Chris Madden Cartoons

A searchable archive for licensing

The shifting definition of ‘white supremacy’ – cartoon

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White supremacy cartoon

A cartoon about the changing definition of ‘white supremacy’

In recent months I’ve noticed what I think is a migration in the meaning of the term ‘white supremacy’.

To me the term has always implied the conscious policy of domination by white people over other people and the implicit superiority of white people over other people.
Under this definition a white supremacist would typically be depicted as a fascist or a member of the KKK, as in the cartoon.
Recently I’ve noticed several commentators on race issues stating that the western world is a ‘white supremacist society’. This society is indeed white dominated, but that doesn’t make it supremacist in the KK/fascist sense.
I think that a danger of using the term to describe contemporary society is that it can be interpreted as labelling all white people as conscious co-conspirators in the oppression of ethnic minority people, thus potentially making all white people ‘enemies’. I believe that quite a few would rather be described as allies.
Drawn: August 2020
Cartoon reference number: a842b

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”.
In recent years (the early 2020s) the concept of finding “your own truth” has become fashionable.

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

An election for democracy v dictatorship – cartoon

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voting for dictatorship - populism cartoon

A voter in an election choosing to vote for dictatorship, thus voting out democracy.

This cartoon shows a voter who feels that democracy isn’t working. Perhaps he feels threatened by democracy because he thinks that most people vote the ‘wrong’ way. As a result he is voting for the anti-democratic option of dictatorship.
People sometimes think that a a ‘benign dictatorship’ or authoritarian regime may be preferable to unpredictable and unruly democracy (as long as the resulting regime is one with which they think they’ve got broad sympathy!).

Drawn: Aug 2020
Cartoon reference number: a828b
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Voting for dictatorship cartoon

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voting for dictatorship - populism cartoon

A voter in an election voting for dictatorship rather than democracy.

This cartoon shows a voter who is dissatisfied with his society and is blaming the problem on democracy. Perhaps he feels threatened by democracy because he thinks that most people vote the ‘wrong’ way. As a result he is voting for the anti-democratic option of dictatorship.
It’s not unusual for people to complain about election results, and even to say that they might prefer a ‘benign dictatorship’ to democracy.
Of course the problem with voting for dictatorship is that once you’ve got it you can’t get rid of it because you can’t vote out a dictatorship because (meaningful) elections are suspended.

Drawn: Aug 2020
Cartoon reference number: a828
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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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Cartoon – is liberal democracy intolerant?

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Western democracy tolerant cartoon

The perception of tolerance and intolerance in western society – cartoon.

Western democracy is currently being judged by some sections of society as highly intolerant.
It’s my opinion that this is partly because western democracies are in fact very tolerant. This allows the intolerances, injustices and prejudices that do exist within western democracies to be analysed openly, and sometimes very loudly. At the time of writing the Black Lives Matter campaign is dominant in people’s consciousness, while subjects such as sexism, gay rights, gender issues, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and other subjects have been at the top of the agenda. These are all subjects that would not be given the time of day in countries that are less tolerant: the issues would possibly be seen as either not existing or they would be suppressed.

The cartoon is linked to the paradox of tolerance, which is the paradox that a truly tolerance society has to tolerate attitudes that (it interprets as) intolerant.
Drawn: 23rd July 2020
Cartoon reference number: a825
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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 of Boris Johnson losing control

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Boris Johnson control government cliff edge cartoon

Cartoon showing Boris Johnson losing control of the country and the government

Prime Minister Boris Johnson sitting in a go-cart hurtling over the edge of a cliff.
Johnson is holding a steering wheel as though he is steering the cart, but the steering wheel isn’t attached.
He is sounding very optimistic and up-beat all the same. Delusional optimism.
The cartoon plays on Boris Johnson’s jokey, boyish, playful personna.

Original (Brexit) version drawn: March 2017
This version drawn: 2nd July 2020
Cartoon reference: a812
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Offensive and approved terms in politically correct and woke language – cartoon

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politically correct and woke language crime cartoon

A cartoon about the concept that the use of any term that is not politically correct or woke-approved to define race or gender is offensive.
Language crime cartoon

This cartoon is about the tendency within woke culture for the use of unapproved terms to describe people, especially in the spheres of race and gender politics, to be viewed as offensive and open to condemnation, even if used innocently.
The terms that are approved and disapproved sometimes change quite regularly, so it can be hard to keep up.
Notice that I’m not giving any examples of approved or disapproved terms here, in case I inadvertently get it wrong. Also, as the cartoon states, to merely mention a disapproved term as an example is viewed as offensive itself.
At the time of drawing this cartoon the tendency to police language for political purity seems to be on the rise, however it’s been there for as long as I remember. In fact I drew my first cartoon about it in the 1980s.
A cartoon about woke language, political correctness, linguistic purity, Orwellian language, political purity.

