any other financial centre)

Cartoon about the dubious morality of some areas of banking and the financial sector.
The cartoon likens bankers and financiers to thieves or robbers.

The cartoon is an illustration of one aspect of the current popular image of bankers – that bankers are greedy and amoral and are only interested in their bonuses.
A cartoon about banks, bank ethics and morals, the morality of the financial sector, City of London, banking district, financial quarter, capitalism, credit crisis.
Cartoon reference number: a285
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Cartoon – Facebook shares dive after floating of Facebook

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facebook share price dives - cartoon

Facebook share price dives

Cartoon about Facebook’s share price diving when Facebook floated on the Stockmarket in 2012.

Cartoon showing the Facebook logo as a submarine periscope, with the sub diving like the share price

The price of Facebook shares has fallen since the company was floated on the stock exchange recently.
The cartoon plays on the stock market terms such as float, dive and sink.

Drawn: 2012
Cartoon reference number: a251
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Cartoon – Clinton Cards goes into administration

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Clinton Cards in administration - cartoon

Clinton Cards goes into administration – cartoon

A cartoon about the greetings card company, Clinton Cards, which has gone into administration today

The illustration shows person choosing a greetings card from a display of greetings cards in a Clinton Cards shop

The theme of the cards in the rack is “Sorry We’re Leaving”
This is on the assumption that Clinton Cards will be closing some of their stores and laying off staff.

Cartoon reference number: a233
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Facebook cartoon/illustration. Facebook as Big Brother – Facebook is watching you!

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facebook cartoon big brother watching privacy

Facebook privacy protection illustration.
Facebook as Big Brother.

Illustration depicting Facebook’s logo as part of a face with the caption “Facebook is watching you”.
The face is meant to evoke the concept of Big Brother, from George Orwell’s 1984 (especially because of the eyes). The caption is based on the 1984 slogan “Big Brother is watching you”.

Facebook monitors and retains vast amounts of information about Facebook users, including deleted posts and messages, and also stores information about the user’s physical location. Such information helps Facebook and other companies target advertising on individuals.
As Facebook and similar organisations become bigger and more powerful the implications of their use of user data becomes more and more worrying. Facebook, Google and other internet megacompanies could easily take on a Big Brother type role.
At the moment (2012) the use of user data is probably concentrated in marketing and market related spheres, however there is no reason why such data couldn’t be used in future by repressive governments or other repressive controlling organisations.
A graphic depicting issues concerned with internet privacy.
Update 2020: Facebook is being sued in the USA because of its near monopoly in the fields in which not operates (it now also owns Instagram and WhatsApp).
Drawn: 2012
Cartoon reference number: a119
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Facebook cartoon. The monetization of social media

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facebook internet marketing cartoon

Facebook cartoon. Facebook friends cartoon

Facebook internet marketing cartoon, showing a Facebook page with the message “On-line marketing wants to be your friend”.

This cartoon was drawn when Facebook was due to be floated on the stock market in 2012, based on the idea that following the proposed stock market flotation Facebook would change from being a social networking site into a commercial marketing site, appropriated by business and commercial interests as a channel for selling their goods and services.
The process had already started, with data about Facebook users’ ‘likes’ being used as a means of targeting and reaching potential customers.
The joke in the cartoon is that business interests cannot be your ‘friends’ as they are only interested in you because of your money.
A cartoon about the commercialisation of social media sites. A cynical view on what it will mean to be a Facebook friend in the future.
Drawn: 2012
Cartoon reference number: a115
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Cartoon – bankers’ bonuses creating instability in the economy

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banker with bonus cartoon

Bankers’ bonus cartoon

Cartoon about bankers’ bonuses. Showing a banker holding a bonus, with the ground beneath the banker cracking under the weight of the bonus.

A cartoon about large bankers bonuses and the effects of the bonus culture.
Bankers’ bonuses and salaries are so grossly inflated that they are destabilising the economy and are causing economic and social fracturing (symbolised in the cartoon by the fact that the ground beneath the banker is fracturing and cracking due to the large size of the banker’s bonus, thus destroying the economic base on which the economy is built).
The cartoon is an illustration of the social and economic instability that is resulting from the runaway growth of bonuses and top salaries under the current unregulated version of the capitalist system.
Cartoon reference number: a116
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Cartoon. Waterstone’s bookshops drop the apostrophe

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Waterstone's grocer's apostrophe cartoon

A cartoon about the announcement that Waterstone’s booksellers are to remove the apostrophe from their name.

