Chris Madden Cartoons

A searchable archive for licensing

Investment bankers’ remuneration cartoon

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banker's salaries and bonuses cartoon

Investment bankers’ bonuses and pay

Investment banking humour

Cartoon showing a banking job interview.

The interviewer is asking “What is it that attracts you to a career in investment banking?”
A joke about the bonus culture in banking and the ethics of banking

Cartoon drawn: 2013
Cartoon reference number: a312c

The price of Covid-19 vaccine – Black Friday sales cartoon

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covid-19 vaccine black friday cartoon

Covid-19 vaccine Black Friday sales price cartoon.

A cartoon showing someone negotiating the price of Covid-19 vaccine, with the price specially reduced as a Black Friday deal.

The vaccines that are about to become available have been developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford/AstraZenica and Moderna.
Drawn: 23rd November 2020
Cartoon reference number: a869

The art market – art as a financial investment cartoon

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Modern art market cartoon

A cartoon about the investment in art.

The cartoon shows an investor studying the art market and buying and selling works of art on the basis of their financial value rather than their artistic value.

The caption reads: Sell Abstract Expressionism. Buy Concrete Conceptualism.
I made up the genre of concrete conceptualism, it being an oxymoron.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art022
This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
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Art gallery funding cartoon

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Art gallery financial model cartoon

Art gallery funding cartoon.

The cartoon shows an art gallery that uses advertising on its gallery walls to generate income.

The cartoon shows visitors to an art gallery saying “It’s the new financial model for the gallery – every fourth image is an advert.”

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art020
This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
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Notre-Dame Fire Restoration Fund/Sackler boycott cartoon

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Notre Dame fire restoration fund cartoon

Notre-Dame fire restoration fund/Sackler boycott cartoon.
(Drawn on the night of the fire, before the actual donations controversy that followed.)

15 April 2019.
This is a cartoon that deliberately links two current news stories: the restoration of Notre-Dame cathedral following the devastating fire and the boycotting of funding from the Sackler family charitable trusts.
The cartoon was drawn on the evening of the fire, and predates the controversy about the donations from large businesses that developed in the following days.
The cartoon is primarily about the current controversy in some western societies concerning the assumed ethical standards of the donors who contribute funds to institutions such as art galleries and religious buildings.

The Sackler family are major benefactors to many institutions. Only a week ago I was in Westminster Abbey in London where I noticed their name on a recently restored stained glass window to which I assume they had contributed funding.
However, the Sackler family own Purdue Pharma, a company that produces the prescription painkiller OxyContin that is said to be addictive. Thus there are calls to boycott any charitable funding offered by the Sackler family.
Of course the Sackler family are far from being the only donors to charitable causes who may be involved in supposedly tainted money. It could possibly be argued that any organisation that had enough money to distribute in such lavish ways must have come about it by somewhat dubious means, depending on one’s standards.
Cartoon reference number: a769

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Scientific research funding

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Chemistry cartoon - scientific research funding

A cartoon about the funding of scientific research.

A cartoon about a clash between scientific research and the vested interests of the funder of the research.

It’s also a cartoon about alchemy and the quest to turn base metal into gold.
This is an example of my cartoon strip published in Chemistry World, the magazine of the Royal Society of Chemistry, round 2014 – 2015.

Here are more of my chemistry cartoons from Chemistry World magazine.

Cartoon reference number: a716

The psychology of consumerism and special offers – cartoon

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cartoon - a misleading special offer in a supermarket

A joke showing people being deceived by a special offer in a shop.

The customers see a sign with the special offer of “Two for the price of Three’ and they automatically think that this is a good deal due to the way that the offer is framed (interpreting it in the same way as “Two for the price of three”).
A cartoon about consumerism,marketing, persuasion, selling, manipulation, misleading offers.

Drawn: 2009
Cartoon reference number: a697

How to ignore inconvenient truths

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cartoon - television programme about tv manufacturing

A TV viewer wanting to ignore the evidence in a television programme as it would make him uncomfortable.

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A cartoon depicting a person ignoring an inconvenient truth. (The cartoon doesn’t actually imply that all televisions are manufactured in exploitative sweatshop conditions – the use of a tv in the cartoon is because the tv in the image is, ironically, the conduit for the information to be made available).

Original version drawn: 2009
Cartoon reference number: a693

Exploitation of factory workers in the developing world

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cartoon - toy factory workers being paid toy money

Factory workers in the developing world manufacturing consumer goods for the west, and being exploited.