Drawn:16th June 2020
Cartoon reference number: a807
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Coronavirus rules on the number of people attending different events

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coronavirus covid-19 lockdown rules for funerals and demonstrations cartoon

Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown rules cartoon regarding funerals and political demonstrations.

A cartoon pointing out the problem that thousands of people were allowed to gather for political protests over the weekend with only mild criticism over the fact that it broke the coronavirus lockdown rules (justifiably or not, depending on your viewpoint), while the rules state that, for instance, only ten people can gather for a funeral.
I’m sure that in the near future funeral-goers will ignore the lockdown rules and will attend in larger numbers on the grounds that their reason for attending is justifiable.

Drawn: June 2020
Cartoon reference number: a803
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Coronavirus cartoon – lockdown breaking political demonstrations and Dominic Cummings

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coronavirus covid-19 lockdown breaking demonstration Dominic Cummings cartoon

Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown breaking cartoon.

Last week Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s adviser, was in hot water because he chose to defy the lockdown rules relating to covid-19.
This week thousands of demonstrators chose to defy the lockdown too.
Does that take the pressure off Cummings, as the demonstrators are potentially much more likely to spread the coronavirus, yet they haven’t come in for the same criticism (justifiably or not, depending on your point of view).

Drawn: June 2020
Cartoon reference number: a802
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Covid 19 coronavirus – the dilemma concerning social distancing and political demonstrations

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coronavirus covid-19 black lives matter demonstration cartoon

Covid-19 coronavirus, social distancing and political demonstrations.

A cartoon about the tension between the need for social distancing and the right to attend political demonstrations – as highlighted by the recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations linked to the death of George Floyd.
The dilemma is not linked to the cause advocated by the demonstrations, and would apply no matter what the cause.

Drawn: June 2020
Cartoon reference number: a801
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New Year 2020 cartoon predicts bad year ahead (Drawn before the Covid-19 pandemic was foreseen!)

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Happy New Year 2020 father time tripping

New Year 2020 cartoon – prediction of a very bad year ahead.
When I drew this, in 2019, who’d have known 2020 would be such a bad year due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

The cartoon shows the old year 2019 (Father Time) pushing the baby New Year 2020 in a baby buggy. Father Time is tripping over the base of a Happy New Year sign, sending the new year rushing forwards out of control towards a cliff edge.

Cartoon drawn: December 2019
Cartoon reference number: a770

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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Racial politics, slavery and statue toppling – cartoon

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black lives matter blm statue toppling cartoon

The politics of race and the toppling of statues.

This cartoon illustrates the way that the current (2020) wave of protests and campaigns to remove statues on the grounds that the people depicted had links with the slave trade oversimplifies history, reducing it to a single issue, racism.

The cartoon makes use of two meanings of ‘black and white’ – one being the polarisation or over-simplification of things into binary issues and the other being the categorisation of people as racially being black or white.
The removal of statues is part of the campaign by Black Lives Matter and other groups such as the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.
Drawn: 11th July 2020
Cartoon reference number: a819
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Reparation cartoon – claiming compensation for historical injustices

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Reparation cartoon – claiming compensation for historical injustices

Reparation cartoon – claiming compensation for historical injustices.

The concept of reparations for historical injustices is currently in the news due to campaigns for it to be applied to the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
The cartoon illustrates the fact that historical injustices have been a constant feature of history (and indeed of the present day) and have been meted out to a large proportion of the world’s population. In fact they were probably the norm until quite recently, before modern concepts of justice were systematised (Concepts that still don’t apply in a lot of the world). Slavery has also been a constant feature of human history, and has probably afflicted almost every human population.

The cartoon uses the idea of exploitative law firms and legal services that try to encourage the public make claims for compensation for events such as accidents and who employ a No Win, No Fee strategy in order to draw in clients.
Drawn: 18th July 2020
Cartoon reference number: a822
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Silence is violence cartoon

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Silence is violence cartoon

Silence is violence cartoon.

A cartoon about the Silence is Violence slogan that is used by the Black Lives Matter movement.
This isn’t a cartoon about BLM or racism, but about the implications of this particular slogan.
In fact the slogan could be used by almost any campaign that interpreted the target of the campaign as exhibiting violence in some way.

One of the problems with the slogan is that it implies that anyone who disagrees with the slogan itself disagrees with the cause of the campaign.
Drawn: 23rd July 2020
Cartoon reference number: a824
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Edward Colston statue cartoon

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Colston statue cartoon

A cartoon about the irony that Edward Colston’s money was used to benefit worthwhile institutions in Bristol (and London).

This cartoon is about the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston by protesters in Bristol because he was involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
It is about the complex and messy nature of financial and social endeavour, and the complex and messy nature of people.
It is about the broader issue of how money is generated to finance society in general, especially its more worthy aspects.
This is not a cartoon defending the statue of Colston (as I’m generally against the concept of statues of prominent people anyway, although I wouldn’t get rid of them either).

Drawn:8th June 2020
Cartoon reference number: a804
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The danger of declining to take a knee – cartoon

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Take a knee cartoon

A cartoon about the possible danger of refusing to take a knee

Taking a knee is a gesture of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
Some people, while sympathetic to the cause of tackling racism, feel that they wouldn’t want to take a knee themselves, either because they don’t agree with all of the aims of BLM or because they feel uncomfortable with there being any obligation to enact the gesture, especially because they feel that the gesture contains some elements of supplication (or that if it doesn’t actually contain those elements now, it may well evolve so that it does in the future). Supplication implies adherence to the cause or a pledge of allegiance rather than simple recognition of it or solidarity with it.
The British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, today (18th June 2020) expressed opinions along these lines, stating that he thought the act contained elements of submission. He has been criticised quite widely for this attitude.
The cartoon shows someone being hit in the face by a custard pie, a metaphor for being ridiculed or humiliated.

Drawn: 18th June 2020
Cartoon reference: a809
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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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Sugar and slavery cartoon

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Sugar and slavery cartoon

Sugar and its historic links to slavery.

The cartoon shows someone boycotting the use of sugar because of its historical links to the slave trade.

It’s also a cartoon about people who posture and who take extreme positions on issues.
Drawn: September 2020
Cartoon reference number: a854

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

Decolonising the National Trust cartoon

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stately homes links to slavery cartoon

Stately homes and their links to slavery cartoon.
Decolonisation of the National Trust.

At the present moment (2020) the subject of racism and slavery is very high on the cultural/political agenda of some sections of society, as evidenced by the rise of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
Large sections of the establishment cultural landscape are being reanalysed in the light of race, slavery and colonialisation.

This cartoon is about the fact that recently the National Trust (the custodian of many stately homes in Britain) has started to redisplay the contents of some of its properties in the light of historical links to slavery, coupled with the news that the trust is thinking of concentrating its future efforts on its work that isn’t linked to historical buildings (The National Trust was partly created specifically to care for these buildings).
The cartoon shows a scenario in which stately homes are actually destroyed because of their links to slavery (links which may or may not be quite tenuous or may have been quite normal for the times), much in the way that parts of the contemporary anti-racist movement has toppled statues of establishment figures who had links to slavery.
Will future generations thank them, or will it be viewed as a form of vandalistic iconoclasm?
Drawn: September 2020
Cartoon reference number: a850

Critical race theory and science in universities – cartoon

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culture wars cartoon universities race and science

Culture wars cartoon – race and science in universities.

Update:

I drew this cartoon in 2020. At the time I thought that the idea that CRT could be applied to scientific subjects such as mathematics or cosmology was so outlandish that a cartoon that suggested such a thing would be funny due to its sheer absurdity. It’s started to happen.

––––––––––––––––––––

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 outcome of multiple conditions on opportunity – intersectionality illustration

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intersectionality cartoon

The outcome of multiple life conditions on opportunity and outcome – intersectionality cartoon

This illustration was drawn for Marxism Today magazine in the mid 1980s.
It features a machine into which babies enter at the top and adults leave at the bottom.
The machine represents the workings of society, with tubes and pipes representing functions such as education, class, race, gender etc.
The adults leaving the machine have all been filtered through the various parts of the machine to produce different types of people. The types of people are produced to suit the conditions and needs of society.
The illustration could be interpreted as being about what is now called intersectionality (although it was drawn in about 1984 or 1985, before the term intersectionality was coined in 1989 by professor Kimberlé Crenshaw).

Drawn: mid 1980s
Cartoon reference number: a845
intersectionality cartoon

A detail of the illustration

Hate crime cartoon or hate speech cartoon

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Hate speech cartoon - hate crime cartoon

Hate speech cartoon or hate crime cartoon.

A comment on the fact that the UK laws around hate crime and hate speech only apply to actions or comments directed at people because they are members of a number of five specific groups. Expressions of hatred on account of a person’s colour, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability are forbidden. Amongst other things the categories don’t include class, which I find intriguing, meaning that calling a working class person riff-raff is okay!

Drawn: August 2020
Cartoon reference number: a838

Repatriation cartoon – museum objects returned to former colonies

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return of museum artifacts - repatriation cartoon

Should museums return objects to former colonies?

This cartoon, set on a fictional planet, is about the earthly debate about the return of cultural artefacts in museums to the nations from which they came. Sometimes such objects have been plundered, sometimes obtained due to the leverage of dominance, and sometimes obtained fairly.
The point that the cartoon is trying to make is that such transactions are rarely as simple as they are portrayed, with one dominant nation or empire invading another land and plundering its cultural wealth. The parameters of this scenario are set too narrowly.
In many cases the less dominant nation was previously a colonising or imperial force itself, which may have been how it came to be rich enough to produce cultural artifacts of value.
On my fictional planet for example, the nation that produced the gold artefact had plundered the gold from which it made the object from a country that it had subjugated.
It can be argued that sophisticated cultures cannot evolve without the dynamic of conquest.

Drawn: 31st August 2020
Cartoon reference number: a834