Cartoon. The joke here is that a bookseller = of all people – should maintain standards of punctuation. In the cartoon Waterstone’s is depicted as a market stall rather than a bookshop, with the Waterstone’s sign lacking an apostrophe, but with the label for the books on the stall containing an apostrophe. This apostrophe is the core of the joke. This apostrophe is known as the grocers’ apostrophe (or is it the grocer’s apostrophe?), which is a common symbol of bad punctuation.

A cartoon about punctuation, changing punctuation due to the internet (partly due to the fact that some punctuation isn’t allowed in urls etc), evolution of language,
Cartoon drawn: 2012
Cartoon reference number: wat001

Cartoon. Western businessman seeking the meaning of life (in half an hour)

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Meaning of life cartoon important meeting

Cartoon depicting a western businessman visiting an eastern guru to try to find the meaning of life. He wants the answer quickly, because he is very busy and is short of time.

This is possibly a cartoon criticising the emptiness of western capitalist consumerist society. Having said that, I’m not a follower of eastern (or any other) mystical or spiritual societies either!

The humour in the cartoon is related to the fact that the businessman expects the answer to his difficult question in a very short time – possibly because the businessman is used to his minions and advisors giving him information in bite-sized chunks and in over-simplified and un-nuanced form.
It is a cartoon about the materially rich, time-poor nature of modern capitalist society, and about the expectation that life should be easy, with any answers instantly available.
Cartoon reference number: a052

Cartoon about compromise and consensus

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Lets meet half way compromise cartoon

A cartoon about compromise and consensus.

A cartoon showing two people disagreeing.
They want to compromise (or at least one of them does), but the gulf between them is too great.
There is no meeting point possible.
The thing that the two people disagree about could be anything from a domestic issue, an emotional issue, a relationship issue, a political issue, a pay negotiation – any sort of problem really.

A cartoon about compromise, consensus, diplomacy, shifting your position, negotiating, therapy, counselling, psychotherapy, arbitration, negotiation.
Cartoon reference number: a024

Cartoon. Too many hinges on a door can be counterproductive

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too many door hinges cartoon

Cartoon: a door with hinges on both edges – making it impossible to open the door.

The hinges in this cartoon are a metaphor for devices (or people, or institutions) that are meant to make things function better, but that make them worse when over-used. The point of the cartoon is that they can be counterproductive.
Cartoon showing how too many facilitators can make action impossible.

The hinges in the cartoon can be metaphors for committees, too many cooks, lack of functionality, excess, excessive help, excessive aid, counterproductive aid.
Cartoon reference number: a010

Cartoon. Innovation and progress – how to change a light bulb that’s very high up

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Cartoon: change bulb using step ladders pyramid

A cartoon about how to change a lightbulb that’s very high up

Cartoon showing people using step ladders extending upwards by being stacked pyramid style like a house of cards to reach a very high light bulb.
This may seem to be just a simple joke, but it’s actually a comment on the human ability to overcome obstacles – an ability that is one of the engines behind progress.

A cartoon about improvisation, improvising, innovation, innovating, reaching higher, ambition, invention, necessity the mother of invention.
Cartoon reference number: a006

Car boot sale cartoon

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car boot sale shoe sale cartoon

Car boot sale cartoon. One car is selling boots. Another car is selling shoes (using a sign reading “Car shoe sale”)

Cartoon showing a car boot sale, with a vendor selling shoes under a sign that reads “Car shoe sale”

A note to non-British readers – a car boot is the UK equivalent of a car’s trunk in the USA.
The joke here is that a car boot sale is a sale of bric-a-brac and other goods that can be carried in the boot of a car, and has nothing to do with the garment variety of boot.
Cartoon reference number: a005
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Teamwork cartoon – together we can conquer the world – separately we are nothing

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Cartoon bow & arrow together conquer world

Cartoon showing a bow and arrow. The arrow is walking away from the bow. The bow is telling the arrow that separately they are nothing but together they can conquer the world.

The bow and arrow in this cartoon are a metaphor for teamwork. Neither member of the team can function to their full potential (or in this case, at all) without the other team member.

A cartoon about teams and teamwork, relationships, interdependence, teams, teamwork, symbiosis, management skills, facilitation, achieving potential.
Cartoon reference number: a004
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Statistics cartoon. How statistics can easily be taken out of context

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Cartoon. Studying statistics through telescope

Illustration about the interpretation of statistics and the importance of context.

Cartoon showing a person studying statistics through a telescope (which is visually funnier than a cartoon showing a person studying statistics under a microscope).

