A gag cartoon (also panel cartoon, single-panel cartoon, or gag panel) is most often a single-

panel Panel may refer to: Arts and media Visual arts * Panel (comics), a single image in a comic book, comic strip or cartoon; also, a comic strip containing one such image *Panel painting, in art, either one element of a multi-element piece of art ...

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

, usually including a caption beneath the drawing. A pantomime cartoon carries no caption. In some cases, dialogue may appear in

speech balloon Speech balloons (also speech bubbles, dialogue balloons, or word balloons) are a graphic convention used most commonly in comic books, comics, and cartoons to allow words (and much less often, pictures) to be understood as representing a char ...

s, following the common convention of

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

s. As the name implies—"

gag A gag is usually an item or device designed to prevent speech, often as a restraint device to stop the subject from calling for help and keep its wearer silent. This is usually done by blocking the mouth, partially or completely, or attemptin ...

" being a show business term for a comedic idea—these cartoons are most often intended to provoke laughter. Popular magazines that have featured gag cartoons include ''

Punch Punch commonly refers to: * Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist * Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice Punch may also refer to: Places * Pun ...

'', ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' and ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

''. Some publications, such as ''

Humorama Humorama, a division of Martin Goodman (publisher), Martin Goodman's publishing firm, was a line of digest-sized magazines featuring girlie cartoons by Bill Ward (cartoonist), Bill Ward, Bill Wenzel, Dan DeCarlo, Jack Cole (artist), Jack Cole and m ...

'', have used cartoons as the main focus of the magazine, rather than articles and fiction.

Captions

Captions are usually concise, to fit on a single line. Gag cartoons of the 1930s and earlier occasionally had lengthy captions, sometimes featuring dialogue between two characters depicted in the drawing; over time, cartoon captions became shorter.

Media

In the mid-1950s, gag cartoonists found a new market with the introduction of highly popular

studio cards Studio cards were tall, narrow humorous greeting cards which became popular during the 1950s. The approach was sometimes cutting or caustic, a distinct alternative to the type of mild humor previously employed by the major greeting card companies. ...

in college bookstores. Single-panel cartoons have been published on various products, such as coffee mugs and cocktail napkins. Traditionally, newspapers and magazines printed cartoons in black and white, but this changed in the 1950s when ''

'' began to feature full-page, full-color cartoons in every issue. There are numerous collections of cartoons in both paperback and hardcover, notably ''The New Yorker'' collections. From 1942 to 1971, the cartoonist-novelist Lawrence Lariar edited the annual ''Best Cartoons of the Year'' collections.

Notable gag cartoons

A well-known 1928 cartoon in ''

'', drawn by Carl Rose and captioned by

E. B. White Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985) was an American writer. He was the author of several highly popular books for children, including ''Stuart Little'' (1945), '' Charlotte's Web'' (1952), and ''The Trumpet of the Swan'' ...

, shows a mother trying to convince her young daughter to finish her meal. "It's broccoli, dear." "

I say it's spinach I say it's spinach (sometimes given in full as I say it's spinach and I say the hell with it or further abbreviated to just spinach) is a twentieth-century American idiom with the approximate meaning of "nonsense" or "rubbish". It is usually spoken ...

and I say the hell with it", which have created an

idiom An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...

in English language. Cartoonist

Charles Addams Charles Samuel Addams (January 7, 1912 – September 29, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his darkly humorous and macabre characters, signing the cartoons as Chas Addams. Some of his recurring characters became known as the Addams Fa ...

drew his first gag cartoon for ''

'' in 1932, and in 1937 started inventing a set of macabre characters in 1937 which came to be known as ''The Addams Family''. This was turned into a 1960s television series which ran for two years, in an agreement in which Addams gave his characters names and more developed characteristics. Cartoonist

Ted Key Ted Key (born Theodore Keyser; August 25, 1912 – May 3, 2008)
''The New York Times'', May 8, 2008 was a ...

created a gag panel about a bossy maid named ''Hazel'' for ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...

'' in 1943. This also was made into a 1960s television series, which ran for five years.

Notable gag cartoonists

Peter Arno Curtis Arnoux Peters, Jr. (January 8, 1904 – February 22, 1968), known professionally as Peter Arno, was an American cartoonist. He contributed cartoons and 101 covers to ''The New Yorker'' from 1925, the magazine's first year, until 1968, the ...

* George Booth *

Roz Chast Rosalind Chast (born November 26, 1954) is an American cartoonist and a staff cartoonist for ''The New Yorker''. Since 1978, she has published more than 800 cartoons in ''The New Yorker''. She also publishes cartoons in ''Scientific American'' and ...

* George Clark *

Sam Cobean Sam Cobean (December 28, 1913 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania – July 2, 1951 in Schuyler County, New York) was a cartoonist, especially known for his work in ''The New Yorker'' in the 1940s and 1950s. His book of cartoons, '' The Naked Eye'', has b ...

Sam Gross Sam Gross (born August 7, 1933) is an American cartoonist, specializing in single-panel cartoons. History Born in Bronx, New York City, Gross was the son of Max and Sophie, who were Jewish immigrants to America. His mother was born in Iași, ...

Ted Key Ted Key (born Theodore Keyser; August 25, 1912 – May 3, 2008)
''The New York Times'', May 8, 2008 was a ...

Gary Larson Gary Larson (born August 14, 1950) is an American cartoonist, environmentalist, and former musician. He is the creator of ''The Far Side'', a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to more than 1,900 newspapers for fif ...

R. K. Laxman Rasipuram Krishnaswami Laxman ''Pg. 11 in the source says that Laxman & his brother Narayan were Tamil Iyer Brahmins.'' (24 October 1921 – 26 January 2015) was an Indian cartoonist, illustrator, and humorist. He is best known for his creation ...

George Lichty George Lichty (May 16, 1905 – July 18, 1983) was an American cartoonist, creator of the daily strip, daily and Sunday strip, Sunday cartoon series ''Grin and Bear It''. His work was signed Lichty and often ran without mention of his first name. ...

Lorin Morgan-Richards Lorin Morgan-Richards (born February 16, 1975) is an American author, illustrator, and songwriter, primarily known for his young adult fiction and Weird West series ''The Goodbye Family''. In the past, Richards served as the publisher of ''Celt ...

Virgil Partch Virgil Franklin Partch (October 17, 1916 – August 10, 1984), who generally signed his work Vip,Virgil F ...

(a.k.a. VIP) * George Price *

Ronald Searle Ronald William Fordham Searle, CBE, RDI (3 March 1920 – 30 December 2011) was an English artist and satirical cartoonist, comics artist, sculptor, medal designer and illustrator. He is perhaps best remembered as the creator of St Trinian's S ...

Jean-Jacques Sempé Jean-Jacques Sempé, usually known as Sempé (; 17 August 1932 – 11 August 2022), was a French cartoonist. He is known for the series of children's books he created with René Goscinny, ''Le Petit Nicolas'', and also for his poster-like illust ...

James Thurber James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in ''The New Yorker'' and collected in ...

Marvin Townsend Marvin Townsend (July 2, 1915 - November 26, 1999) was an American cartoonist known for his gag comics featured in various publications including ''Treasure Chest Fun and Fact'', ''Cartoon Spice'', and pulp magazines such as ''Amazing Stories' ...

* Kim Warp *

Gluyas Williams Gluyas Williams (July 23, 1888 – February 13, 1982) was an American cartoonist, notable for his contributions to ''The New Yorker'' and other major magazines. He was also syndicated in a number of newspapers, including the ''Boston Globe'' ...

Gahan Wilson Gahan Allen Wilson (February 18, 1930 – November 21, 2019) was an American author, cartoonist and illustrator known for his cartoons depicting horror-fantasy situations. Biography Wilson was born in Evanston, Illinois, and was inspired by th ...

Popular setups

There are some well-established setups used regularly in gag cartoons. *

Desert island joke Desert island jokes are jokes about a person or group of people stranded on a desert island. This setting is typically used to play on stereotypes of the people present. This may refer to their profession, religion or nationality, or the people ...

s: marooned on a

desert island A desert island, deserted island, or uninhabited island, is an island, islet or atoll that is not permanently populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are often depicted in films or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereot ...

. In earlier cartoons the island was quite large, with a shipwreck shown, to deliver the setup of the narrative. Eventually the setup has shrunk to an iconic image of a sand heap with a palm in the middle."A Guy, a Palm Tree, and a Desert Island: The Cartoon Genre That Just Won’t Die"
'' Vanity Fair'' (retrieved January 8, 2018) *

Talking animal A talking animal or speaking animal is any non-human animal that can produce sounds or gestures resembling those of a human language. Several species or groups of animals have developed forms of communication which superficially resemble verbal ...

References