5 out of 5

After taking a fair bit of time to get into the task in hand I really enjoyed compiling the various cartoons. It was enjoyable being in control of your opinions...

Below is just a quick summary of the Political Cartoons which I created during the brief.

Battle Cry...

Its not uncommon to hear of our troops desire to be treated better. The recent statistics prove how hard the life out there is. With injured and dead affecting the troops mentally its only right that they receive the truth regarding their future.

Six Years, 179 Lives and £6.5 Billion later...

I personally still finding it mentally challenging to understand why people would risk life and limb to go at fight in Iraq when the support they get from people higher up in the chain is barely visable. You hear of half hearted remarks about 'wanting' to supply more troops and 'wanting' to supply more equipment but there's nothing materialistic to show for the words.



Not sure how Rooney or Beckham would like this fashion statment of full military 'clobber' whilst playing a 90 minute match... How commendable!



Below is a quick mind map to branch out some ideas that were connected with the theme I had in mind for the last Political Cartoon.



From the Brainstorm I thought that a good path to follow along the military route would be 'Trust'. You have to have a huge amount of trust, to know someones got your back and you'll be supported through and through, and recent reports have shown that that's got to go 'under the microscope'.

I made a few sketches to branch out my ideas, these are shown below.


From the sketches I made, it was then possible to compile my cartoon. I mixed the media this time to see how well it worked, and even though it was a simple idea, I think this one happens to be my favourite, a collection of sketch, print and photocopied image presents a strong message. The message portrays... Let the troops hear the truth no matter how devastating it may be, bullets are destructive - True, but words can both shatter and heal. I think the message is clear enough to a viewer of a newspaper. If they deconstruct the cartoon as such then the pieces will fit together.



Lastly I featured this in to an article which I found in the Mirror which discussed an alarming story in which yet more innocent people have their lives taken, due to something that can be solved with critical thinking. I prefer the article within the newspaper as Grey-scale, although I have included the original scanned image for comparison. If the cartoon was to be left in its own, I would leave it as the colour image but in this context it doesn't work.

Out of all five political cartoons I think this is by far the most successful one. It comes across concise and to the point. Depending on the stature of viewer/ reader it is almost left up to them to use their judgment to make their 'article' about the cartoon and what the meaning behind it could be. In some ways I think this could be what makes Political Cartoons so interesting and also why there are so many contradicting stories.

Birthday Cake Ban Is Really Taking The Biscuit...

One thing that really caught my eye lately has been how the lack of traditional values is spreading across the youth culture. There are various stories which makes me wonder how on earth children are expected to succeed when parents are binge drinking and not disciplining them correctly to teach them the moral values which will put them on the right path in life.

I jotted down a couple of reasons why I thought the traditional values had disappeared.

The link to the article: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/134497/School-s-birthday-cake-ban-is-really-taking-the-biscuit

Looking at the article, I found it sad how a traditional value as such can be taken away from a little girl and her family for an absurd reason which totally contradicts the school.

Many children don't have a structured food intake on a daily basis. The parents nowadays use the excuse of not having the time to cook and produce fresh dinners due to their hectic lifestyle with work and social events. In the article the school insists that the birthday cake which was bought in didn't comply with the healthy eating rules are in place in many curriculum's.

"Sharing a cake with your friends on your birthday is a lovely tradition and for children to be told it falls foul of healthy eating rules is beyond belief..."

Its clear when looking in the papers and researching on the Internet that we are bound to rules and regulations. There are many boundaries that restrict us from going around our daily lives without feeling restricted and on edge. Like some of the other posts I found Internet forums useful - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091016215708AAbpaiw

'We do what we are told (usually) because we are brought up to do so and it becomes a habit'

Did you ever notice how much of what we do every day depends on habits?
The reason we depend so much on habits is that they require very little thinking, thus allowing us to concentrate our thoughts on other things...

