What Is the Origin of Cartooning?

Defining cartooning is as hard as defining the word "art." It is a field that includes a variety of mediums, artists, stories and methods. Most broadly defined, cartoons are simply illustrations done by an artist. However, this definition likely includes a number of fields most people would not consider cartooning. In general, cartooning can be considered to be any illustration, or set of illustrations, that has a narrative flow or progression and often applies words directly related to the image. The difficulty in defining cartoons stems from its multiple source points and diverse origins. Understanding where cartoons come from, however, can give a sense of what they are and where they are heading.

Prehistory

Cartooning, when roughly defined as providing narrative through drawings, has been with humanity since the dawn of time. Most archaeologists believe the famous cave paintings of Lascaux, France to represent a hunt narrative, complete with successes and failures.

First Cartoon

The word "cartoon" once had a very different meaning. A cartoon was a rough sketch, often made in charcoal, of a painting about to be done. It was the painter's first draft. This all changed in the pages of the British humor magazine "Punch." In 1843, "Punch" began running satirical drawings with caption accompaniments, bringing to mind modern political cartoons. John Leech, the primary cartoonist, jokingly titled the pieces "cartoons" to satirically lay claim to a higher sense of art. The name stuck. Rather than satirically elevating Leech's magazine work, the word came down to his level, leading all subsequent art of its type to be called cartoons.

Newspaper

The birth of the modern cartoon comic strip is closely linked to the rise of the newspaper industry in America. American newspapers, particularly in port cities such as New York, were searching for ways to expand their business amongst immigrant groups that did not speak English. Cartoons were the perfect solution. From the late nineteenth through the early twentieth century, cartoons were one of the newspaper's main draws for those trying to learn English or looking for a laugh.

Expansion

Cartooning has expanded rapidly from a newspaper gag to multiple fields of artistic and narrative endeavor. Comic books began by taking what made newspaper comics successful and expanded them into longer narratives. The cartooning developed in the comic book has expanded even further today, with long-form cartooning formats such as mangas and graphic novels.

Animation

Concurrent with the development of cartooning as a narrative art form was its development as a cinematic art form. Many of the same rules of film making apply to cartooning and vice versa. For example, both comics and film depend upon the ability of the viewer's or reader's mind to fill in the narrative and information gaps between panels or shots. It is the human ability to extrapolate a narrative chain from limited information that so closely unites cartooning and animating. Today the two forms are often used interchangeably.