cartoon: Humorous Cartoons

Humorous nonpolitical cartoons became popular with the development of the color press, and in 1893 the first color cartoon appeared in the New York World. In 1896 R. F. Outcault originated The Yellow Kid, a large single-panel cartoon with some use of dialogue in balloons, and throughout the 90s humorous cartoons by such artists as T. S. Sullivant, James Swinnerton, Frederick B. Opper, and Edward W. Kemble began to appear regularly in major newspapers and journals. The New Yorker and Saturday Evening Post were among the most notable American magazines to use outstanding single cartoon drawings.

Single cartoons soon developed into the narrative newspaper comic strip, but the single panel episodic tradition also survived and thrived. It is exemplified by the work of humorists such as Charles Addams, Peter Arno, Saul Steinberg, James Thurber, William Steig, Helen Hokinson, Mary Petty, Whitney Darrow, George Price, Edward Koren, Roz Chast, the Englishmen Rowland Emmett and Ronald Searle, and the French cartoonists André François and Bil.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Humorous Cartoons
• Political Cartoons
• Cartoons in Journalism
• Cartoons in the Fine Arts
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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