The cartoon shows a worker in a toy factory being paid with toy money.
Factory workers in the developing world may actually be paid at a fare wage in terms of the local economy, however there is a complex dynamic of exploitation at work, involving working conditions, safety levels, working hours and more.
Cartoon drawn: 2002
Cartoon reference number: a692

Bankers’ salary and bonus cartoon

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banker's salaries and bonuses cartoon

Investment bankers’ bonuses and pay joke

Investment banking humour

Showing a banking job interview.

The interviewer is asking “What is it that attracts you to a career in investment banking?”
A cartoon about the bonus culture in banking and the ethics of banking

Cartoon drawn: 2013
Cartoon reference number: a312b

Bankers’ bonuses cartoon

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banking cartoon - bankers bonus

Cartoon about bankers’salaries

Illustrating the contempt felt by sections of the public for bankers and other workers in the financial sector who earn enormous salaries with even larger bonuses

The joke in the cartoon is the tautology or circularity in the justification by the banker of his high salary.

Ref: a667

Economics cartoon

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finance or economy cartoon

Economy cartoon

A cartoon about finance and economic matters, showing a graph with a banker, businessman or entrepreneur balancing on a unicycle on the graph. The wheel is a coin, symbolising money and financial issues.

Ref: a655

Bank computer malfunction cartoon

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bank computer malfunction cartoon

A joke about bank computer failures

A joke about the computer glitches that affect banking systems and other large organisations

The image shows a bank customer withdrawing money from a cashpoint (ATM) and tentacles coming out of the cashpoint to engulf her.
An onlooker is saying “Looks like another computer glitch!”
Cartoon about banking, I.T., Nat West, RBS computer glitch, banking computer systems.

Cartoon reference number: a311

China exports and productivity – cartoon

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china exports and productivity

Cartoon – China productivity and exports

A cartoon about China’s dominance in the global economy and manufacturing

An illustration showing a globe with a label “Made in China” on it

A cartoon about economics, exports, globalisation

Cartoon reference number: a568

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Scientific research funding cartoon

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scientific research funding cartoon

Cartoon about the cost of scientific research

A cartoon showing a rocket, labelled ‘Research’ being launched and then stalling after lift off.
The trail of the rocket forms the shape of a £ sign to indicate that the research is ‘powered’ by funding. The implication is that there isn’t enough funding to keep the research in the air

A cartoon about the financing of scientific research projects
Cartoon reference number: a523
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Scientific research project budgets – cartoon

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scientific research budget cuts cartoon

Scientific research project budgets – cartoon

A cartoon to illustrate articles about cuts in budgets for scientific research.

The cartoon shows research funding going to a research project that monitors the effects of the cuts in research funding.
The cartoon shows an astronomical observatory that has been closed down due to lack of finance.
This cartoon was originally drawn to illustrate an article in the BBC magazine Knowledge
Cartoon reference number: a521

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US recession cartoon – dollar sign as weakest link in a chain

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dollar sign as weakest link in a chain holding the economy - cartoon

US economic crisis cartoon
A dollar sign as the weakest link in a chain that is holding the US economy

A cartoon about the US economy and the weakness of the dollar – showing a dollar sign as a link in a chain.

The dollar sign is the weakest link in the chain.
The image is also about the fiscal cliff threatening the US economy in the new year of 2013, possibly making the US economy fall into recession.
A political cartoon about finance, the economy, financial links, currency, burdens on the economy

Cartoon reference number: a487

US economy cartoon. The dollar as the weakest link

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dollar sign as weakest link in chain - illustration

US economic crisis cartoon
A dollar sign as the weakest link in a chain

A cartoon about the US economy and the weakness of the dollar – showing it as a weak link in a chain.
The cartoon is also about the fiscal cliff threatening the US economy in the new year of 2013, possibly making the US economy fall into recession.

The number of links in the chain can be increased on request to make a longer chain
Cartoon reference number: a486

Fiscal cliff cartoon – the US economy attached to a falling dollar sign

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fiscal cliff - car and dollar sign - cartoon

Fiscal cliff cartoon
Cartoon of the US economy attached to a falling dollar sign

A political cartoon or editorial cartoon about the fiscal cliff that is threatening the US economy, possibly making the US economy fall into recession.
Cartoon showing a US dollar sign attached to a car’s tow bar, and dangling over a cliff edge (the fiscal cliff)

The car is being driven by Uncle Sam.
The cartoon shows the dollar sign dragging the car towards the edge of the cliff (as the falling dollar drags the US economy into recession).
The illustration is drawn in such a way that there’s a chance that the car might just about be able to turn things around and drag the dollar sign back up
Cartoon reference number: a485
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cartoon copyright matters