Chris Madden Cartoons

A searchable archive for licensing

Capitalism profiting from anti-capitalism protests – cartoon

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anti-capitalism protest campsite cartoon

Capitalism cashing in on anti-capitalism protests
The adaptable nature of capitalism – cartoon

Cartoon about anti-capitalism protest camps, such as the one at St Paul’s cathedral.
A cartoon showing an alternative campsite for the anti-capitalism protestors being set up by businessmen (possibly in anticipation of the anti-capitalism protestors being evicted from their original protest campsite).
One of the businessmen is saying “That’s the great thing about capitalism –  it’s so adaptable.”

One of the advantages of capitalism is that it is adaptable to circumstances and can react to new opportunities (which planned centralised economies such as socialism are less adept at)
Cartoon reference number: cap123

A black and white version of this cartoon was published in Private Eye magazine, December 2011.

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Tomb robbers cartoon. Pyramids cartoon

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Egypt tomb robbers cartoon

Egyptian tomb robbers cartoon

Egyptian tomb robbers plundering the tomb of a pharaoh – and being pursued by the police.
The tomb thieves are being pursued by police in a bizarre version of a car chase. The ‘vehicles’ in the cartoon move using the system of rollers that was thought to have been used to transport the stone during the construction of the pyramids

A cartoon about cops and robbers, car chases, treasure hunters, plundering ancient treasures

Drawn: February 2009
Cartoon reference number: rob31

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Bustle cartoon. Changing aesthetics of beauty and fashion

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Cartoon. Does my bum look big in this

Georgian fashion cartoon.
A woman wearing a bustle.

The bustle was fashionable in the second half of the 19th century in the Georgian era. It was a type of framework beneath a dress which was used to make the fabric stand away from the body in a bulge, creating the effect of a large posterior.
When this cartoon was drawn (2011), large posteriors were deeply unfashionable, as exemplified by the then current comic phrase “Does my bum look big in this?”

A cartoon about fashion, body shape, aesthetics, cultural aspects of beauty.
Drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: bus31
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Desert island cartoon. Sitting on a cloud in heaven cartoon

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Desert island cartoon - cloud

Desert island cartoon
Two recently deceased people are sitting on a cloud in heaven, in the cliche cartoon setting for heaven

The cloud has got a palm tree growing on it, in the traditional cliched desert island cartoon style.
One of the two people on the cloud is saying “I’d hoped that after the shipwreck we’d have been washed up on a desert island rather than drowned as sea.”

The joke is that the cloud is just like a desert island
Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: des123
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Participatory democracy cartoon – the worst political system apart from all the rest

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Cartoon drawback of democracy

The drawback of participatory democracy – cartoon.

The cartoon illustrates the fact that in a pure democracy if a tiny majority of voters want anything they can get it, such as a law stating that any particular group needn’t pay tax. In the cartoon the 51% of the population have voted for the resolution that the 51% of the population who are taller than the rest needn’t pay any taxes. The 51% who are taller are the 51% who voted for the resolution.

A famous quote about democracy was made by Winston Churchill (in a speech in the House of Commons on November 11th 1947): “Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Notice that he included the phrase “it has been said”, implying that someone else said this before him, although the phrase is often attributed to Churchill.
Drawn: Oct 2011
Cartoon reference number: democ2

democ2

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Charity mugger cartoon

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Cartoon. Charity mugger or chugger

Charity mugger cartoon
Chugger cartoon

Charity collector trying to peruade a passer-by to stop. Rather than saying “Not now” the passer-by is wearing a t-shirt with the message “Not now” printed on it.

