I had a moan yesterday about Steve Bell's “If…” cartoons in The Guardian. I couldn't find any to grab off The Guardian's website – in fact they do have that week's cartoons up and then presumably archive them somewhere I can't locate.
So I have scanned some in to explain what I mean. I feel a touch guilty in that I admire Steve Bell and think he is curently the best newspaper cartoonist in the UK, but I just DO NOT GET the If… cartoons.
I've been keeping getting schtum about it but this week it finally hit me that they just aren't very good. Mind you I find that with a lot of daily newspaper cartoons these days. I don't know much about the world of cartoons so I can only imagine that the recent style of having a cartoon that actually says or does nothing, no satirical points or big gags, is a biteback to the “traditional” cartoon.
If that's true, give me back the traditional cartoon. I want a self-contained cartoon that makes me smirk. The wilder and crazier the better. But If… just seems to be inhabiting a world of slightly confused, dull old men.
How Mr Bell can produce these at the same time he creates absolute gems that run on the main comment pages is beyond me. You can check out those beauties at http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/archive/0,,1284265,00.html.
Meanwhile, here are some random If… cartoons from the past few months:
And two more that are the best I could find. There's even a gag in each:
