Punch.co.uk

Welcome to the website of Punch magazine and Punch Cartoon Library, the world’s best and largest repository of cartoon art available for licensing.

Punch, the magazine of humour and satire, ran from 1841 until its closure in 2002. A very British institution with an international reputation for its witty and irreverent take on the world, it published the work of some of the greatest comic writers (Thackeray, P G Wodehouse and P J O’Rourke among others) and gave us the cartoon as we know it today. Its political cartoons swayed governments while its social cartoons captured life in the 19th and 20th centuries. The world’s finest cartoonists appeared in Punch: such great names as Tenniel, E H Shepard, Fougasse, and Pont.

History of the Cartoon

back

AN INTRODUCTION
How a sketchy idea of humour took off

It was Punch which invented the cartoon as we know it today. One momentous day, very early in its life, Punch made a grim joke which accidentally changed the English language by giving a new meaning to an old word. The butt of the joke was an exhibition intended to help in the selection of new paintings and murals for the Houses of Parliament, then being rebuilt after the disastrous fire of 1834. Artists made their submissions in the form of cartoons – the original meaning of the word was a preliminary drawing for a work of art; a painting, a fresco, a tapestry.

Cartoon No.1

Substance and Shadow

page 2

back