With opinion that everything is very much restricted nowadays I thought the idea of an FBI/ Security figure showing his pass with a quote above would tie in well with the actual article and picture beside the to be constructed. I thought this would be quite a satirical match seeing as the trivial story being matched with stature of a beefy individual to 'spoil the fun' and light hearted traditional values among societies.

The sketch above shows how I'd like the final concept to appear. Ideally the Body/Security Guard would take up the majority of the image to portray the juvenile story in comparison to his size. Who would have thought that societies would have sucome to this, being surveyed before carrying on with a daily routine.

I managed to find a caricature/cartoon of an FBI/Security Guard which reminded me of the sort of imagery that I would find whilst looking in the paper.


'They assault, they kidnap, they kill, they are never held to account for their crimes against ordinary people... but there next challenge is curbing cakes!'

The next step was to add a caption above the image. I decided to take the words which were most related to this cartoon. -Our (community/ society) -Value (the values in which we are suppose to adapt and grow up with) Demoraliser - (to destroy and dishearten individual values/ morals)
'OUR VALUE DEMORALISER' - a strong statement but I think this sums up how many others feel. People gradually destroying traditional values for the sake of being considered PC.

Below is my final image which will be featured black and white into a paper. The original article was discovered in The Daily Express so I'd like to keep the article in tact. Although the image is small I think it fits quite well with the others aspects of the article, including the headline, the article itself and he other main feature picture. The cartoon that I have created would have been called or suggested as an 'Inset'.

Having created my final cartoon for the theme, I transferred it into the article in which I discovered.

Like the Gordon Brown cartoon I quite liked the idea of having the article as a whole much more retro and distinguished. I would achieve this with the use of altering the exposure and contrast. I think this will make the article more 'Matter of fact' and up to date...

I'm much happier with the final outcome. The deeper gradient means you get a much more defined and contrasted article. The whiteness of the cartoon now blends in with the rest of the article.

Popularity Plant Starts To Wilt...

Do celebrities get so engrossed in their lives and creating a 'soap' that their popularity can disintegrate to nothing?

After brainstorming about social morals amongst society nowadays, I decided to focus on the life of a Celebrity. I wanted to be specific and I thought I'd try and centre the attention of the disadvantages of their way of life.

There are many people in the spotlight at any one time, obviously for different reasons. I found some of forums helpful due to everyones different opinions collated on one page... http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091016065622AADDt6l

From the quick mind map above I decided to choose Katie Price. One of the most talked about celebrities at the moment has to be Katie Price (AKA Jordan) although what she brings to the world of entertainment still somewhat baffles me, every attempt to keep in the limelight recently sums up desperation...
She has had a none stop news feed in the press, some of which has been her own doings. To get a better idea of how people perceive her popularity rather than the sort of news which features her (as we're faced with stories none stop) I found looking at forums on the Internet was a good way of seeing a broad range of opinions compared to my own. A particular forum which Incorporated a more negative way of thinking could be found here... http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091007054912AAHzyf3

To start I researched related articles on the Internet as well as seeing for myself how much of the glossy mags were filled with this 'celebrity'.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/celebrities/katie-price/ - Looking at the gossip sites it reiterates the fact that the headlines that come from the alienated world of Katie Price just seem more and more puerile, and what importance are they to us?

I thought that these couple of stills from the ITV1 show Headcases, optitimised the public view of Katie Price... whether this is how she wants us to perceive her is another story, seems pretty realistic due to Pete being shunted to background, (obviously when they were 'in love')

From the research compiled, I liked the idea of portray her diminishing popularity over the latest story lines in the form of a rose. A rose can be a symbolic form of Love when in its prime... relate able to Katie Price at one time... She won over our hearts on a Reality TV show, but her desperate measures to gain public gratitude soon turned her appearance sour.

The quick sketch above shows how 'Katie Price' would be be to a rose to show her healthy stint within the spot light... or at her peak. The second sketch below depicts how when things turn sour the rose decomposes and wilts - when this situation arises, there's no reconciliation, peoples opinions are made up.



Having prepared a couple of sketches to enforce how I'd want the overall cartoon to appear... I located the image in which I wanted to use for the main structure of the cartoon.

The Caricature of Katie Price below creates a satirical edge as it accentuates her mouth (where she's had excessive procedures) as well as her breasts where she's had equally as many procedures.


After I had sourced the images I started the compile the cartoon. I initially thought that it would be easy to integrate the Katie Price image within the rose image but I actually found it really hard. The way in which i had to do it was to use a scalpel knife and ease sections away, this would be where the image of Katie would lay.

The first image where Katie would come across as a healthy figure in full stature wasn't too hard to compile, and when scanned as a whole image, the effect was really realistic. This is shown below...


In comparison this the next step was to create the similar image but to create the illusion of a crumbling/ decomposing affect... to reiterate the WILTING concept. Like the image before I think that the concept works well and as a pair they look realistic as an image for a magazine or newspaper.


Now I have the two images needed for the cartoon, I scanned them together which was essential for the end result. Side by side they looked asthetically strong and when the strap line/ caption had been added, Political Cartoon would be complete!


All that was need now was a strap line in order to sum up what my image was portraying. I really liked the way diminishing popularity was described as a 'wilting plant' therefore this is the impression my image took on... The symbolism of a rose was to connect to people through the means of something that you love and nurture although when it starts to die and wilt... no one really cares about it anymore, but the rose itself is persistent in its living.
I didn't like the to alter too much with the Contrast and Brightness, as I think the image itself speaks volumes without much editing. Although I experimented with a change of contrast I just didn't think it was right. These examples are shown below...

Although in a Glossy magazine these would be well matched, in a newspaper which is where they're most likely to be feature I think the colour should be slightly muted to keep in contrast with the rest of the articles and images.

Below is the final image of what I consider to to be a well compiled Cartoon. In case the text within the preview reads too small it reads 'Katie's popularity plant seemed to be rapidly wilting - Surely this wasn't an omen of what was to become of her...'
With the final image compiled it was time to place the image into a paper. Considering the concept and theme to the cartoon, it would not likely to be featured in a paper such as The Daily Express, or The Telegraph. Papers such as The Sun or Star which feature several celebrity related articles would be more appropriate.

It wasn't hard to find a page dedicated to Katie in The Star... I thought this would be fitting to insert my cartoon within the particular article.


Although not really the place I was hoping for, it relates to the article well. Out of the Newspaper the cartoon works well, the white balance is hard to get right especially with the type of paper and resolution of print in newspapers.

Binge-drink On Your Pocket Money...

Looking back at my initial brainstorm of ideas, one that interested me was 'Social Morals'. This can entail an awful lot of material ranging from the effects of anorexia to the levels of binge drinking on our streets. I always tend to see shocking headlines but nothing is ever resolved. I never hear of a solution to, people getting mugged or vandalism to property, so peoples morals have in some what fallen. Although an eye-catching headline for the wrong reasons could be found across the internet as well as in the papers. Although written from different perspectives and different jargon, the article was identified in papers ranging from, The Metro > The Express > The Sun.

This cartoon I thought summed up a lot a social and political morals that can be found within our surroundings nowadays. The 'sketchy' form of cartoon creates an informal approach, one of which many will able to relate with. This sort of cartoon will most probably be found in a paper such as the Metro or The Sun.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/09/enforcing-abstinence-dangerous-for-children

I created a quick sketch along with some notes to identify the problems and how I could tackle the topic...

Although I like the sketchy look, I don't think the message is fully portrayed.

At the time of creating the cartoon to- be, it could be pasted into the papers such as SUN, METRO due to existing 'sketchy' cartoons being traced from there.

I think for a first design it works well but it doesn't get the message across as well as I thought. I like the idea of montaging both image and word to create a stronger bond for a cartoon.

I moved on to obtaining cutting from newspapers and magazines to create...

The next step was to add the speech. My aim was to create a satirical twist on a theme that should be so horrific it should make parents think twice about what their children are up to...



Following this, I then cut and paste my cartoon into a real newspaper, the articles unfortunately don't exactly match up but you get the gist of how it could work.

Looking back on the article and how it worked (or didn't work) in the newspaper chosen I decided to realign the cartoon, maybe in another paper. The colouring is also an issue which has come to my attention. The actual image seems too bright for the newspaper, therefore this should also be altered in order for the cartoon to seem more realistic.

An alternative which thinks works better??

Pen to Paper

Research

To start off I cut/ tore headline and articles as well as images from newspapers, of which had relevance to my interests and the sort of news that I took notice to.



From the collages I then decided to Brainstorm the ideas which would then hopefully lead me to create my own Political Cartoons.

To understand the task in hand and what exactly a political cartoon entailed, I decided to create a quick mind map to deconstruct the topic...

After familiarising myself with the concepts of the 'toons, I moved on to see what current issues could be found from the newspapers and their corresponding websites. I also made another mind mad in order to see what ideas branched of the main sub-topic... I found to really develop some of my ideas instead of drawings or small sketches, that a more detailed caption helped express what a I really meant or the full extent of quick ideas. Getting down as much information as I could would help me in the long-run...


With my initial ideas brainstormed I wanted to move on to looking at cartoons in papers and looking carefully at the relation in which they held with the topic of interest. For the first trial of creating a cartoon, Although an obvious choice of topic, I chose 'Leadership'. There has been an abundance of news lately regarding the conferences in Brighton with Labour failing with the public rather dismally...


I really liked this image due to the satirical edge that it bought. Gordon Brown is clearly not seen as a hero at the moment especially in relation to the down spiraling economy. Therefore even considering incorporating the two concepts together seem laughable!

I also deconstructed various cartoons from an array of papers to understand the concepts behind them.


Looking at a different sort of Political Toon (almost comic strip like) I liked how this particular example told a story, it was easy to follow and you automatically got the message, which was obviously the intention of the creator as well as creating a funny/ satirical allusion from a serious topic. Its comforting to know your able to laugh at something you should feel angered or worried about, I think this is subconsciously how we're meant to deal with issues such as these.

I had a rough idea of the theme I'd like the first political cartoon to run along. A simple mind map allowed to me branch my ideas further for a possible concept.


With having found some example of 'working political cartoons' in newspapers I decided to sketch a rough idea for one of my political cartoons. Depending on how the final concept looked I chose one of the broader topics - Gordon Browns Woes, (Leadership). The information was accessible from the newspapers as well as Internet sites such as - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/default.stm



The cuttings from the newspaper allowed me to compile this cartoon/collage...

We all know that Gordon Browns not having the best time at the moment... so taking things literal a 'party pooper' seemed like a fitting phrase. The classic mouth expression added to the familiarity to the cartoon. The background is a cutting from the Express showing how well each leader has performed... Maybe the fact that Gordon Brown's stats are hidden isn't such a bad idea...

With the methodology of creating a cartoon as such understood I could now move on to placing the cartoon in a paper alongside other articles. When doing this I'll have to think carefully about the paper choice depending on the seriousness/ concept of the theme. An article such as this, would personally be featured in a tabloid such as The Mirror or The Daily Express.

I found quite a substantial article regarding Gordon Brown so I thought it would be ideal for me to feature my political cartoon in there.



Even though I think the match between the paper to the cartoon is better than expected, I'm not keen on leaving as bland. I quite like the idea of having the article as a whole much more retro and distinguished. I would achieve this with the use of altering the exposure and contrast. I think this will make the article more 'Matter of fact' and up to date...

I wouldn't have thought the image would have looked quite so good but I'm really pleased with how the end cartoon has been compiled.