A cartoon about charity fund raising methods
The cartoon is available with the word Chugger on the vest rather than Charity mugger

Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: chug001
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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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Fairy story cartoon. The princess and the pea

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Fairy tale illustration. The princess and the pea

Fairy tale cartoon
A reinterpretation of the princess and the pea

A cartoon showing the fairy tale of the princess and the pea.
In this cartoon the prince who is a suitor of the princess is being warned that because the princess is so sensitive that she feels the presence of the pea (and is complaining about the presence of the pea) he should maybe reconsider his interest in her, as she is obviously going to be very demanding

A cartoon about Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales, oversensitivity, prima donnas, spoilt children, cultural stereotypes, gender stereotyping

Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: pea25
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Repressive government cctv surveillance cartoon

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Surveillance cartoon

Surveillance cartoon
Repressive government cartoon

A government or state CCTV surveillance camera (as a symbol of a repressive state) being photographed by a citizen with a digital camera or a camera-phone.
An illustration of the way that digital technology allows ordinary people to record events (such as demonstrations, uprisings, riots etc) and disseminate the footage across the world’s news media as a way of undermining the power of repressive and secretive states

A cartoon about repression, government news censorship, state control, dictatorships, tyrannies, state oppression, state sponsored secret police, police states, resistance, citizen journalism, journalists

Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: cctv25
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Boat leaving the Tunnel of Love – cartoon

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Tunnel of love cartoon

Tunnel of love cartoon

A couple in a boat leaving the Tunnel of Love. The boat enters a vast empty ocean called the Sea of Tedium

A cartoon about the end of romance, the waning of love, unrealistic expectations, romantic delusions, the banality of life, boring partners, declining physical attraction, lovers, marriage, relationships, passion, boredom, ennui

Original version drawn: 2007
Cartoon reference number: tol251
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Vegetarianism cartoon: meat eating partners of vegetarians

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Vegetarian cartoon: partners of vegetarians support group meeting

Meat eating partners of vegetarians cartoon
Vegetarianism cartoon

The cartoon shows an gathering of people who’s partners are vegetarians and vegans, but who are not vegetarian or vegan themselves, and who thus crave meat (which they either aren’t allowed to, or don’t like to, eat in the presence of their partners)

A cartoon about the way that people modify their behaviour in the presence of other people, especially to accommodate the other people’s social, ethical and cultural principles or mores.
A cartoon about food, ethics, meat eating, carnivorous or omnivorous diets, annual dinners, support groups, support networks

Drawn: February 2001
Cartoon reference number: veg251
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Old age cartoon. Old age v youth culture cartoon

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Old age cartoon. Old woman with walking stick stabs youth

Old age cartoon

The cartoon shows an old woman walking slowly towards a seat in a park.
It then shows a youth walking pasrt her quickly and sitting in the seat that she was heading for. The final frame shows the youth lying stabbed by the old woman’s walking stick – a punishment for his lack of consideration, selfishness and assumption of self-entitlement.
The final frame of the cartoon overturns the roles played by people in the previous frames (That’s the joke – I’m obviously not advocating that old people resort to acts of violence)

A cartoon about power, dominance hierarchies, male dominance, age discrimination, youth culture, violence, aggression, retribution, justice, respect, law and order, stereotypes, manners

Drawn: 2001
Cartoon reference number: age001
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Cartoon. Yesterday’s news – the transitory nature of current affairs

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The transitory nature of news

Cartoon. Yesterday’s news. The transitory nature of news.

A cartoon showing someone watching the news on television, saying that he’d forgotten that a major news event had happened only a short time earlier (the revolution in Egypt as part of the so called Arab Spring).Cartoon about the fleeting attention span that any news story can command in a world saturated with news events.

A cartoon about the speed with which news stories fall into the dustbin of history as the world’s news media move from one story to the next, often giving a story saturation coverage and then moving on. Today’s earth shattering news is tomorrow’s chip paper, as the saying goes.

Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: news22
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Hitch-hiking cartoon – alien hitch hiker

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hitch hiking cartoon - alien heading for M31

Hitch-hiking cartoon
You don’t see many hitch-hikers any more

The hitch hiker in the cartoon is an alien from another planet, however the person in the car seems to be more surprised to see a hitch hiker than an alien

The cartoon also includes the joke that there could be a motorway or road called the M31, and M31 is also the name of the Andromeda Galaxy in the Messier catalogue.
A cartoon about extraterrestrials, flying saucers, aliens visiting earth, aliens crash landing on earth

Ref: m31

Driving lessons cartoon. Transformers cartoon

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Cartoon. A transformer car being driven by a learner driver

Transformers cartoon
Learner driver cartoon
Driving school cartoon

A learner driver on a driving lesson in a driving school car has pressed a button in the car and accidentally transformed the car into a transformer

Transformers is a series of Hollywood science fiction films based on the original Transformers toys, in which cars convert into robots (such as Autobots and Decepticons)

Cartoon drawn: 2008
Cartoon reference number: tran01
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China boycott cartoon

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Boycott China cartoon

Boycott China cartoon
Cartoon about Chinese exploitation of low paid factory workers

This cartoon was drawn in 2008, but is now relevant (in 2021) due to increasing Chinese repression and the repression of the Uyghurs (Uighurs) amongst others. It shows a political activist writing a message on a protest banner that reads “Boycott Chinese products now!” The protestor discovers that the marker pen that the message is being written with was made in China

An illustration about political irony, compromise, protest movements, anti-consumerism protest, boycotting repressive regimes, free trade, international trade

Drawn: 2008
Cartoon reference number: boy101

Cartoon style illustration – slogan T-shirts

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Illustration. Person wearing a slogan T-shirt

Cartoon style illustration
Slogan T-shirt cartoon

Person wearing a T-shirt with a slogan on it reading “I don’t wear T-shits with slogans”
An illustration showing the paradox of someone wearing a tee shirt with a message on it that proclaims that the person doesn’t wear tee shirts with messages on them

A cartoon about fashion, clothes, clothing, youth culture, ideological fashion, fashion statements, fashion as a message

Drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: fash22

Scottish independence referendum cartoon

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Scotland independence cartoon

Independence for Scotland cartoon
Scottish independence referendum cartoon
The English perspective on Scottish independence

A cartoon about the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) demand for a referendum on Scottish independence from England

Cartoon about a possible English attitude to Scottish independence

Cartoon reference number: a062
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Stonehenge cartoon. How the bluestones were transported to Stonehenge – by glacier

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Stonehenge cartoon How the bluestones got to Stonehenge - glacial erratics

Stonehenge cartoon strip
How Stonehenge was built

A cartoon strip explaining how the ‘bluestones’ of Stonehenge were transported the 180 miles from Wales
The standard orthodox view is that the Stonehenge bluestones were dragged overland and carried by raft from the Preseli hills of South Wales all the way to Stonehenge in Wiltshire. This would have been a super-human task, given the terrain. It would also have been a supremely pointless task, and no amount of romanticisation of the people’s purposes can really make such a task justifiable.
An alternative theory to how the bluestones reached Stonehenge is that they were carried there by a glacier and deposited nearby. Rocks deposited in this way are known as glacial erratics.

A cartoon about prehistoric monuments, stone circles, megaliths

Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: heng001
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Roald Amundsen cartoon. Robert Falcon Scott cartoon

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Scott of the Antarctic cartoon: Scott reaches the South Pole after Amundsen

Roald Amundsen cartoon
Robert Falcon Scott cartoon
Antarctica cartoon

A cartoon related to the expeditions to the South Pole between Amundsen and Scott. Often portrayed as a race between Scott and Amundsen, Scott insisted that his purpose was more of a scientific survey than a race against Amundsen. Amundsen however saw it as a race, and was determined to reach the South Pole first.
In the cartoon Amundsen has had time to build a snowman at the South Pole, holding a message to Scott reading “Roald Amundsen was here”

A cartoon about Captain Robert Falcon Scott of the Antarctic, Roald Amundsen, Antarctica, heroic era of Antarctic exploration, polar exploration.
Drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: rfs002
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An expedition to the South Pole – cartoon

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The race to pull the first piano to the South Pole - cartoon

Cartoon: the race to the South Pole

An explorer/adventurer pulling an upright piano to the South Pole as a feat of endurance. As he approaches the pole he sees that someone pulling a grand piano is about to beat him.
This is a cartoon about the modern trend towards pointless achievement-related activities. The cartoon is a comment on modern day record breaking stunts and celebrity driven entertainment related television scheduling