Cartoon showing a person studying statistics. He is studying them so closely that he has lost sight of the surrounding context.
The principle behind the cartoon (studying things so closely that context is lost or ignored) is applicable to the study of other areas of research, and applies to politics, economics, social sciences – in fact just about everything.
Original version drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: sta131
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Finance cartoon: Greece and the euro crisis

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debt crisis Greece cartoon

Editorial illustration – Greece and the euro crisis, 2011
Finance cartoon – the EU debt crisis in 2011

The Greek effect on the euro
The European currency, the euro, is depicted as a balloon, with Greece, in the form of an ancient Greek archer, firing an arrow at the balloon

A cartoon about the financial crisis in the eurozone in 2011, the future of the euro, political crisis in Europe, cohesion of the European community.
Drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: euro002
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Editorial cartoon. The euro crisis – the euro walking off a cliff

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cartoon - euro crisis - walking off cliff

Financial cartoon
Euro crisis cartoon

A cartoon showing the european currency, the euro, as a person with the euro sign as a head, walking off the edge of a cliff

An illustration about the financial crisis in the eurozone, the future of the euro, political crisis in Europe, the European community, the euro on the brink of collapse, financial markets in free-fall

Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: euro001
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Migrant workers cartoon

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Low paid immigrant workers using negotiating tactics of bankers cartoon

Low pay cartoon
Bankers bonuses cartoon

A cartoon showing low-paid immigrant workers (vegetable pickers) attempting to use the same negotiating tactics as bankers. The tactic is to threaten to move abroad where the remuneration may be greater.
The employer is saying “They’ve got us over a barrel by deploying the classic ‘banker’s gambit’. Give us more money or we’ll go abroad.”

A cartoon about pay negotiations, labour markets, migrant labour, low pay, minimum wages, pay rates, global economy, city bonuses, city excess, greed is good mentality, competition, capitalism, economics, finance

Cartoon first published in Private Eye, December 2011
Cartoon reference number: bank31
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Illustration about hubris or overachievement

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Illustration. Balloon rising dangerously as symbol of overachievement

Cartoon about overachievement
Illustration about hubris

A balloon rising dangerously into the air with a person hanging on to it – as a symbol or metaphor for overachievement or over-reaching.
The balloon in the illustration is a symbol of ambition or achievement. The meaning of the illustration is that to be over-ambitious or over-achieving can have unfortunate consequences
The cartoon can be applied to business enterprises that over-reach their natural limits or to management styles that push people further than is advisable.
Hubris is defined as an overestimation of a person’s competence or capabilities, especially when the person is in a position of power. Technological or scientific hubris is the state of assuming that technology and scientific progress will afford us all of the answers to our problems (including those that have been brought about by the application of science and technology). The concept of scientific hubris is often over-used as a criticism of science and scientific developments

A cartoon about hubris, unforeseen consequences, icarus, pride comes before a fall, onwards and upwards.

Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: hub001
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Human dynamics cartoon – the dynamics of male dominance

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short man and tall man cartoon

Social status cartoon
The dynamics of male hierarchical status
How males judge their position in the pecking order

The cartoon shows a tall man and a short man, with the taller man assuming dominance and superiority over the shorter man.
However, as a further sign of masculinity the men have antlers, the size of which displays their status and power. The shorter man has much larger antlers than the taller man. So which man is the dominant alpha male?

A cartoon about power, testosterone, men, masculinity, gender signifiers, management, superiority, leadership, alpha males, business, businessmen, businessman, power displays, size matters, office politics, dilemmas, dominance hierarchies, male dominance in work situations, evolutionary psychology

Cartoon reference: male22
Drawn: 2011

Business cartoons. The status enhancing purpose of an imposing office

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Business cartoon. Status symbol of an imposing office

Business cartoons

A business executive in an imposing office saying to a visitor “This room’s meant to make me seem important – not you”

A senior manager, executive or entrepreneur in a very imposing office, saying to a minion sitting on the other side of a huge desk “”This office is meant to make me seem important – not you”

A cartoon about impressing people, showing off, status, status symbols, prestige, management hierarchy, office politics, status enhancement

Ref: off808

Management skills cartoon. Talking too loudly in meetings

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Management style cartoon. Man talking very loudly - in a bold typeface

Management style cartoon
Business skills cartoon

A man talking very loudly in a meeting – with his words in his speech bubble written in a bold sans serif typeface

A business skills cartoon about management style, management skills, management techniques, business meetings, people skills, chairing meetings, cooperation, dominance, dominant male, alpha male manager, overbearing, dictatorial

Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: man710
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Cartoon. An authority figure sitting on a pedestal

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Cartoon. An authority figure sitting on a pedestal behind a desk.

Management cartoon. A boss-type figure sitting on a pedestal behid a desk, hoping that no one will notice that he is ineffectual because he can’t reach his desk (precisely because he is sitting on a pedestal). He looks very much alone.

 

A cartoon about authority, elitism, dictatorship, imperiousness, ineffective, inefficient, management, class, status.

Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: bus91
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