A cartoon about the North Pole, the South Pole, Antarctica, polar exploration, the Arctic, goal-related tasks, stunts, adventure, pointless achievement, competitiveness, goal setting

Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: pia001
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Easter Island statue cartoon

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Easter Island statue cartoon - tourist with camera

Tourism Cartoon
An Easter Island (Rapa Nui) statue (or moai) and a tourist with camera

This cartoon is an illustration of the way that tourism affects the places that are visited, with the local inhabitants modifying their behaviour as a result of the tourism.
Here an Easter Island statue has a camera round its neck.
However, the fact that the camera is carved from the same block of stone as the statue implies that the statue had the camera before the tourists arrived, making the cartoon ambiguous

Easter Island is also known as Isla da Pascua (Spanish) or Ile de Paques (French)

Original version drawn: 2000
Cartoon reference number: eas881
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Eccentric clothing cartoon – strange footwear

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Odd shoes cartoon

Shoes cartoon
Footwear cartoon
Strange clothing cartoon

A woman wearing odd shoes being observed by a man who is also wearing odd shoes.
A woman wearing one woman’s shoe and one man’s shoe, and a man wearing one man’s shoe and one woman’s shoe too

A cartoon about fashion, footware, foot ware, shoes, eccentric clothes, bizarre clothing, style, asymmetrical fashion

Drawn: 2008
Cartoon reference number: odd001
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Modern grammar cartoon – dropping the definite article

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Grammar cartoon. Save the definite article

Grammar cartoon
Save the definite article

This cartoon is a sort of puzzle rather than a joke.
The cartoon is about the modern tendency to drop the definite article, especially from place names (Here in London where I live we now have art establishments called Tate and Southbank Centre when not long ago they were called the Tate and the Southbank Centre).
The placard in the drawing says “Save The” as in “Save the Whale”. It looks as though there’s a word missing as the subject, but the subject is the word “The”, as in “Save the The”.
So, the cartoon has no definite articles in it, even though it’s about using the definite article

A cartoon about modern linguistics, evolution of language, eats shoots and leaves, English language, rules

Cartoon drawn: 2011
Cartoon reference number: def001
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Conspiracy theory cartoon. Conspiracy theories are a smokescreen to hide the truth

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Conspiracy theory cartoon saying that conspiracy theories are actually a smoke screen for the actual truth

Conspiracy theory cartoon
A conspiracy theorist saying that conspiracy theories are actually a smokescreen for the incredible truth

The cartoon shows conspiracy theorists bending the evidence to fit their own theory, thus ensuring that they will never have to concede that they are deluded

A cartoon about delusion, cranks, conspiracies, area 51, false, fake, gullibility, gullible, hoax, implausible, ludicrous, plots, secret knowledge, moon landing hoax

Original version drawn: 2003
Cartoon reference number: con710
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Domino effect cartoon

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Domino effect cartoon. A domino at the back of a queue of dominos trips up, about to make the rest fall

Domino effect cartoon
An illustration of the domino effect

A domino at the back of a line of dominos trips up.
Part of this joke is that the domino that falls is tripping over a sign saying “Queue Here”.
So the fact that the dominos have been lined up in an orderly queue is also the reason that they are going to fall.

A cartoon about self-fulfilling dynamics, inevitability, cascading effect, knock on effects.

This cartoon was first published in Prospect magazine.
Original version drawn: Sept 2005

Cartoon reference number: dom710
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Wild west cartoon. Gold prospectors striking gold

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Cowboy cartoon. Gold prospectors in monument valley. They see a ring of gold on a rock that resembles a hand, with the gold looking like a ring on a finger

Wild west cartoon
Gold rush cartoon

Gold prospectors in a landscape like Monument Valley.
They find a seam of gold on a monumental rock that resembles a hand, with the gold looking like a ring on a finger

A cartoon about the Wild West, prospecting, fortune seeking, striking it rich, band of gold, wedding ring, ring finger, the gold rush

Drawn: 2001
Cartoon reference number: pro710
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